A different wind somehow blew across the sea of privilege speeches that attended this week’s plenary session of the House of Representatives. A voice is heard to have made the appeal to have the controversial HR 1109 be now archived as a kind of tribute to the passing of the icon of democracy – former President Corazon Aquino, more popularly known as ‘Tita Cory’. More pressures need be applied to raise the threshold to a deciding vote – and to kill the bill, if it can. And if so willed, it will be the highest mark of political maturity in a society given to blind reverence to an oblique sense of commonality in beliefs. The Filipino people think as the single shining icon of democracy the once ordinary wife of Marcos’ most vocal critic and self-styled political arch rival, Ninoy.
History can be uncharacteristically subjective in that Marcos has been cast in the historical light as a dictator as though FM truly gave democracy a bad name both in the domestic as well as international front. But more serious observers of trends would have to rethink otherwise. Future historians will see clearly through the mess of historical distortions that have already characterized books so far written on the subject. It is taking few more years to get the record straight precisely because even blind reverence can be passed on from one generation to another. Hence, the next piece of historical work must overcome this misplaced belief as it can tend to make the work of historians one of mere heresy. One can be a willing artisan in this work of historical reconstruction, should there be.
It is all about 1986 at EDSA – a dream that turned into a nightmare.
And it carried more myths than facts over the years largely because it has been viewed from the point of view of those who think they are their ‘real historical authors’. But it is of such authorship bound by a kind of ‘star complex’, a sense of ‘moral supremacy’, and a self-sustaining ‘elitist idiosyncrasy’. No one ordinary citizen, no one ordinary soldier, no one ordinary victim – is allowed to speak the truth of what really happened those crucial points in history. In other words, the claim of heroism by self-congratulatory ‘heroes’ may well be bogus because of the poverty of its historicism. Put simply, Cory could not have been the symbol of individual achievement to restore democracy for it is more correctly, an inalienably collective act. But who really butchered democracy during Marcos so-called reign of authoritarian rule? Have they now become the modern icons of principled democracy?
Histories of EDSAs have been purposively distorted.
There is need to rewrite history and the historical pendulum must swing from the purely subjectivist bias to the simply objectivist view. Theoretically, we should not demonize Marcos in order to evangelize Cory, as if it were. The moral currency cannot be changed whether it is in Marcos time or in all post-Marcos presidencies. A kind of romanticist attitude reverent of Cory as the seemingly penultimate icon of democracy carries the virus of social contagion. People across generations might tend to believe a myth that has been perpetuated by Marcos’ political detractors and critics.
Young minds have been inquisitive. They want to know why Tita Cory is given all the attention she is getting with her death. They want to study history and read about Tita Cory to reach an understanding of the presumably great things she must have done for the country and the Filipino people. So what should parents or adults tell the youth quite aside from what available literature have so far been supplied? The so-called EDSA Revolution of 1986 saw the fall of the Marcos regime and the defense and military establishment, rightly or wrongly, placed Cory as the new president.
Cory served only a single term from 1986 to 1992 as president. It then becomes a question on whether that term of office really outshines her predecessor or that of her successor. There ought to be a corpus of data or body of facts that historians can build into intelligent, objective, and empirically verifiable historical constructs. We must compare the power structure under at least three successive presidencies – come up with a matrix – and compare the Marcos regime, Cory’s much-vaunted democratic rule, and Fidel V. Ramos’ US-styled reign along quantitative and qualitatively units of measure or value and let us see what a more objective history can tell us. No single work has yet been done, it would appear so far.
Two other presidents came after FVR – Erap and then GMA. It will do well if they are included in the matrix for their contemporary historical value. Then again, let us do the calibration along well-defined terms of reference. And it would seem that nothing from the time of Marcos’ so-called one-man rule and conjugal dictatorship on to Cory’s yellow army and somewhat pseudo-communist bent toward that of FVR’s military-styled leadership past that of Erap’s anticlimactic presidency cut short by a military-civil society conspiracy pulled by GMA – have really changed except if we want to, once and for all, really examine their individual merits and demerits. Every empirical unit of history must be read in the intellectual radar screen for historians, scholars, students and researchers to do an assessment.
To my mind, no one compares like Marcos and all his seminal works.
Not few quarters do still believe that Marcos who indeed declared martial law is the kind of strongman that a society like the Philippines needs. Come to think of it, in all subsequent presidencies, it is clear that he remains the political currency in our national life. Not few governments find the close military or defense aides of their presidents succumb to acts of political betrayal to take over if not bastardize legitimate reigns of power and it should be an anachronism in all time continuum – past, present, future. Philippine political culture makes permissible every form of betrayal and treachery and there seems to be no way out of the noose. It’s kaput. And HR 1109 is still the Trojan Horse that it is – beware! But even traitors become presidents and senators, don’t they?
With Cory’s death, there is a kind of a social fever and the hearse has become a rallying symbol of democracy under threat with the passing of its savior. The way the whole nation and an entire people pay their last respect and homage to the former lady president is somewhat symptomatic of the kind of what a foreigner objectively coins as our ‘damaged culture’. We probably suffer from a severe moral deficit until we are able to make corrections in our ‘moral balance sheet’. At this point, we can find comfort in reading that once great American rhetoric of Martin Luther King in his “I have a dream”.
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Primer,
Very thought-provoking write-up.
My first wife was Chinese Singaporean. Her mother worked for the Singapore government under benevolent leader Lee Kwan Yew and her father, who years before left for China, wrote communist . . . ummm . . literature or propaganda, depending on what side of the fence you are on. My wife always argued that Mao Tse Tung was the only guy would could do what was done, unify a country with hundreds of ethnic minorities squabbling about everything, and feed billions. Her point – and she is a brilliant woman, I might add – is that there was no other way than Mao’s ruthless way.
Many in the US wish Sadaam Hussein had never been taken from power. He ran a secular state that was a buffer against ambitious Iran. Now that buffer is gone and the religious sects squabble murderously. Today, it is believed that many of the suicide bombs are home grown, various Iraqi sects angling to destabilize the government so they can have power.
Marcos? I am in no position to judge among all the experts here who have lived through his reign. All I know is that he is in the past, history, and the present is a mess, in part because of a culture that blurs right and wrong into rationalizations for any action, attached to a willingness to murder those who would oppose.
It seems to me that the government is called democracy, but it really is a bastardized form of tyranny by the “mob”, or those families with power. It is more mafia than democracy. And the people have no tools to respond effectively, nor the temperament to pursue objective goals. Again, everything gets mishmashed into a blur between right and wrong. There is no profound set of “right” that everyone holds dear. The format is American, but there are no profound ideals holding it together.
One can, I suppose hope for a superior, benevolent godfather, or one can hope the tools of democracy wielded by a small and expanding collection of right-thinkers, such as some of those who poke up here on FV, will eventually become an effective force.
Thanks for the excellent commentary.
Joe
Mr Marcos is probably the only President who outlined his ideology in a series of books. The question is why he was a big flop as a dictator and should be worth several PhD dissertations. Marcos is a dictatorial flop and as so never lifted this country out of the mire Mrs Aquino on the other hand was a true revolutionary and democrat. However she too is a flop of the democratic kind. Her presidency failed to ratchet up the needed reforms including redistribution. Her flop continues to affect us and exposes the defects of the democratic ascendacy since then. Again why she flopped should be worth several PhD dissertations!
Its time to look at the Marcos-Aquino years in a more objective light now both presidents have been laid in their tombs.
You kidding? He’s shallow. he obviously didn’t mean all those revolution from the center B.S. And if you’re shallow, you’re bound to be inconsistent with a penchant for ad hoc methods. That no one questions him or debates with him simply aggravates his flaws.
No I am not kidding. One reason why Hitler rose to power is because “Mein Kampf” was dismissed as shallow by the intellectual elite. This Yellow EDSA 1 elitist dismissal and demonization of Ferdinand Marcos no longer serves the country. We should learn.
Returning the Philippines to clutches of the landlords is not revolutionary – it is reactionary.
Hi Prime,
You posit correctly that “we should not demonize Marcos in order to evangelize Cory.”
Indeed as this contemporary era of Philippine history spanning the Marcos years to the present is revisited and even rewritten as previously unknown details come to light it may be that Marcos will be seen with a better sheen.
However having lived through the period, I cannot but see him as both a figure consumed by the fixation with absolute power, and a tragic leader to promised to make his country “great again” but left its democratic institutions in shambles.
Would you have known if those books were those produced by the UP Department of Philosophy via a confidential research project?
Speaking of flops, who is the president who isn’t one by lesser or greater degree? It in this direction, that a good research study should be done and a comprehensive matrix be so constructed for the purpose of a ‘political almanac’ – we can all be proud of – whatever may our biases be.
And I think given the available literature written by academics that we can see in the market let alone National Book Store, I can see that the writers are far from being the authoritative that they should be given some UP standards.
I wouldn’t wonder why how books have in fact distorted historical reality as we (who live them through) know it.
Not U.P.
They were mainly ghost-written by a recently-deceased elder journalist.
The books were produced by the National Media Production Center under Mr. Gregorio Cendana, also recently deceased.
CSSP has come up with a 2 volume set on Philippine government that is a good overview of those years. This is a textbook for upper level undergrads.
Ms Imee Marcos, I believe has commissioned a bibliography project on his father. This should be a valuable resource for researchers.
The Aquinos would do their country a great service by commissioning a similar project.
Sorry for the typo error! Ms Imee Marcos is a “her”! :-) And the Aquino kids can commission a bibliography project on their mother.
“About: Nielsky
is a social critic known to editors across the newspaper environment in recent past. Two volumes of published works await funding assistance”
Just give us a holler when you finally got the funding for those unpublished works of yours.
I know how the feeling of having unpublished manuscripts, because my dad is one of those (former) ordinary soldiers writing military history from the perspective of a former military man.
Maybe that is why it is called His Story(quite sexist,eh), kanya kanyang diskarte yan .The ordinary citizen writes from his/her experience, the ordinary victims as well.(and of course they ask around too.)
But you already know that.
Just my POV.(nothing emotional)
it is obvious that i am not a writer, because of those damn grammatical and whatever errors.
sayang di namamana ang pagsulat.
practice na ako ng pratcice sa blog ko at sa mga comment thread,sablay pa din.
karl g,
I come from a family of military officers and my brother was a President of PMA Class of 1982 (already deceased) so I would know that you, being the son of a peemayer, has everything in your genes to be what you are – a good writer among other traits.
Like your dad, though am not a peemayer coz i already graduated from college when i thought of joining the corps, I have lived through those presidencies, to include those squatted upon, maybe stolen, maybe grabbed, maybe bogus, even faked, rigged, whatever.
Please, nothing in history is useless, even those unpublished yet.
Para hindi mahaba, I would just say thank you.(pero bitin eh)
I read about what happened to your brother in Ding’s post when you replied to me. I replied pero nagkasalisi yata tayo.
Even if we had our differences in some comment threads you have my respect.
You too, karl, no matter the disharmony, have earned my respect.