EDSA reminds us: “Walang forever”

The tragedy of Marcos' 20-year rule and his highly questionable extended stay in the Palace was that it was too long and the people could not take it anymore. The very serious historical error of the dictator was that he did not stop while he was on top. He was forced to flee, ousted by the angry mob led by the victims of his military's atrocities. He lived the remaining years of his life in shame and ignominy.

In those February days of 1986, if he could be credited for anything at all, it was that his despicable regime succeeded in uniting all his enemies: the Church, the business community, the academe, the studentry, urban poor and peasants to rise and most of all the victims of his regime's many human rights violations to tell him: It was time to go. And for the US president to call him out, and say: “Time to cut clean.” He was brought to Hawaii instead of Paoay, exiled in disdain, rejected by his people and forced to remain in foreign soil until his death. I happened to visit my parents those times in Honolulu, and I did pay a courtesy call and offered my respect to a fallen leader. I whispered to his coffin in Makiki Heights that I had already forgiven him for having me arrested me. And I thanked him for appointing me as labor arbiter at the very young age of almost 27, the youngest ever and the only one outside Luzon to be so trusted by the imperial Manila's ruling class.

I was trying to be fair and humane. Marcos was not entirely an evil man. He did many good things. He was a brilliant leader who appointed the best minds into his Cabinet, such competent, high-caliber thinkers, doers and technocrats, like the illustrious Carlos P. Romulo, Cesar Virata (grandson of General Emilio Aguinaldo), Dr. O D Corpuz, Dr. Jimmy Laya, and my boss, the doyen of social justice and labor relations, the great Blas F. Ople, among many others. Marcos was a more effective public speaker than Quezon, Osmeña, Roxas, Quirino or Magsaysay, Garcia or Macapagal. He impressed both the UN and the joint session of the US Congress when he spoke extemporaneously before both bodies, and memorized all the landmark events in history from prehistoric to medieval and to modern times. He could explain all the nuances of philosophies and ideologies and described in vivid details the characters of all heroes and villains in politics, science and arts. He was a bar topnotcher who reviewed inside his prison cell, while writing more than 200 pages of his appeal brief in the infamous Nalundasan case, where he was convicted of murdering his father's political rival.

He built the San Juanico Bridge, the Cultural Center, the Convention Center and connected all islands via the Maharlika Highway, from Ilocos to Davao. Of course, the thousands and one infrastructures that he erected are forgotten, overshadowed by the many violations of human rights and allegations of summary executions. He had all his political enemies arrested and detained, men like Ninoy Aquino, Pepe Diokno and Lorenzo Tañada, Nene Pimentel and Ramon Mitra. Serging Osmeña fled to the US. Serge, who married a Lopez girl, was arrested with Henry and detained, until they escaped. Marcos sequestered many private companies, including the Lopezes-owned and controlled Meralco, ABS-CBN, Chronicle Publications and closed all print and broadcast media. He silenced his enemies and used the declaration of Martial Law as the platform to overhaul the government. He destroyed the two party system and forgot that he was both a Liberal Party and Nacionalista Party stalwart one after the other. He organized a behemoth, the KBL, which was the aggregation of all opportunist balimbings and trapos.

Marcos was accused of masterminding the murder of Ninoy Aquino but I don't think so. He was too brilliant for such stupid thing. He was accused of the Jabida Massacre and for many atrocities against the Muslim people. But nothing has been proven. He was accused of rigging many elections, both national and local. He was charged of manipulating the proceedings of the 1972 constitutional convention, of bribing delegates and of coercing those who insisted to oppose his whims. But nothing had been proven. He was accused of plunder and massive corruptions, and only a few of the charges were proven. His so-called hidden wealth in billions of dollars remains a mystery and only the top of the icebergs had been exposed. He must have left  truckloads of money to his family but nobody could say because the alleged  numbered accounts in Swiss banks could not be disclosed due the inviolable rules on secrecy in that European nation.

But all these too shall pass. Lives shall pass. Wealth shall pass. Power shall pass. Walang forever. Our great grandchildren will be asking: Marcos who? EDSA what? One hundred years from now, the Marcoses will just be a small dot in the big book of Philippine history. Ferdinand Marcos and Ninoy Aquino, fraternity brothers and political nemesis, will just be micro annotations in the pages of our story as a nation and as a people. You and I will never ever be mentioned by then. Walang forever.