The Bad Old Days

I was born after the People Power Revolution so I have no personal experience of that time period. It was no doubt, a tumultuous time. The repercussions of that episode in  our history echo to this day in the clashing narratives that beat in the public consciousness. There are some who say it wasn't so bad and that it was a time when the Philippines was at the cusp of achieving greatness as a nation while there are others with grim stories of torture and oppression, a Philippines sliding helplessly into totalitarianism.

To be perfectly honest, I don't know who and what to believe exactly. The stories of oppression are just too numerous and documented to be a lie. Yet, I don't believe that it's the entire picture of what happened in those days. I want to know the unfamiliar beginning up to the familiar end. 

Was Marcos completely evil? I think it's impossible for a person to be a hundred percent evil. Was it a matter of good intentions gone wrong? He was ambitious, of that there is no doubt. What plans did he have for the Philippines? Who were the devils on the devil's shoulder? Were our heroes really heroes or were they the right people at the right place and time?

I don't trust anyone to tell me the whole truth, that's just my nature. Everyone has an agenda to push. It is important however that lessons are learned and the big lesson, unanimously agreed upon to teach the kids, is that we should always be on guard for oppression and tyranny. A good lesson but a single dictator isn't the only one who can inflict such suffering on a people.

History is written by the winners. Nobody milks the People Power legacy more than our current President. His shameless exploitation of People Power sometimes borders on the absurd, as if it were he and his parents alone who made it happen. It is as if he has the exclusive, God-given moral authority to continue the struggle and judge for himself what is good and what is bad. But the President is just a child, a child of that revolution as we all are in a way. The people who lived through it, whether they like it or not, were baptized and brought into a new Philippines.

The Philippines today is a mess. There is a general feeling of hopelessness and a descent into our cultural tendency to fatalism and self-resignation or obsession with trivia and frivolity. Now there's regret; a feeling that maybe the old days weren't so bad and that maybe we can get a do-over and make the revolution right this time. No dice. 

What's done is done.