Learning and moving on
DURING the celebration of Sen. Ninoy Aquino’s death anniversary last week, the media showed Gov. Imee Marcos giving advice to people who raised the ills of Martial Law under her farther, former president Ferdinand Marcos.
She said: “The millennials have moved on, and I think people at my age should also move on.”
A number of public figures didn’t take the statement sitting down. Sen. Koko Pimentel told Gov. Marcos it’s only the victims who should decide whether to move on or not. Sen. Bam Aquino said moving on would be impossible without the offenders’ admission and closure.
Others gave details of gory recollections of what happend during Martial Law which, according to them, have not been answered for until now and that’s why they can’t “move on”.
This is disconcerting. Why do we rehash all the arguments of Martial Law and EDSA every year? Are we so morally confused that we have lost all sense of right and wrong with respect to the events of Martial Law?
I think a number of things got mixed up in the discussions surrounding the statement of Gov. Marcos. The flurry of personal insults exchanged in social media over Imee’s comment have tended to distract from the basic facts.
The events in the 70s may be subject to a lot of confusion and emotional pain, giving rise to the differences in recollection and interpretation. But certainly, some things have been established.
Gov. Marcos explained: “I’m not an apologist for my dad. I think his works and his projects will have to stand for themselves.” This is exactly correct. Martial Law was the biggest project of former president Marcos. Filipinos need to balance their assessment of President Marcos’ accomplishments. We owe this to ourselves and, more importantly, to future generations who will continue to build our nation.
The infrastructure and cultural accomplishments during Martial Law are generally acknowledged. But the Presidential Commission on Good Government also recovered close to P170-billion ill-gotten Marcos wealth. While short of the $10 billion allegedly stolen by the former president, the recovered amount is not trivial and
more infrastructure.
Does anyone still doubt that the former president and his dictatorial regime were corrupt? What about human rights abuses?
The Human Rights Victims Claims Board announced in May it ruled in favor of more than 11,000 claimants and that they would be compensated for human rights violations specified under the Human Rights Victims Reparation and Recognition Act of 2013.
The Act states that “the State hereby acknowledges its moral and legal obligation to recognize and/or provide reparation to said victims and/or their families for the deaths, injuries, sufferings, deprivations and damages they suffered under the Marcos regime.”
ABS-CBN reported: “The highest compensation to be given is P12.374 million, representing 7 claimants who are members of one family.”
Does one still doubt that the former president and his dictatorial regime were abusive?
Emotional healing takes a long time and only time will tell when this will happen. But another important question is whether we have learned as a people how to run the government and how to be better people so we can stop corruption and abuses.
Corruption and human rights abuses couldn’t have been perpetrated by only one man or a family. They were committed in cahoots with many people.
It’s important to learn as much as we can from the people who were close to Malacañang during Martial Law such as Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile, former senator and minister of Public Information Kit Tatad, and former president Fidel Ramos.
We must learn about our cultural psyche and social structures as Filipinos who engender and tolerate so much corruption and abuse.
If we don’t learn these lessons, we have bigger problems than “moving on”. We will always be magnets for corrupt and abusive leaders.