Challenge to Briones
IWAS reading a piece in a Manila business publication, written by my former Asian Institute of Management (AIM) professor Mario “Mayo” Lopez. In his column, he talked about Bongbong’s delusion in comparing the legacy of his late dictator father, Ferdinand Marcos Sr., to that of the late Singaporean leader Lee Kuan Yew’s.
Bongbong likes to talk about how, had his father not been deposed by the popular “People Power” uprising, which forced him to flee the country for the safety of Hawaii, the dictator would have turned the Philippines into the next Singapore of Asia.
This is short of saying by the junior Marcos that all of the leaders who succeeded his father took the country backwards rather than forwards, in terms of economic prosperity.
Professor Mayo, in quoting from the book of Lee Kuan Yew, stated that nothing could be further from the truth. And I would be one with my former professor here in saying that Bongbong could not be any more delusional in his Lee Kuan Yew comparison.
Last week, I spoke about how former education chief Bro. Armin Luistro missed the chance to educate our youth about the horrors of the Martial Law years.
As a result of our secretary’s “soft” approach to the teaching of this period in our history, we were unable to shape the collective consciousness of the generation that eventually bought into the Marcos “fake news” stories, and ended up almost voting the strongman’s son into the second-highest post of the land. Not only that, they also bought into the “strongman” antics of the current president, choosing him instead of his more conventional and civilized rivals.
The problem with people buying into the son’s Lee Kuan Yew delusion is also one of education, albeit being more of a quality rather than a “slant” issue. First is a problem of history. Even when Singapore was still part of the Malayan Federation (what would eventually become today’s Malaysia), the Philippines was already the rising star of the region.
Proof of the pudding is the establishment in the Philippines of multilateral bodies and educational institutions in the Philippines, that were meant to serve the needs of Asia. Some examples of these are the Asian Development Bank (Asia’s development bank), the Asian Institute of Management (Asia’s business school), and the International Rice Research Institute (Asia’s rice research institute).
However, during the reign of Marcos Jr.’s father, all of our advantages over our Asian neighbors like Singapore were all wiped out. We became the laughing stock of our neighbors, who made fun of our subservience to a family that brought our country to ruin. Then there is a problem of economics. A lot of the “fake news” stories glorifying the Marcoses talk about how the exchange rate versus the US dollar, for example, was very low during the time of Marcos, and how it is at the level that it is today. All this supposedly pointing to the mismanagement of the economy after Marcos. What hogwash, to say the least!
I don’t want to launch into Economics 101 here and talk about the factors behind foreign exchange rate determination, but suffice it to say that anyone competently educated in economics fundamentals would not even read, much less heed stories comparing FX levels during the Martial Law years and today.
So here is a challenge to Secretary Leonor Briones, who is known to be a progressive. Teach our youth proper history. And educate them in correct economic theory. Only in this way will they be able to sift fact from fiction, like the one that Bongbong Marcos is peddling about his dictator-father’s true legacy.
(Belated greetings to my sister, Aleli Batuhan Castaneros, who celebrated her birthday last Dec. 6. Happy Birthday, and wishing you many more to come. God bless!)