She looked ordinary, like every other exceptionally rich older woman shopping in Greenbelt 5. However, the people around her were not. Bodyguards flanked her as she slid from rack to rack. Other men in plain clothes stood at at the exits. Nearby customers pointedly examined other clothes. A brave salesgirl shuffled uncertainly from the safety of a parallel aisle with a look on her face that was both eager to help, and nervous. And Imee slid around, unnoticing.
She was wearing an unremarkable shawl and had hair that defied all sorts of laws. Her face was taut and bored. She was short, but had the sort of eyes that could look down on you in spite of it.
I was taller than her, and straightened to my full height. Then, I opened my mouth, hesitated, pursed my lips, and slowly walked away.
Anyway, Martial Law was over. People Power had done its job. Ferdinand Marcos was dead. The billions were in limbo, but we were alright. And for God’s sake I was a decent person who didn’t yell at people in Zara.
Until now I wonder what it is that keeps us quiet. Are we polite, or scared, or practical?
Weeks later, her father, the dictator, was buried in the Libingan Ng Mga Bayani, and I saw her again. This time I was yelling.
The term is “l’esprit de l’escalier.” It describes the feeling of finding the perfect reply too late. It happens to me often. “I should have said that,” I say to myself after an argument ends, after a frenemy leaves a fraught conversation, after I leave Zara with so many things to say to the daughter of a dictator.
It happens to us too, as a country. It’s so impolite to call out wrongdoing. Telling the truth might cause trouble. The perpetrators might feel offended. We would look so improper. Let the person cut in line. Let the bribe be paid. Let the money be stolen.
I’d like to think that we know our history. We know what happened, and we recognize the liberties that others fought for.
But I do I have things to say. Someone plundered my country. Someone imprisoned, tortured, and killed so many of my people. Someone corrupted entire industries and institutions. Someone escaped a broken country, and escaped justice. And his descendants are unrepentant, politically resurgent, and fucking shopping at Zara. If Imee Marcos touched the SALE rack that day I would have loved to tell her that her family’s thievery, which she is complicit in, having been of age and hopefully of sound mind regardless of her conscience when Martial Law took place, deserves better things to be spent on.
(I might also have ended up dead like Archimedes Trajano, the student leader who questioned her at an open forum.)
Until now I wonder what it is that keeps us quiet. Are we polite, or scared, or practical?
I’d like to think that we know our history. We know what happened, and we recognize the liberties that others fought for. We know the atrocities that were committed, and the impunity that persists. We know their names and their faces. We know right from wrong. I guess we also only know what to say when it’s too late. At least it’s the perfect reply.
I was at the first EDSA rally, way back in 1986. I was all of eight years old then, but I knew something big was going on. My grandmother felt the need to go, and to take me. I remember her telling me to get dressed, to come with her and help distribute sandwiches because something important was happening.
I can tell you exactly where I was when the first People Power revolution began, because it was my birthday. My grandparents, my brother, and I were having dinner in Takayama to celebrate. Midway through dinner, the owner, who was a friend of my grandparents, came by our table and whispered something in my grandfather’s ear. My grandfather’s face was instantly serious and somber. “We have to go,” he said abruptly, signalling for the check. “But why,” I wanted to know, midway through a prawn tempura. “There’s something happening in EDSA,” was all he said.
I didn’t quite understand the situation back then, all I knew was there was a bad man, a dangerous man as president and there was some woman in yellow who was running against him. She was our way out of danger.
A week or two before my birthday were the snap elections. I remember my grandparent’s car pulluing up the driveway, me waiting by the door, and my grandmother emerging from the car, brandishing her ink-stained finger triumphantly. I felt elation. I didn’t quite understand the situation back then, all I knew was there was a bad man, a dangerous man as president and there was some woman in yellow who was running against him. She was our way out of danger.
But the regime didn’t want that woman to win. And as the results of the election (in the dark ages, before PCOS machines were invented, it took weeks for the votes to be tallied) trickled in and showed us that there were powers at play making sure that the voice of the Filipino would not be heard, people got angrier. Tama na, sobra na, palitan na. I had no idea things were getting so heated. My biggest concern at the time was that we couldn’t buy Magnolia ice cream anymore because we were boycotting any company that was supporting the current president.
The morning after my aborted birthday dinner, I was still miffed—I never got to my much-anticipated green tea ice cream since we had to so hurridley leave the restaurant. I entered the kitchen to find it in a frenzy. My grandmother had mobilized the entire household. We became a sandwich making factory. Egg sandwich, to be specific. It was the quickest, easiest thing to make without having to do a supermarket run, and from the looks of things, we were rushing.
I can’t remember how many hours we stayed in EDSA that day, but in those few hours, little eight-year-old me was getting an education. EDSA was a life-lesson I am sure never to forget, and I would always return to. Teach your children well.
In hindsight, I wonder why my grandmother decided to bring me. At that time no one was sure just how dangerous things could be—if the situation would devolve into a (literal) bloody mess. I asked her why we were going to EDSA. “Because this can’t go on,” was all she told me. “We must fight back.” Now, my grandmother is a very apolitical person. These were very unusual words for her to say. That’s why I understood that something big was happening, something that would affect every single Filipino in the country. This was an important moment in the life of every Filipino.
EDSA felt like a street fair when we got there. We were with the doctors of Medical City, who had set up a first aid station by the Petron gas station on EDSA, near Camp Crame. I was excited, a little scared, but with the hustle and bustle of doctors and the unpacking of boxes of sandwiches, I soon forgot the fear and tried to take in what was going on. I remember there was singing. People greeted each other with friendly hellos and a flash of the “L” sign with their thumb and forefinger. Was this my Woodstock?
Then I heard chanting. Marcos. Hitler. Diktador. Tuta. It sounded more menacing than the Tama na, sobra na, palitan na slogan I was more used to hearing. I looked around and there were demonstrators on the street, in front of a green gate I (now) assume was Camp Crame with paper mache effigies of Marcos and Uncle Sam. Then the protesters set the effigies on fire. I remember how large the flaming paper heads looked. That’s when I got scared. That’s when I threw up on my shoes. Not that it mattered since all the Medical City doctors were near me. I don’t quite remember what my grandmother did with me after that other than dismiss me to a spot near the ambulance, where a chair was found for me to sit in. “Stay with Tito Tico,” Mama said almost absently, gesturing to poor Dr. Sarmiento who took my hand and led me to one of his nurses, who immediately sat me down and told me to put my head between my legs—supposedly to calm me down, I’m still not sure how that was going to help calm me. My grandmother’s attention was elsewhere today. She was intent on making sure everyone who passed by got a sandwich, I guess.
Then I heard chanting. Marcos. Hitler. Diktador. Tuta. It sounded more menacing than the Tama na, sobra na, palitan na slogan I was more used to hearing.
One of the nurses was kind enough to sit with me and explain that those paper mache heads are symbols of greed, hate, and corruption, and that was why the people were mad and burning them. I can’t remember how many hours we stayed in EDSA that day, but in those few hours, little eight-year-old me was getting an education. EDSA was a life-lesson I am sure never to forget, and I would always return to. Teach your children well.
Today, the Marcos family has almost successfully re-imagined Martial Law as a sort of Golden Age of benevolent authoritarianism. How does a nation push back?
Issues become trivialized by a reduction to personality. We see this clearly in how the struggle of civil society against oppression during Martial Law has become distilled into a rather simplistic opposition of Marcos versus Aquino. Forgotten are the later-period deep-and-wide rejection of and resistance to the rule of Marcos by vast swathes of civil society around the country. The deeper issues surrounding Martial Law, only briefly touched on here, are ignored in positing the Marcos versus Aquino binary. That is a critical failure on our part, one that emboldens and empowers Marcos loyalists. While, perhaps superficially, families Marcos and Aquino have become the totems of opposing views on Philippine history, present, and future, we need to consider the deeper consequences of Martial Law and authoritarianism versus an open and multifaceted democratic space.
We must imbue the phrase “Never Again” with a variety of meanings: From the need for a deeper richer historical sense, the repudiation of historical denialism and forgetfulness, to a more political sense as a mantra against impunity and authoritarianism. All are needed in charting the future of the country.
What we cannot, should not, forget is: Revolution is civil war. Revolutions upend existing social and political order, however it is folly to think that everyone is in agreement with that upending, or even what the “new” social order should be. If we look at 1986 and the intervening years through the prism of civil war, we can easily deduce the arraying of forces: Loyalists who still adhere to the strong-man, Marcos informed dictatorial government, pro-democratic space advocates and all the multiplicity of views that entails. There were counter-coups and attempts at redeeming a fallen idol during the administration of Corazon Aquino, abetted by ‘former’ and extant Marcos loyalists. In part, we can view the resurrection of Fidel Ramos and some of the policies he enacted as another battle in an on-going civil war. There was the ascension of another loyalist and Marcos adherent in Erap Estrada, and post-GMA, the return of a scion of the Aquino family as a riposte in this continuing civil war. The fact remains that we are still gripped in the midst of the after-effects (perhaps even ongoing throes) of a convulsive civil war rooted in the 1986 EDSA Revolution and the toppling of the Marcos regime. 2016 loomed as yet another battlefield, one perhaps that was the most important since 1986. The aftermath left us in a precarious position, teetering as close as we ever have to a successful counter-revolution and the return of the Marcos family and their favored brand of governance to a dominant position in our political and social sphere.
IMAGE Presidential Museum and Library
From the Presidential Museum and Library Flickr account: “Cheering crowd burns the ex-president’s portrait. Malaya, February 28, 1986. (From the newspaper collection of Mr. Jose Antonio Custodio.)” [via]
“Never Again” also speaks to something far deeper than just a clash of personalities. It is a rejection of that form of authoritarian governance, of the willingness for Filipinos to give up their liberty, to sacrifice the lives of neighbors and family members, for nothing more than the ephemeral sense of ‘security’ brought on by increasingly oppressive squads of police and military acting with impunity.
As we discussed, the very return of the Marcoses to politics was designed to push the continuation and redemption of the historical narrative crafted by Ferdinand Marcos. The ascension of a Marcos to Malacañang would have brought them one step closer to historical absolution. We came so close to seeing that reality. Marcos Jr. barely lost his race for the vice-presidency. But, as a result, while quiet for the time being, is now a potent political force.
On the other hand, President Rodrigo Duterte seems to view his campaign promise to bury Marcos in the Libingan as a moral and political imperative—willing to expend massive amounts of political capital to see it done. The effort by the Marcos family to inter Ferdinand Marcos in the Libingan is part of their closely held historical narrative, in fact it is part of its culmination. It confers on Marcos and his record the shine of legitimacy: Here lies Ferdinand Marcos, a soldier and a president. It is obscurantism through funerary rite. Yes, a man has a right to be buried in his country. But, burying Marcos there brings their view of Philippine history closer to redemption. No matter how it is spun, the end goal is not our redemption, nor is it our collective reconciliation.
* * *
We have struggled to find a sense of national reconciliation with the Marcos Era.
Some sectors, including Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago [01] during the campaign period, have argued that an apology is not necessary [02]. This has been proven false time and again in other countries wracked by similarly violent upheavals such as ours. Apologies matter and they help bring us closer to finding a common national redemption, not the absolution of the oppressors. Without an apology, “Never Again” has taken on a sort of totemic mantra for those who would deny the insidiousness of historical denialism and revisionism, who would deny the much sought after conclusion of the Marcos false historical narrative and the absolution of the Marcos family through their ascension to the pinnacle of Philippine political and social spheres.
“Never Again” is a rejection of that form of authoritarian governance, of the willingness for Filipinos to give up their liberty, to sacrifice the lives of neighbors and family members, for nothing more than the ephemeral sense of “security” brought on by increasingly oppressive squads of police and military acting with impunity.
For adherents (loyalists, as we have referred to them in this essay) of the Marcos regime, or at the very least the forms that entailed (dictatorial centralized strongman governance) the phrase “Never Again” is seen repudiation of their personality of choice. And it is, in a way. Yet, “Never Again” also speaks to something far deeper than just a clash of personalities. It is a rejection of that form of authoritarian governance, of the willingness for Filipinos to give up their liberty, to sacrifice the lives of neighbors and family members, for nothing more than the ephemeral sense of ‘security’ brought on by increasingly oppressive squads of police and military acting with impunity. “Never Again” is imbued with a historical sense of responsibility for safeguarding the future of our country, for ensuring that democratic spaces remain such that they are. Remember, government only has as much power is given.
What we cannot allow is “Never Again” to be reduced solely to repudiating the Marcos family; that opens up the reduction of discourse to simple discussions of personalities, it strips away the context of what the Marcos family stands for and how destructive the Marcos regime was for this country. That is what they want.
It is also a warning, one that we should continue to heed, against rampant pillaging and corrupt practices that bring a nation to its knees. Jose Rizal warned against this [03]. Rizal specifically said that unless Filipinos learn to stand up, heads held high, and ready to proclaim themselves as Filipinos, they will just be fodder for further tyranny; the slaves of the past become the tyrants of today. Rizal was right. In his way, Rizal was demanding, calling, for the creation of a deep and abiding sense of historical self for the Filipino. Without that, we as a nation are ripe and ready for the next imperial master to come along, the next tyrant and dictator. When he wrote that warning the Philippines was under Spanish rule. We would suffer the indignities of the reign of three imperial masters after: the United States, Japan, and finally Ferdinand Marcos.
We must imbue the phrase “Never Again” with a variety of meanings: From the need for a deeper richer historical sense, the repudiation of historical denialism and forgetfulness, to a more political sense as a mantra against impunity and authoritarianism. All are needed in charting the future of the country. What we cannot allow is “Never Again” to be reduced solely to repudiating the Marcos family; that opens up the reduction of discourse to simple discussions of personalities, it strips away the context of what the Marcos family stands for and how destructive the Marcos regime was for this country. That is what they want.
Today, the Marcos family has almost successfully re-imagined Martial Law as a sort of Golden Age of benevolent authoritarianism—this sort of historical chicanery is enticing precisely because we lack a deep and enriching historical sense. Their historical denialism is winning. That is a loss for us all. “Never Again” speaks, not only of the Marcoses, but of a return to their way of thinking, to the abrogating of human rights for nebulous “peace and order,” for a return to state institutionalized plunder as a way of life, and the impunity of a nation subsumed and consumed by a Conjugal Dictatorship, lashed by the whims of a family. It stands against connecting patriotism and love of nation to the adoration of personality.
We must imbue the phrase “Never Again” with a variety of meanings: From the need for a deeper richer historical sense, the repudiation of historical denialism and forgetfulness, to a more political sense as a mantra against impunity and authoritarianism.
Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos well understood the power of history and compelling historical narrative. They used history to their advantage, crafting a state-sponsored mythologizing historical story supporting their regime and embedding in social consciousness the sheer ‘rightness’ of their rule. In their telling, they were the power from whence all else flowed in the Philippines—Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos were the fountainhead of Philippine nationalism. This is historical revisionism on a grand scale, abusive in ways we cannot fathom. We are still coping with the insidiousness of their story.
History informs identity. It cannot be left solely in the hands of those with nefarious agendas geared towards self-aggrandizement and ultimately the redemption of one of the darkest periods in our history. Historical denialism and grand revisionism attempts to remake us in the image of someone else. Denial and forgetting consumes the historical self and leaves nothing in its wake. By any other name, this is impunity.
* * *
“Never Again” is a call to many things, for many different people. But at its heart, “Never Again” is a mantra, a talisman, against the insidiousness of historical denialism, a rejection of the debilitation of forgetting.
It is a reminder and a call to historical action and remembrance; to remember who we are, from where we came, and what we may yet become. We are not slaves, nor are we tyrants. Our history tells us this. Our past has the ability embolden and ennoble us, even as we reconcile with its dark notes. Even then, those dark periods are spaces from which we can draw strength and warnings for future actions and decisions. Those dark notes are who we are as well. History tells us who we are, in all of its facets. Our collective history is why we can proudly call ourselves Filipinos. We should never forget that.
This piece originally appeared in the author’s website. We have reproduced it here with minor edits from the EsquireMag.ph editors.
Ferdinand Marcos’s critics (myself included) have failed in one major respect: We have been unable to give due credit. FM was certainly a crook, a liar, a torturer, and a murderer. But someone who held power for over two decades must have done something right. Yet we Marcos critics portray the dictator as evil incarnate, and this allows our interlocutors to accuse us of closed-mindedness. We should learn something from the progressive economist and industrialist Salvador Zaragosa Araneta (1902 to 1982).
Araneta was one of the business elites that Marcos drove away as he destroyed the competition of his cronies. “Don Badong” was the perfect target: He had deep ties with the sugar industry and was related, by marriage, to the powerful Lopez family. He was also a humanist and a political liberal with an ingrained aversion to authoritarianism.
Threatened with possible incarceration, Araneta fled the country and lived the rest of his life in San Francisco and Vancouver.
Araneta despised Marcos. Yet even in bitter exile, he was capable of grudging respect, claiming in a 1975 interview that:
Marcos is now implementing many of the economic theories I had advocated… He doesn’t care about the advice of the Americans and to that extent he is being praised by the people. In this matter, he has guts.
He added that he admired bold financing programs under the regime, yet ultimately concluded that these could not “justify” Marcos’s “continuance in power as a dictator.”
What economic ideas did Araneta advocate in the ’50s and ’60s? And did Marcos really implement them? Broadly, Araneta was a Keynesian.
Today, John Maynard Keynes is known for the idea of pumping credit into the economy to get it moving in times of recession. His early work, however, concerned currency value. In the 1920s and 1930s, Keynes warned against an artificially expensive currency because maintaining its high price requires limiting the amount of money in circulation (to keep something expensive, you reduce the supply), which, in turn, restricts the government’s capacity to spend (less money circulating means less money to spend).
In the 1950s, two Philippine pesos could buy you one U.S. dollar. But contrary to public perception, this high value was not evidence of inherent economic strength. To maintain the rate, the Central Bank of Governor Miguel Cuaderno had to ensure that the pesos circulating were backed by a specific amount of dollar reserves.
Araneta despised this system. Like Keynes, he thought that limiting money supply made it difficult for the government to finance its various programs. More importantly, he argued that an artificially high peso was detrimental for exporters.
Because of the currency peg, Filipino exporters were getting paid two pesos for every dollar earned by selling abroad. Had the peso been depreciated, they would have earned more pesos for every dollar. If the market price became, say, four to one, they would have earned twice. This discrepancy, Araneta explained, amounted to a “conceal tax [sic]” on the export industry, which, in effect, subsidized importers. And since most of the importers at the time were either American or purchased American goods, the strong peso benefited our former colonizers.
But the Central Bank’s Governor Cuaderno refused to depreciate, arguing that doing so would cause inflation. In an import-dependent economy, a strong currency tends to keep prices down, and depreciation would have reduced the peso’s purchasing power. That sounds scary, but inflation is not an absolute evil.
While higher prices make things difficult for consumers, they allow producers (like farmers and manufacturers) to earn more. And when companies earn more, they usually hire more. It is for this reason that, for most of Philippine economic history, higher inflation has corresponded with lower unemployment. Moreover, inflation makes life easier for people in debt. If what the peso can buy today is less than what it could yesterday, it’s effective value is less; so when you pay back your debts after inflation, you are paying at a reduced price.
Finally, as Keynes noted, between inflation and deflation, the latter is always worse. Deflation decreases profits and makes debts more odious, thereby reducing consumption and increasing unemployment. Unfortunately, according to United Nations statistics, the Philippine economy was undergoing deflation for most of the 1950s.
The effects of Cuaderno’s policies were immediately palpable. From 1951 to 1955, the average GDP growth rate was 8.078. But as deflation set in, growth slowed down to an average rate of 4.8 from 1956 to 1960. “It is very clear,” notes former NEDA Director-General Cayetano Paderanga, that immediate postwar Philippines was so “bent on maintaining a particular exchange rate,” that “it was willing to sacrifice growth.”
As Araneta predicted, the slowing down of economic growth also corresponded with the crippling of the export industry that, according to economic historians Vicente Valdepeñas and Germelino Bautista, grew dependent on imported raw material. By the end of the 1950s, export earnings amounted to less than 10 percent of the country’s income.
While some limited depreciation occurred during the presidency of Diosdado Macapagal, it was Ferdinand Marcos and his team of technocrats that facilitated the complete removal of currency controls.
Currency depreciation, along with foreign loans, allowed Marcos to fund ambitious infrastructure and stimulate export industries. Such a strategy of depreciation coupled with targeted pro-export spending is called Export Oriented Industrialization (EOI), and it was the model that facilitated the stunning rise of countries like Japan and South Korea.
Paderanga notes that growth picked up again in the 60s as the government loosened currency controls. This growth continued until a contraction in 1979, and further deteriorated as the country plunged into a major crisis in 1983—the worst in modern history.
Whatever success Marcos’s EOI project had thus ground to a halt. Moreover, it became obvious that, despite increased government spending and growth, the poor were left behind. The poverty rate almost doubled from 1974 onwards. And, of course, the more government spent, the more the Marcos’s pilfered, stealing as much as 10 billion dollars by some accounts.
EOI under Marcos was theoretically sound, but it was implemented under a corrupt dictator, who increasingly used government funds to support cronies, and not a robust export industry.
However, EOI’s capacity to deliver growth after the moribund Cuaderno years shows that the project was not destined to fail. Kyoto University’s Caroline Hau argues that, without ignoring violences and corruption of the regime, it is still possible “to see some of the Marcos programs not solely as naked instruments by which Marcos effected a power-grab for himself, but also politically rational moves to simultaneously court votes while pursuing national development objectives.”
This is an eminently fair assessment of the regime, similar to the one Araneta proffered over 40 years ago. It says we should not throw the baby out with the bath water: The Marcos years ultimately destroyed our economy, but we must credit his economic team for their attempts to boost exports and stimulate growth.
None of this smart policy, however, justified a brutal and corrupt dictatorship. Sound economic thinking does not obviate one of Philippine history’s most obvious conclusions: #MarcosMagnanakaw.
The brazenness was palpable. Aided and abetted from on high, Ferdinand E. Marcos was buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani. They may have promised no state monies would be used for his burial, but it has become all to clear that the state apparatus was used to be both defend and facilitate his burial.
Far too reminiscent of Martial Law, where the powers of state were subverted and leveraged to the benefit of a few; to the detriment of hundreds of thousands. Unlike the salvaged dumped by the sides of roads during the night under his watch, unlike the thieving backroom scheming that turned his presidency into a dictatorship, unlike the thousands rounded up and jailed in the dead of the night, Ferdinand Marcos was buried at noon. High noon. Under the light of the Philippine sun.
For once, finally, we could see them. We could see the Marcos family and their loyalists for all they were and still are. They came into the light, after decades of planning, after searching for a champion and finding a man who was an avowed loyalist, they came into the light to bury their patriarch. Ferdinand Marcos received his day in the sun. And we could see them.
His burial did not crystalize nor embed his manufactured heroism; it brought into sharp focus his impunity, his arrogance, and the lack of respect for the Filipino nation that exemplified his reign. They can bury him deep, they can raise statues above his grave, but they cannot bury our history.
There is a reason the sun and stars comprise our flag. The sun represents the light that is supposed to guide our nation: Equality, equity, and the repudiation of tyranny and impunity in any and every form. Sometimes I fear we forget that. We get lost in the politics of accommodation, in seeking remedies for decades old problems through the quickest possible route. We raise up individuals as equals to our nation. Even worse, we subjugate our nation at the altar of personality; we seek kings, queens, and lords to lead us.
Ferdinand Marcos fancied himself that. He and his wife, the Conjugal Dictatorship, seized opportunity and attempted to recreate a country in their image. They wanted to be the fountainhead of nationalism: They reduced the grand idea of the Philippines, of a post-colonial nation that has embraced democracy and equity through the repudiation of empire and tyranny, to something that was nothing more than a distorted reflection of their ego. Marcos being heroic, a hero worthy of emulation was an intrinsic part of that narrative they attempted to craft; the myth they tried embed as fact in our national consciousness. Those attempts to remake our nation, through propaganda and bloodshed, through corruption and tyranny, remains our darkness. A shroud that has cast a pall over any sense of nationalism we still retain.
Never, never, forget that we have successfully survived colonization by the Spanish, the Americans, the Japanese, and (most cruelly of all) one of our own. We were colonized by Ferdinand Marcos and his men. That last colonial period is the one whose scars run deepest; where the damage is still most felt on a daily basis. We may be paying for the financial debts of Martial Law, worse though, we are still reckoning with the social, political, and cultural damage done. Our prior colonial periods are scar tissue; perhaps the Marcos era remains an open wound. One that we cannot even seek to close while travesties like the burial of Marcos continues to bedevil us.
This is, and never was, just about burying Marcos: It was always about unwinding the rightful narrative that saw Marcos for what he was: A dictator. A thief. A man who saw himself as greater than the nation he was elected to lead. A man who repudiated the oaths he swore to protect this nation and its people.
The burial of Marcos at the Libingan was never about national healing and reconciliation. No, it was never about that. It was about redeeming the stained and tattered reputation of Ferdinand Marcos. It was an attempt, on their part, to retake our national historical narrative and rewrite it in his favor. This is, and never was, just about burying Marcos: It was always about unwinding the rightful narrative that saw Marcos for what he was: A dictator. A thief. A man who saw himself as greater than the nation he was elected to lead. A man who repudiated the oaths he swore to protect this nation and its people. The proof is found precisely in how he was buried: Secretly, clandestinely, and far too reminiscent of the Martial Law era. This was a decision made at the highest levels in our government; without due deference given to the will of the people. No, instead, it was burial by fiat, flouting legal convention and, most important, blatantly attempting to circumvent and disenfranchise the voice of the People. Silence is complicity.
The burial of Marcos at the Libingan was never about national healing and reconciliation. No, it was never about that. It was about redeeming the stained and tattered reputation of Ferdinand Marcos. It was an attempt, on their part, to retake our national historical narrative and rewrite it in his favor.
The burial of Ferdinand Marcos is fraught with symbolism, but not, I think, what they were hoping for. The Marcos family and loyalists hoped it would be redolent in the trappings of heroism; a final acknowledgement of his status as a President, Soldier, and Hero. No matter what he did with those positions, no matter what he did to the country, they wanted that symbolism. That rebuttal to any criticism: Look where he is, look where his final resting place is now. Look.
Instead his burial has become symbolic of all that is wrong with politics today: Impunity and patronage. Elections, not as mandates given by the people, but interpreted as license to act the tin pot authoritarian. This wayward idea that electing someone with the express purpose of cutting through and dismantling our institutions in the quixotic, and ultimately foolhardy, pursuit of amorphous ‘change,’ is democracy. Because the flip side to deifying the dangerous conceit, “He’ll get things done” is this. It is impunity.
Instead his burial has become symbolic of all that is wrong with politics today: Impunity and patronage. Elections, not as mandates given by the people, but interpreted as license to act the tin pot authoritarian.
From Andanar to Abella, from our own solicitor general to a sitting Justice of the Supreme Court, the value of sixteen million votes has been twisted beyond democratic recognition. The fundamental expression of democratic will has become subverted, reinterpreted by spin doctors and apologists into something unrecognizable; something akin to a referendum on authoritarianism and a mandate for impunity. That subversion was on full display. By burying Ferdinand Marcos at noon, in the light of day, and under the glare of our gaze, they rather unintentionally brought impunity out in the open. We saw the machinations of the powers-at-be; the horse-trading that usually takes place behind closed doors, between friends and loyalists, patrons and their cats paws. We saw it, clearly and cleanly, by the light of day, how promises made in secret are kept, no matter the cost to the nation. We saw what our government has been and become. And we should never forget it. We should not forget that Duterte felt confident enough, comfortable enough, to exercise his power thus.
From Andanar to Abella, from our own solicitor general to a sitting Justice of the Supreme Court, the value of sixteen million votes has been twisted beyond democratic recognition… By burying Ferdinand Marcos at noon, in the light of day, and under the glare of our gaze, they rather unintentionally brought impunity out in the open.
By the light of day, we should not forget. Not the promises made privately and executed publicly. Not the efficiency with which democracy can be reinterpreted as tyranny. Not the warnings about giving up a little liberty for the illusion of security. Those in the streets, the youth, will not. Today we were taught a lesson about impunity, one that will ring true and long, because Marcos was buried secretly, quietly, with fanfare for a family, at the expense of our community. And those in streets, they are exercising their democratic rights as much, perhaps at times even more, than when we vote. Our voices give power to the government and when we raise those voices, through the vote or in the streets, government should listen. Marcos thought he could not only silence that voice, but leverage it for his own aggrandizement. His burial did not crystalize nor embed his manufactured heroism; it brought into sharp focus his impunity, his arrogance, and the lack of respect for the Filipino nation that exemplified his reign. They can bury him deep, they can raise statues above his grave, but they cannot bury our history. Our history will always ring true, our story will always speak the most resonantly, because it is that tale that made us who we are; that defines us as Filipinos.
Marcos was flown out of the country in 1986 to avoid the anger of the Filipino people. In 2016, he was flown into the Libingan ng mga Bayani to avoid the anger of the Filipino people. Fitting. And a telling reminder of how we have always fought tyranny, have always sought the sun, and the light of day and better tomorrows. Now, more than ever, that reminder is needed and, hopefully, never forgotten.
Marcos was flown out of the country in 1986 to avoid the anger of the Filipino people. In 2016, he was flown into the Libingan ng mga Bayani to avoid the anger of the Filipino people. Fitting.
That is where we should leave it, where I originally left it. Never forgetting, building monuments of remembrance and places of learning; extracting the lessons of the darkest parts of our history to ensure that we construct a civic community that respects inalienable rights and dignity inherent in all. But, leaving it there did not feel right. This is the coda I have struggled with: What is the reckoning we need? Hidden amidst everything on going is a point that needs reflection: We do need healing. We do need to reconcile with our past and move forward. But, it is not the right of the oppressor, the colonizer, to tell the oppressed, the formerly colonized, to move on. That is our decision. Our right to do decide how and when. They cannot dictate our grief or our forgiveness.
We do need to forgive. Collectively, if not individually. But, forgiveness is both a tool and a weapon. Because forgiveness requires transparency, it demands accountability, and an enumeration of what occurred. How can we forgive if we do not understand? How can we forgive if we do not recognize the tragedies that occurred and how it damaged us as a nation? That is enumeration. That is learning. And perhaps in this reckoning we will find the path forward.
Forgiveness requires memory. It does not invite forgetting. Forgetting and revision, the unraveling of our national story, is the path on which Marcoses and their loyalists want us to take. And in attempting to force us down that path they are seeking their redemption through our division, they manufacture antagonism to ensure they will be able to reclaim the power of memory and remembrance. And perhaps, amidst the division and acrimony, they will find the fissures necessary to continue to execute their hidden agendas.
This is our eulogy to Ferdinand Marcos: The voices of the youth raised in the streets and on social media. The older remembering and sharing. All of us learning. Learning and embracing the remembrance of the depredations of martial law. The iniquity inherent in impunity. We are eulogizing a dictator the right way: By raising our voices; by speaking truth to power; by remembering and never forgetting.
Funerals always end with eulogies. This is our eulogy to Ferdinand Marcos: The voices of the youth raised in the streets and on social media. The older remembering and sharing. All of us learning. Learning and embracing the remembrance of the depredations of martial law. The iniquity inherent in impunity. Accidentally, the Marcos family and the powers-that-be gave us the opportunity to eulogize Ferdinand Marcos. And we are. We are eulogizing a dictator the right way: By raising our voices; by speaking truth to power; by remembering and never forgetting.
Eulogizing Ferdinand Marcos requires understanding what he was and what he and his people did to us. And then, after the eulogy and the grief, comes the healing. That means remembering by embracing the power of our history and making sure we never return to a world of their making.
