Sick and tiaraed

BEDECKED in jewelry and layers of ill-gotten wealth, Imelda Marcos was the other half of the plundering couple of the martial law regime that drove hundreds of thousands of Filipinos underground and overseas.

After decades of defending the Marcoses and the strongman’s estate from the myriad of court cases and class action suits, it was determined that a horrendous crime against humanity had been committed. But the mob bosses remained free, even carving out chunks of Philippine territory into their political enclaves as the plunderers and their minions returned with a vengeance.

In today’s gadget-crazy and internet-driven world, Martial Law is fading from view and the printed word.

Thirteen writers—all college editors during their student days in the 1960s

- ing haze of revisionism being spread

Law is set in black and white.

The a book that describes the experiences of these student leaders, includes the following authors’ accounts of their lives during the dictatorship: “The Hollow Years, The Full Years” by Conrad de Quiros; “Forty Years in China: From Student Activist to International Journalist” by Jaime FlorCruz; “Remembering the Music...and the Storm” by Jay Valencia Glorioso; “Taking the Track Less Trodden” by Manuel M. Dayrit; “A Dead Toenail” by Vic Wenceslao; “Scruples After the First Quarter Storm” by Diwa C. Guinigundo; “Marcos’ Dark Legacy to the Nation” by Victor H. Manarang; “The Political Economy of Martial Law” by Calixto V. Chikiamco; “Images of Martial Rule; Lest We Forget” by Roberto Verzola; “Martial Law Baby” by Sol F. Juvida; “From Flower to People Power (Memoirs of a Petit Bourgeois)” by Jack Teotico; “I See, I Forgive, I Forget” by Al S. Mendoza; and “The First of Our Dead” by Jose Dalisay Jr. Illustrations are by Ed Aragon.

“We are a country that has the hardest time remembering anything. That is fallow ground for planting the seeds of historical revisionism, and the Marcoses have been hard at work in it. Time and the Marcoses have embarked on the Great Forgetting. It is things like this that should jolt us into a Great Remembering,” de Quiros wrote as reminder to those who have not experienced the batons of Metrocom, arrest, detention and torture.

For the longest time – at least in my lifetime – the Marcoses wore the Teflon of denial: refusing to acknowledge that Ferdie and Meldy robbed the Philippines blind, and led the Philippines to the dark abyss

- tions that Filipinos are still paying for in dollars, riyals, yen or dirhams.

Of late, more than 60,000 are lost in the country of won – overseas workers mostly under the Korean Employment Permit System.

Yes, the seeds of the country’s manpower export started with the Marcos regime.

On May 27, 1989, the selling of Filipino skills and professions was enshrined under Section 2, Rule IX of the omnibus rules implementing the Labor Code.

Thus, the Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) were born and to this day continuously sold to employers by the government and through private recruitment agencies licensed to deploy by the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA), the policy and program successor of the Overseas Employment Development Board (OEDB), the

created for overseas employment. The OEDB’s main functions include the promotion and development of employment opportunities abroad in cooperation with relevant government agencies and entities, through organized and systematic activities and services which shall include among others, the following:

A comprehensive manpower marketing strategy and to dispatch

for this purpose;

Develop and promote programs or arrangements that would encourage the hiring of Filipinos in organized or corporate groups;

Scout for labor market for unskilled workers, among others; and

Promote Filipino manpower through advertising in appropriate media overseas.

Today anywhere from 11 to 12 million OFWs bringing in tens of billions of dollars, remittances that keep the

held on to power, her art, and her shoe collection, as well as tiara of jewelry that keep justice at bay.

Then truth – like thousands of political detainees – was set free.

On Nov. 9, 2018, the Sandiganbayan handed down its decision sentencing Imelda Romualdez Marcos to imprisonment of a minimum of six years and one month to a maximum of 11 years “in each case” where she was found guilty. The minimum total jail time is 42 years and 7 months and a maximum of 77 years.”

Finally, plunder has a face, “sick and appearing on a wheelchair” still tiaraed with jewelry but guilty nevertheless.

The conviction handed down by the Fifth Division of the Sandiganbayan after evaluating overwhelming evidence that Imelda is guilty for violation of the Article IX, Section 9 of the 1973 Constitution – for having “organized, coordinated, and directed the affairs of Maler, Trinidad, Rayby, Palmy, Azio-Verzo-Vibur, Avertina, and Rosalys-Aguamina Foundations from the creation up to the end of dissolution thereof, including the transfer and disposition of their respective assets and accounts.”

Nevertheless, OFWs will continue to leave the country for lack of decent paying jobs at home. The red, white, blue and yellow oligarchs from north to south continue to dominate the political landscape and with it the

The exodus that started under the Marcos dictatorship does not appear, nor is likely, to wane. Well-meaning candidates from advocacy groups and even those backed by the communist National Democratic Front realize that the seeds of plunder fertilized by the martial law regime does not run silent but runs deep.

- sins in tandem fell those in the opposition whether politicians, journalists and especially the common Juan.

Aware of being unprotected from human rights violations and deprived of the right to decent wages, Filipinos look across the Pacific Ocean for relief and safety: overseas salvation is preferred to being salvaged at home.

Ironically, the mechanisms that the Marcos dictatorship put in place to save itself keep the dream of working abroad alive.

For all its imperfections, the POEA’s marketing programs continue to pinpoint countries and areas that need Filipino skilled workers and professionals. Despite its shortcomings, the budget-strapped labor attaches help determine if overseas employers and job offers are genuine. The Overseas Workers Welfare Administration facilitate repatriation and offer reintegration programs for the displaced OFWs.

Increasingly, however, Filipinos who have tasted the life and liberty abroad as OFWs, exiles, expatriates, returning residents or dual citizens lend their voices to the cacophony of clamor for reforms.

The task may be Sisyphean but getting sick and tired of not doing anything as the plunderers display tiara in court is not an option.