‘Move on’ plea from Imee, de Castro

WHEN Ilocos Norte Gov. Imee Marcos last Aug. 21 said at a press conference in Cebu City the now infamous “let’s move on” plea, she must know how effective a cliche can be.

The cliche connects and delivers the message efficiently. It has lost its vivid image and is pretty much a spent force by repeated use. Language teachers tell us it indicates laziness and must be avoided “like the plague.” Yet it is quickly understood.

That’s what happened when Governor Imee - asked about the deaths, disappearances, tortures, and corruption during the 21-year rule of the Marcoses -- said, “The millennials have moved on, and I think people at my age should move on as well.”

People who suffered from the martial law regime and those who suffered no pain or loss in those years but knew about the oppression, injustice and corruption and how the Marcoses virtually got away with “thievery and murder” promptly lashed back.

And the cliche “let’s move on” fits in snugly into a boomerang of a weapon. “Move on? How can we move on” when, they charge:

* The surviving Marcoses never accepted that Ferdinand Sr., the patriarch, was guilty of anyworked thing; no acknowledgment of wrongdoing; and thus no remorse;

* His heirs have been waging a campaign -“a modest effort,” Imee said in a dyCM radio interview -- to revise history;

* Only a fraction of what had been stolen from the government had been returned or retrieved and the “ill-gotten” wealth is allegedly used by the heirs to reclaim power.

Newly installed Supreme Court Chief Justice Teresita Leonardo de Castro, not picking up anything from Governor Imee’s experience, also used the “let’s move on” cliche. She said after taking her oath last Aug. 28, “I think we should all move on and work together for the good of the judiciary. Let’s put the past behind. But of course we should learn from its lessons.”

Should those lessons include the need to reeducate every judge on the basic precept of “delicadeza” not to benefit from a decision or move in which he or she took part? De Castro, with seven other SC justices voted in a dubious quo warranto petition to oust Ma. Lourdes Sereno, testified against her at the House hearing, and then joined the bid to take Sereno’s seat.