“First, let’s look back.”
(First of four parts)
Today, barring any last-minute not-so-divine intervention, the country will bear witness to the return of another Marcos to the seat of power in the person of Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr.
It was 36 years ago when his father, the late Ferdinand, Sr. voluntarily or was coerced by a foreign power by some account, vacated the Palace, to avoid bloodbath as his most trusted aide then, the late General Fabian Ver was raring to slug it all out with the putschists led by then Defense Secretary Juan Ponce Enrile and then General Fidel Ramos who were being backed up then by tens of thousands of people who have gathered in EDSA (believe me, that span of EDSA cannot accommodate two million as claimed by some writers).
The rest is history. Cory Aquino assumed power. First thing she did was to do away with all the things associated with Marcos and continued demonizing the former president, a campaign started by her late husband, former Senator Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino, Jr.
And that is what the Yellows have been doing for the past 36 years. Textbooks were even re-written to adapt to their version of history.
Unfortunately, they failed as despite their massive propaganda against the Marcoses, an offspring – Bongbong or BBM to his supporters – is about to stage a political comeback on behalf of his maligned family. And we do expect that the vilification of the Marcoses will continue, and would even intensify to greater heights even if BBM assumes office at noon of June 30.
Anticipating that, we deem it proper to trace back the story behind the vilification campaign against the Marcos so as to fully understand why the Yellows and the Left had ceaselessly mounted the same campaign to date, even as it had become obvious the people are now rejecting their narrative.
The plot to oust the elder Marcos and seize political power is one for the books as it involves an unholy collaboration between two inherent class enemies – the bourgeoisie as represented by a select group of Oligarchs led by Ninoy Aquino and basic masses as represented by the Left led by Jose Maria Sison’s reconstituted Communist Party.
They have time and again colluded with each other in their objective to topple Marcos, although it is an open secret, they are bound to betray each other once the objective is on the brink of achieving as manifested in the 1986 Edsa Uprising when the Left were sidelined.
While there is an infinity of issues raised against Marcos, two of them stand out – the issue of massive corruption enabling the First Family to illegally acquire wealth; and the issue of human rights violation.
On the former, it has significantly lost traction as to date, no conviction involving the members of the former First Family in connection with the issue has been reached. It is on the second issue this paper will focus.
As it is, the issue of human rights violation has been the bread and butter of the Oligarch-Left campaign against Marcos. And they readily equate human rights violation to Martial Law. According to these people, human rights violations proliferated under Marcos’ Martial Law Regime. Interestingly, they also equate the declaration of Martial Law to the Plaza Miranda Bombing. Based on the Oligarch-Left narrative, Marcos instigated the Plaza Miranda Bombing to justify the declaration of Martial Law.
(To be continued)
