What moving on?

IGOT into a fight only a few times. In Grade 1 in a school in Argao, I was involved in a scuffle with a classmate who was bigger than me (but almost everybody was bigger than me). The second fight was with a neighbor when we were new in Sambag 2. It wasn't much of a fight, actually. I hit him once or twice before I scampered up our house. The third time I was against one who used deceit, jumping on my back, pulling me down and pinning me while hitting me.

I ended up becoming friends with all those I fought with, which meant that whatever differences we had—which were minor--were forgotten. We moved on, sort of. This must be the context of the “move on” call by apologists of the family of former dictator Ferdinand Marcos to those protesting his burial at the Libingan ng mga Bayani. But we know that what Marcos did to the Filipinos was different.

For every action, an equal and opposite reaction. On Feb. 26, 1986, the pent-up rage of the Filipino people that were accumulated through two decades of human rights abuses, oppression, exploitation and corruption burst. We don't know what would have happened had the United States government not helped the Marcoses escape from the Filipino people's wrath. They could have been lynched in Malacañang.

In a way, that was the first missed opportunity of the Edsa uprising. Because of US interference, the one chance when the people could have directly meted a punishment on the Marcoses was lost. We know what happened to tyrants in other countries once they were toppled and an enraged mob caught up with them.

Example: After communist partisans caught up with the fleeing Italian fascist Benito Mussolini and his mistress in the waning phase of World War II, he, his mistress and the other fascist leaders were summarily shot. Their bodies were loaded into a van and brought to Milan and dumped on the ground--there to be shot, kicked and spat at. The bodies were hung upside down from the roof of a gas station. These were then stoned by civilians below.

The other missed opportunity happened post-Marcos. The situation when Corazon Aquino, wife of the martyred Benigno Aquino Jr., took the reigns of government was one that was open to thoroughgoing change. Cory started well when she formed a revolutionary government and abolished the Marcos-engineered 1973 constitution. But she stopped short of dismantling the instruments of oligarchic rule.

The Aquino government chose instead to reestablish the status quo ante, or the political setup pre-Marcos dictatorship. That allowed the return of factions of the ruling elite that were eased out by Marcos's group to positions of power. That also meant a return to elitist and corrupt governance. And that paved the way for the return of the Marcoses to positions of power and influence.

But back to moving on. Not only were the Marcoses spared from the people's wrath when they were allowed to leave for the US, they were also able to retain the wealth they amassed and used it for their eventual return to position of power and influence and to rehabilitate the Marcos name. More than that, they used it to block at every turn the attempt of the government to exact justice from them.

The Marcoses never owned up to the excesses, the abuse and the plunder. The Filipino people never got the justice they deserved. That is not a recipe for moving on. What is needed is not forgetting or letting go but the completion of the task that the Edsa uprising started, which is effecting thoroughgoing change that would allow for the acquisition of genuine justice. From there, the old call of “Never again” would be realized.