EDITORIAL - The beast that Marcos unleashed
Francisco Tatad was shown on TV the other night declaring that had it not been for martial law, the
It is, however, expected that Tatad, who was one of the chief architects of the martial law, would always come to the defense of the military rule. After all, he gallantly stood besides the dictator during the imposition of the law that had drawn worldwide outrage.
Lest Tatad might have forgotten, the martial law that Marcos had imposed on the nation had created a monster that snuffed off every democratic way of the Filipino life. Being once a respected journalist, Tatad should have known that the moment Marcos declared the military law also marked the beginning of the death of the Filipinos’ freedom of expression.
It’s just hard to buy Tatad’s opinion that martial law prevented the country from becoming a communist state. Marcos instead undoubtedly fortified the cause of the communist insurgents and the Muslim rebels in
Yes, Marcos’ motive in declaring martial law was his claim that he wanted to thwart an impending anarchy brought about by the growing dissension. But there was a problem. He fought the fire with fire and, in the process, pushed the entire nation into the pit of misery and hopelessness.
Because of the dictatorial regime, the nation was reduced to a mere laughingstock in
Tatad cannot deny the fact that the Marcos administration, in which he had played a key role, had committed the biggest political blunder in the country’s history when it resorted to military rule. And yet he has the courage to surface glorifying the law that had snatched democracy away from the nation of freedom-lovers.
History has already judged that the martial law had been the beast that Marcos had unleashed to curtail Filipino freedom.
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