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Watching and hearing the millennials protesting seems strangely like watching a sci-fi movie where the characters memories are erased and they are made to do things they can't understand except that this time it is the short term memories which are erased and the distant past implanted.
Does it make any sense at all to rant and rave about injustices done 45 years ago and somehow relate them rather tenuously and illogically to events of the past year while utterly forgetting and disregarding ALL those done in the 30 years in between?
Does it make even less sense considering that those who keep insisting on a reckoning of Marcos' sins are in fact the ones who were supposed to do the reckoning the past 30 years but simply did the same thing albeit more discreetly and in the end, probably did even more damage by bringing the country to the brink of Narco-statehood?
And these are the guys demonizing the Marcoses?
There is a time for everything. Not to justify, but rather, to put things in the proper historical perspective.
Yes, there were horrible abuses. Then again, practically the same thing was happening all over the world at the time, not the least because of American intervention. It was the state of general awareness and the "kalakaran" of the era that mostly gave rise to the unfortunate events. And society was in a different state of evolution. Smart as he was, Marcos was a man of his time and he, as well as everyone else, friend or foe, was subject to the mindset and misconceptions of the era.
Indeed, Marcos was a man who did both right and wrong. Yet, those who succeeded him profited by the lessons learned from his experience by learning to do the wrongs with more finesse rather than eliminating them and worse, did not pursue what was done right.
So what should we call those who portray him as evil incarnate to hide their own sins?
Yes, while he was able to accomplish a long list of notable things, as he became President at a relatively young age, he was led astray by ambition, hubris and greed. But then again, so were his successors. And again, they seemed to have mastered how to commit all the wrongs with more finesse until things again got out of hand and we started spiraling into the abyss of a Narco-state.
At this point in time, it is a fallacy to insist that there are only two paths to follow. That of being a Yellow or that of being pro-Marcos. The stark reality is that aside from having money, neither side has any really convincing proof or argument that the country would do much better with either of them in power.
The real truth is, our only hope for survival and eventual redemption is to take the third path, the one opened by our President. Only when we are firmly established on that road will any other option be open for consideration.
Let us all, hopefully including the Marcoses and the Yellows, learn the right lessons from the past and proceed from there rather than be lured into positions that are merely political gambits.
And let those who stand in the way fall where they may and fall as they must.