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Friday, September 23, 2005
Roperos: To bury a citizen
By Godofredo M. Roperos
Politics Also
Question of the hour is whether the late president Ferdinand Marcos is hero in his own right or not. The question is being asked because of the insistence of FM's close kin that his refrigerated body should be buried at the Libingan ng Mga Bayani.
There is no doubting that in his time FM was a respected First Citizen, having been elected president of the republic not only once, but two times.
But the hand of history moves in unexpected ways, like the movement of a rudderless craft let loose at sea. It floats on the assurance that it will somehow reach the shore, but where and when are questions that implies no answer.
Hence, a leader in the eyes of his or her public may be up one moment and down the next. Yet, while the waves' rise and fall is predictable, one could never be sure of what it brings.
Thus, the question of whether Marcos should or should not be buried as a national hero has dogged this republic's trail across its historical years, and seeking the positive answer. But up to this moment, the response has been a deafening silence.
Sure, one can assume with a bit of certainty that there are still many among the nation's growing population who remember FM and recall what he did during his years of total control of this nation's life.
Looking back at those years, though, one may feel that only the negative side of his regime has been accentuated and revived in the collective national psyche.
Or that only how he debased this country's democratic way of life and how he caused the suffering of many a Filipino family whose loved ones had disappeared in the dead night and were never heard of since then for opposing the regime.
In fact, the present generation of Filipinos could well ask why the present history books of grade six pupils in our public schools does not reportedly carry even a short chapter of the Martial Law years.
Why have there been efforts to blot out from the memory of the young the supposed "dark years" of our nation's history? Is the exclusion being done so the "bright side" of that period in our history could not also be taken up and discussed?
Surely, some people may still recall certain brighter side of FM's regime.
It is of public record, for instance, that in the matter of infrastructure development, Marcos had constructed farm-to-market roads, bridges and highways and pushed for the electrification of the countryside more than all of this republic's past presidents combined.
True or not, that is something that the present generation, I am sure, would be interested to know if only to set the minds of our young straight regarding the fact of whether Marcos was a hero or not, beyond just being a citizen.
It is important that a true, dispassionate and objective assessment of the Martial Law years should be made and put the nagging, oft recurring issue of whether FM was a hero or a heel to finally rest. As it is, the problem keeps cropping up now and then like an old ghost that has not found any peace at all even in Purgatory.
That the refrigerated body of the late president should be given his final resting place is an issue that needs to be resolved, if only because regardless of what FM has been, he is a citizen and Filipino.
(September 23, 2005 issue)
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