Friends and readers know I support many, but not all, of President Duterte’s strategic programs. But it is his partiality to the Marcos family that I am most averse to. Unless I think political compromise, I do not see how a corruption fighting President could help bring back to power the standard bearer of the most corrupt political family this country has ever known.
Out of sheer disgust for the Aquinos’ failure to declare Marcos a persona non grata to Filipinos, I supported Duterte’s move to bury Marcos at the Libingan. Disgust because two Aquino presidents, who lost husband and father to Martial law, for reasons I also suspect are neatly wrapped in political compromise, miserably failed to definitively relegate Marcos Martial Law legacy of plunder and violence to the dustbin of history.
But that was before I realized the extent of Duterte’s partiality to the Marcoses. Anyway, it has come back to haunt me now that I am hearing unmuffled drumbeats in the distance about the suitability of BongBong Marcos for the presidency. Running as Sara Duterte’s Vice President would make it a cinch for him to get to the presidency next. Duterte’s popularity might just make that happen.
More than that, traditional politicians will help make that happen. It is not just the Aquinos, not just the Dutertes but the rest of our ambitious bunch of traditional politicians that compromised morality for their ambitions. Note, for instance, how our lawmakers have enacted a law assigning a Marcos Day in the Ilocos. The move is patently designed to either get the votes of the solid north or get Marcos money to help in the forthcoming elections or both.
If BongBong wins, the crime of the father would have come full circle and the next spiral of corruption and plunder will start over again with the son. When that happens, the revision of that part of our history where Marcos was the central figure would have been complete. And we will have the morally compromising Aquinos, Dutertes and traditional politicians to blame for it.
When the Marcoses are back in power our moral bankruptcy as a nation would be sealed. It’s almost like if Germany allowed the Nazis to get back to power. But we know that Germany demonstrated self-respect and moral courage in outlawing Nazism. It is no coincidence that Germany is now Europe’s largest economy.
Only the politics of compromise, sadly our way of life, can justify the horrors of Martial law. Only the most naïve or the most thoroughly deceived teachers/students of history can see Martial law as a boon to the country. Yet ominous signs are visible in the horizon that morally bankrupt politicians and supporters are about to bring the Marcoses back to power.