EDITORIAL - 30 years of remembering

Those who lived through that dark period in the nation’s history lament that Filipinos, particularly the youth, appear to have forgotten the struggle to end the abuses of a despotic regime. But young Filipinos don’t have a short memory. When it comes to martial law and the struggle to end a dictatorship, the memories simply aren’t there.

Thirty years is a long time, and a generation has grown up with no personal experience of the days when people lived in fear of their own government. Freedom, it is often said, is like air – taken for granted and missed only when it is taken away.

There are reasons to celebrate as the nation marks the 30th anniversary of the people power revolution. Democracy has endured, despite numerous coup attempts and persistent threats to civil liberties. The greed that gave rise to the word “kleptocracy” has been tamed. Systematic violations of human rights are over.

Yet it is an unfinished revolution. Corruption remains rampant at all levels of government. State forces continue to be implicated in cases of torture, summary executions, enforced disappearances and other human rights violations. Democratic institutions remain weak, including the judicial system, which has failed to make anyone account for the abuses of dictator Ferdinand Marcos. Billions have been recovered in ill-gotten wealth, but no one has been sent to prison for amassing the wealth.

Remembering might speed up the process of reckoning. This can start with the retelling of the horrors: the knock on the door before dawn for an arrest without warrant, the rape, regular beating and water cure, cigarette burned through flesh, the wires attached to genitals and breasts for mild electric shocks. Many of the nation’s martial law desaparecidos remain missing.

Beyond the physical horrors, there was the insatiable greed for power and wealth, with the conjugal dictatorship confiscating opponents’ businesses and handing these over to cronies. As the nation is seeing, the amassed wealth is mind-boggling, with the artwork and jewelry alone impossible to have been paid for on the regular salary of a Philippine president even after 20 years in power.

Those who dared challenge the conjugal dictatorship often paid the ultimate price; former senator Benigno Aquino Jr. was its most prominent victim.

Their struggles are worth retelling. It is the responsibility of those who lived through those difficult days to keep the memories alive for the next generations, to ensure that the abuses are not repeated.