New Marcoses

Ben Contreras

AMID the growing exchange of words, claims and counter claims about Martial Law, know that seniors have more knowledge and may have experienced the cruelty and horror of it. The younger ones may have very little knowledge or may have less or no unfortunate experience of the dreaded regime. As “loyalists” clash with the “antis” with videos against videos, data against data, and what have you, I was at one point tempted to write a piece to share my thoughts. But something kept holding me back until I read the letter of Farell Murallon Relacion of Ozamiz City (“After Edsa, we are the new Marcoses”) that saw print in the March 4, 2016 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.

It was like reading my own article in a sense that we almost have the same line of thoughts. One sentence I like best was this: “The greatness of a leader is not measured by the number of buildings he built.” The most thought-provoking was, “We don’t learn the lessons of Edsa, we become the Marcos-monster we abhorred.”

Painful but true. We squandered our gains and allowed new Marcoses to rule our country, our economy, our systems, our values and our lives.

The youth is the most gullible and most susceptible to deception. The deceiver seems to be winning because we failed to change. “Are we in a better state after 30 years? I believe so, but not in the way we imagined back then.”

Thirty years ago, we thought the Cory administration would usher in a new kind of governance and new hope. But the Kamag-anak lorded it over with a new form of kleptomania and the rise of new oligarchs. Since then, corruption continued with impunity, and the dignity of the presidential seat was adulterated.

What do we teach our children and our youth? We teach them how a pot may call a kettle black. We teach them the nitty-gritty of dirty politics. We show them that we are a society of men and not of laws. We demonstrate to them how justice can be influenced by money and power. We teach them, all these this young and quite successfully, too.

Indeed, 30 years after Edsa, we continue to blame Marcos but not the new tyrants that replaced him. We are harsh on criticizing the dictator but soft on the new crop of marauders.

Have we really changed? Or have we become just as tolerant to the abuses just like before? Perhaps, we all have forgotten but just make Marcos a convenient excuse for our own failures.

We continue to elect corrupt people because we somehow benefit from the corruption. Sigh!

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On our way to the beach on Saturday morning, at 7 am, we saw a Mitsubishi Pajero lying on its side. According to one who saw it happen a few minutes past 5 am, the Pajero was making a U-turn when a Toyota Vios that was moving at high speed hit it.

The Vios was all wrecked, leaving behind debris of car body parts. It was driven by a lady. She was rushed to the Polymedic hospital nearby.

The people in the Pajero reportedly suffered minor bruises.

Drivers should be more careful with U-turns or left turns. At peak hours, cars that you see in your mirrors may look far away but are actually nearer. Hence, always check the other direction, and make sure it’s clear before moving forward.

Most accidents are fatal. Don’t take chances.