MY STAND ON THE QUESTION,DID MARTIAL LAW SAVE THE PHILIPPINES FROM TOTAL COLLAPSE?
“What
this (democratic) revolution requires is a political leadership that finds
reason to institute radical reforms and, more important, has the courage to act
on behalf of the people, and thus against the (oppressing) oligarchy, including
its power brokers in the ranks of the intellectual elite..... Of what good is
democracy if it is not for the poor?!”
– Pres. Ferdinand E. Marcos, An Ideology for Filipinos (1980)
First of all, don’t get me wrong. I don’t
favor Martial Law, for the simple reason that it has dark attributes. It can be
used by some ambitious military officers for their own selfish agenda. If you
read the older President Marcos’ writings, you’ll know too that he was forced
by circumstances to declare it. It was an unwanted necessity.
Now, however, if you ask me, did the
declaration of Martial Law saved the Philippines from total collapse during
Marcos’ time? The answer is an absolute “yes!”
After the devastation and chaos brought
about by the Luzon-wide flood of 1972, the Philippines was in deep turmoil. The
CPP-NPA and Muslim secessionists took the dire circumstance as an
opportunity to sow greater unrest in the country. Then there was the food and
energy crises worsen by the increasing global oil prices.
The then Congress, controlled by bureaucrat
capitalists, fascist oligarchs and landed elites, prevented socio-economic
reforms. The government was at a virtual standstill and immediate, decisive,
actions need to be executed in order to save the republic.
On September 21, 1972, Pres. Marcos
signed Proclamation No. 1081 placing the entire country under Martial Law. Two days
later, he announced it through radio and television broadcast.
Being once upon a time having a radical
revolutionary thinking; I was almost
recruited by the Kabataang Makabayan of “Ka Nilo” Tayag and later mentored by
Dominador “Ka Domeng” Arellano, two prominent figures in the Philippine social
activism movement, I am not ignorant of the history of “struggles” of the
Filipino masses. In a way, I was at the forefront of it.
I was still a student when Martial Law
was declared. And mind you, I was an activist vocally speaking against it. Well,
it was cultivated by the experience of our house being demolished without due
compensation and the hardship me and mother suffered transferring from one
residence to another. But I’m also observant of the things happening around me.
During Martial Law, people were
disciplined, there was almost zero crime rate, and the people in public service
were courteous. You can leave your bicycle on the street corner without fear of
it being stolen. There was no red tape and document transactions with
government agencies were fast and efficient.
It was during the Martial Law time when
the Land Reform Program of the Marcos administration was set in motion,
unhampered by feudal lords-lawmakers. Thousands of tenant farmers were given
land titles, finally owning the land they till as tenants for decades.
The Philippines enjoyed its best
economic development between 1972 and 1979. The economy grew despite two severe
global oil crises in 1973 and 1979. World Bank data also show that Philippine
Agriculture, crops (rice, corn, coconut, sugar), livestock and poultry, and
fisheries grew at an average rate of 6.8, 3.1 and 4.5 percent, respectively
from 1970 to 1980. During the Marcos’ “Green Revolution,” the annual rice
production in the Philippines increased from 3.68 to 7.72 million tons in two
decades and made the Philippines a rice exporter for the first time in the 20th
century.
In the field of environmental concern,
no other president made such radical and drastic move of abolishing the
Philippines’ log exports. Upon seeing the studies made regarding Philippine
forest, that the rate of falling trees was nearly a hectare per minute, Marcos
issued a series of conservation decrees. In 1973, he directed the phasing-out
of log exports and set January 1976 as the deadline for a complete stop. Under
Martial Law, the once powerful logging concessions in the country could only
whimper. Tree farming, on the other hand, was added as a “pioneer industry” in
the investment incentive list of the Board of Investment. Marcos also enjoined
the C.A.T. and R.O.T.C. cadets to participate in tree planting throughout the
country. More than 10 million trees were planted and, by the early 1980s, areas
near watershed were already reforested. Sadly, however, after Marcos was
removed from power, the logging concessions returned and even the reforested
areas were logged over bald.
Mathematics do not lie. Five of the
eight major dams and 17 hydroelectric and geothermal power plants still fully
functional today were constructed during the Marcos administration. No other
president before or after Marcos was able to achieve such a feat. Aside from this,
more than 90 percent of the bridges, more than 70 percent of the roads and
highways, over 40 percent of the state colleges and universities still existing
today throughout the country were built by the Marcos government.
Finally, it was only Pres. Marcos who
has the initiative to establish a genuine Filipino Ideology, one which is based
on endemic values, tradition and culture, neither left nor right, but a
confluence of what is applicable to the Philippine setting.
So, again, if you ask me, “Did Martial
Law save the Philippines from collapse ?” Yes, indeed!
I was in third year high school when I
won an essay writing contest – “How Can the Youth Help in the Building of the New
Society?” – sponsored by the Office of the President. My essay, titled Revolution
from the Center, was critical of the Marcos government that when the news that
I am being invited to Malacañang was relayed to me by our assistant principal,
shivers ran up and down my spines.
Without recalling all the details of
what transpired during those unanticipated experiences, I will just try to
recall some of the key contents of that essay, among them: That for a
revolution to succeed, it must come neither from the left nor the right, but
from the middle – a revolution from the center; that the government can start
that revolution with radical and revolutionary changes in its policies and
social actions; that government goes to the grassroots of the grievances of the
people and listen with sincerity; that government uses its power to balance the
grave inequality between the poor majority with the rich minority and its
resources and ascendancy to conquer or at least attempt to conquer poverty.
Suffice to say, I was among the seven winners and with that I had the
rare, nervous, shivering, privilege to talk to Minister Victor G. Nituda, head
of the Malacañang Press Corps, and President Marcos himself.
It would still be years of research and profiling before I would be convinced to change my political viewpoint. But I did and, notwithstanding the difficulties in life that my mother and I experienced, I do not regret it. I saw the comparison; I am a living witness of both the Marcos Era and post-Marcos Era; and I know the truth and the lies.
THE PRESIDENT MARCOS LEGACY
