They may be trying to do it again
September 20, 2021It has been 49 years since President Ferdinand E. Marcos signed Proclamation No. 1081 declaring the Philippines under Martial Law. September 21, 1972 was the start of 14 years of authoritarian rule that destroyed our democratic institutions and established a dictatorship that preached the ideology of a so called “new society”.
Martial law was a regime that was dominated by military atrocities, and unprecedented oppression that protected a new cohort of cronies that systematically plundered the country’s natural and economic assets. This was an era of controlled media, suppressed rights, arbitrary arrests, executions, graft and corruption that was estimated to have stolen US$30 billion, a record breaking amount at that time. These eventually led to our country’s economic collapse and political turmoil that galvanized the 1986 people power peaceful revolution that ousted the dictator and the rebirth of our democracy.
The biggest victims of authoritarian abuse and systemic corruption are always the ordinary people. When Marcos declared Martial Law, the rationale was the need to wield the constitutional mandate of the President to quell a growing communist rebellion that was hampering the country’s growth. Ironically it was during the martial law years when the communist gained momentum and grew strength fueled by the regime’s atrocities and disregard for human rights. Thousands were tortured and perished. As Filipinos known for our resilience, our country survived and bounced back.
As we now confront a global crisis, there are disturbing parallelisms now being revealed by recent events that our people must be sensitized to rectify what is becoming a crisis in governance that during these sensitive and complex environment should be at its best performance.
For those of us who are veterans of Marcos’s Martial Law regime, we must exert efforts to educate our young countrymen who are now the target of a devious campaign to rewrite the history of Marcos’s dictatorial legacy. Technology is being used to deceive the malleable minds of a digital savvy generation. A new narrative is being pushed to set-up a political agenda for the 2022 national elections.
Like the state-controlled media during Martial Law, we are seeing a well-funded online misinformation campaign that’s using the massive shift to the online platforms as an opportunity to directly feed a barrage of propaganda in our gadgets.
The horrors of Martial Law of the Marcos dictatorship did happen. They had to create a crisis situation to declare Martial Law and proliferate a rule of plunder and abuse for the benefit of an exclusive class of cronies. Now we are in a real existential crisis, and they may be tying to do it again, but with different partners.