The value of critique

THAT tete-a-tete between Bongbong and Enrile revealed that Manong Johnny is suf fering from a serious case of amnesia. From out of the blue, former Senator Nene Pimentel, who was among the Marcos critics who were incarcerated, took time out from his Federalism campaign and chided Enrile saying the chief enforcer of ML is already aging he had forgotten the events that happened when he lorded it all.

Indeed Nene is correct. In Davao, three prominent lawyers were placed behind bar not by the Regional PC but by the Regional Unified Command which was directly under PSG head Gen. Fabian Ver. The three, Antonio Arellano (now member of the ConCom), Marcos “Boy” Risonar who was appointed USec of DAR and Larry Ilagan.

But Senator Nene cannot stop giving counsel to the nation by warning them against the imposition of a revolutionary government which he attributed to Marcos. He (conveniently?) forgot that it was Cory Aquino who established a revolutionary government that led to the closure of the Batasan Pambansa and the declaration of all elective positions nationwide vacant.

The revgov led to the withdrawal of support of Doy Laurel from Cory and Nene himself became the fulcrum of power shift in local governments as he held the sole mandate to name who was to be appointed as governor, mayor, councilor, barangay captain and barangay councilman.

What happened to Doy and Cory was the first grand deception among the anti-Marcos cabal. Doy was to be the Prime Minister and Cory the President under the then parliamentary government. The modus vivendi was arrived at because Cory, who knew virtually nothing of governance, even asserted that she is only a transition president. But as the popular saying in those days go: “Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. That defined the era of Marcos and Aquino.

It has been nearly half a century. Five Presidents had served and the sixth being Rodrigo R. Duterte. Duterte was the first Tanodbayan investigator assigned in Mindanao before becoming Assistant City Fiscal of Davao. While his mother, Soledad (“Nanay Soleng”) was among the pillars of the “Yellow Friday Movement” in Davao that denounced the murder of Ninoy Aquino and the dictatorship regime, Fiscal Duterte was investigating murders committed by the police, NPAs, military, CAFGUs and later by the creeping drug and kidnapping syndicates.

Fiscal Duterte never ever dreamed of becoming mayor and not by any tint of his imagination be President but Destiny placed him there.

The Marcos regime elicits different perspective from different places and peoples and political agenda. Now take it from the Mindanao perspective. While personally I was a victim of martial rule, I cannot negate the fact that it was Marcos who build 95 percent of the irrigation systems in Mindanao, build and upgraded a network of concrete roads in the region, energized 80 percent of the island and liberated the farmers from the stranglehold of unscrupulous Chinese rice and corn traders. He build the Maharlika Highway and San Juanico Bridge that bridged in part Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. As the American press would describe it in an essay: the golden era of Marcos regime.

You cannot take it away from President Duterte if he sees some positive gains and absorbs lessons in the Marcos government. Unlike other leaders who abhors the idea of having to continue with programs of his or her predecessors, Duterte pursues these with fervor and enthusiasm.

It is unfortunate that some quarters would rather engage in destructive activism like partnering with criminal and terrorist elements to achieve their goals. We have seen how the political opposition were in cahoots with various destabilizing forces to denounce Duterte who was busy inspecting Ompongravaged communities, extending assistance and sympathy to the victims. One day he is in the Ilocos, the next day in the abandoned Itogon Mining area in Benguet and the next day in Naga City in Cebu. He braved the inclement weather, the rigors of travel, the scene of devastation and tragedy while his malefactors, among them Riza Hontiveros, Teddy Casiño, Edcel Lagman, detained Leila de Lima, self-detained Antonio Trillanes, (now out on bail) some satanic men in priestly habits, Jose Ma. Sison and Renato Reyes took turns in denouncing President Duterte in local and domestic forums.

Do not forget the atrocities committed by the dictatorship! And yes, we too must not forget the slaughter of protesting farmers in Plaza Mendiola and those who died in the gates of Hacienda Luisita.

Isn’t it odd that not one group or individuals who delivered incendiary speeches in UP and in Luneta ever remembered the manslaughter that happened in Mendiola and Luisita?

Amnesia?