NEVER AGAIN, NEVER FORGET!

Today, February 25, 2021, marks the 34 th Anniversary of the EDSA People
Power Revolution, wherein it led to the fall of the dictatorship of the late Ferdinand
Marcos (Marcos) and ended his 20-year presidential term. Many considered that the
departure of Marcos led to the restoration and success of Philippine democracy, but to
some EDSA revolution did not bring a “happy ever after” ending, hence, actually failed
the people since poverty and inequality remains a challenge.

Bongbong Marcos, son of Ferdinand Marcos, once said where it not because of
EDSA revolution, we might have been one of the riches countries in Asia. Moreover,
many still considered that the successors of Marcos were incompetent compared to
him, and large population of today’s youth believe that Marcos is still the Best President
we ever had.

Now, the questions are: Did EDSA Revolution fail us? Are we better off with
Marcos?

In 2016, I had the opportunity to teach students of the Central Luzon State
University, Philippine History. So I began teaching the Pre-Colonial Period, followed by
the Spanish Colonialism and so on and so forth. Three (3) weeks before the end of the
semester I realized that I was way behind my lesson plan due to postponement of some
classes because of typhoons and school activities. So I opted to skip some of less
important topics and proceed with the discussion regarding Past Presidents of the
Philippines, which I believe student should know and understand. When I was already
discussing Marcos Regime particularly the Martial Law, students became active and
they asked a lot of questions and gave arguments regarding Marcos. Some of them
gave a legit argument but majority of their arguments came from different platforms
such as social media which is not a good source of information, if you want to learn
history. Then, I came to a conclusion that there is a possibility that majority of our
history teachers weren’t able to tackle the Marcos regime in their classes due to lack of
time. So, a lot of us rely on social media or hearsay with regard to what happened
during the time of Marcos.

Now, going back to the question: Did EDSA Revolution fail us? Are we better off
with Marcos? My answer is NO and NO!

EDSA revolution is the reason why we enjoy the liberty we have right now, the
creation of Bill of rights in our current Constitution, and institutions such as Commission
on Human Rights which protect us from abuse by those people in authority or against
tyranny. The information that we were progressive during the time of Marcos is actually
a myth. A lot of us use the infrastructures built during the Marcos regime as one of their
proofs that we were actually a rich country; little do they know that it was their source of
corruption. Marcos needed to loan from the World Bank to fund his infrastructure
projects. That debt ballooned from $30 million in 1962 to $28.3 billion in 1986. This is
one of the reasons why the exchange rate of dollar became 1USD = Php19 from 1USD
= Php2, and sadly, significant number of Filipino today still believe that the increase in
the exchange rate happened during the time of the successors of Marcos.

This is just one part of Marcos plunder; we haven’t talked about businesses that
were forcibly taken over, cronies monopolizing industries or the so-called “crony-
capitalism”, and the bankruptcy of the Central Bank to name a few. Marcos
institutionalized corruption on such scale we continue to feel its effects today. So if
you’re asking why do we still experience poverty today? Then you might want to study
or research the root of all cause. The Guinness Book of World Record even placed a
record under his name which is “Greatest Robbery of a Government”. I once read an
article that says: “By no means did Marcos invent corruption. But you might say he
perfected it”.

By this alone, without even discussing the dark days of Martial Law, would you
consider that we are better off with Marcos?

“Never again, never forget!”

By: Augustu Ray Anthony C. Laurena