Revisiting ML: Means, motive, opportunity (1)
Next week will mark the 50th anniversary of the declaration of martial law. The opposition will not let us forget. Not now with Ferdinand Marcos Jr. as President. Not ever since they came to power in 1986.
To them, it’s our own version of the Jewish Holocaust, even if there’s no basis for the analogy. Hitler ordered the extermination of Jews, resulting in millions of deaths. Official records of Amnesty International show a little over 3,000 fatalities during martial law. The problem with the opposition’s math is they include the NPA combatants in their numbers, which inflates the number of dead. But they never bother to account for the casualties suffered by state forces in the war against the insurgency.
What MLQ3 is selling is the idea that Marcos never intended to step down in 1973. He convened the Constitutional Convention to amend the 1935 Constitution to perpetuate himself in power.
The truth is, we are the only Asian country with a republican form of government. All others have a parliamentary form of government or an authoritarian dictatorship, as in the case of Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. Thailand is still under military rule but there are constitutional bodies which are still functional. Singapore is the model for an authoritarian democracy.
It’s a wonder why the opposition still bothers with the subject since they have been thoroughly repudiated by the public with Marcos’ victory. We have nothing to show for our freedom and democracy since 1946 as we continue to be the laggard among the ASEAN 5. Soon, we will not even be part of the 5 anymore. That will be Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand. We will be joining the second rung of ASEAN with Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos. Considering that we are a founding member, this is a demotion, of the lowest order.
It’s been seventy-six years since independence from the Americans but we still haven’t learned our lesson. Marcos is leaving for the US on September 18 to attend the opening of the UN General Assembly on a working visit. Ostensibly, this is to address the General Assembly and appeal for aid and cooperation for the economic recovery of the country from the disruption caused by the pandemic.
Realistically, Marcos probably just wants to stick the symbolic middle finger in the face of the Americans who dumped his father in 1986. Even if America needs our bases in the country to protect Taiwan, it’s highly unlikely that we will get as much as Ukraine from Uncle Sam.
We have wasted the past thirty years doing nothing to better our plight and it has been fifty years since Marcos Sr. declared martial law to better our plight. Marcos failed because his hubris got him in the end and he didn’t institute a succession plan.
Marcos Jr. has said all the right things but I wonder what the strategy actually is since his economic managers are all about motherhood statements. There is a looming global economic crisis which will hit the country hard. This won’t be like 2008 when we were insulated from its effects. We did not seize the opportunities when interest rates were very low after the 2008 finanical crisis. The Aquino administration just coasted along for six years.
Almost three months into his Presidency and Marcos appears to be still feeling his way around government. You get the feeling that he’s unsure of his steps. It’s been Cabinet meeting after Cabinet meeting with no details of the strategies to be applied to the problems we’re facing.
Marcos should be taking concrete steps to address the rot in government which has accumulated since 1986. There is no excellence in government, only mediocrity. What I’m looking for in Marcos is the standard of excellence of his father, in terms of the quality of officials and also the iron fist which instilled discipline in every Filipino at that time.
The outlook for 2023 isn’t good. The global economic crisis could evolve into a contagion. There is no country with a strong and resilient economy at the moment. The US, the EU and the UK have all overprinted money after 2008 before the pandemic, and the latter only served to make it worse after the height of the pandemic because this is what drove demand up. The Russia-Ukraine conflict only served to worsen the situation, as it drove up energy and food prices up.
There is no quick fix to these problems as they’re external factors beyond our control. Marcos must take steps to think outside-of-the-box if we’re to overcome the challenges we face, which are all serious because we don’t have food and energy security. We are the laggard in foreign direct investments. Official development assistance from the rich countries will surely go down as they contend with their own crisis.
There are Filipinos who don’t want Marcos to be criticized this early in his Presidency. Why not? The Filipino people who gave Marcos the mandate gave him carte blanche to do as he deems fit.
Opposition wags such as MLQ3 have done nothing to contribute to the betterment of the country. In fact, they have only served to bring it down even when they were in power.
With great power, comes even greater responsibility. Marcos owes this to the Filipino people because he has been given a second chance. He shouldn’t be kowtowing to any other vested interest group. If fact, he should be aggressive in twisting the arms of the oligarchs to open their checkbooks and invest in manufacturing and not only rent-seeking businesses such as renewable energy where they get rich quick with IPOs left and right.
We need a paradigm shift like what Dutere provided in governance during his time. Marcos should be more capable since he’s supposedly well-versed in the economy and governance.
The Filipino people expect nothing else with the mandate he has been given.
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