WHY THE MARTIAL LAW ERA

NEEDS TO BE DISCUSSED?

Press Secretary & Presidential Communications and Operations Office (PCOO) Chief, Rose Beatrix “Trixie” Cruz-Angeles, recently made a statement: “Martial Law is a mine in itself... Why don’t we allow a discourse? I think everything should be open to debate, even scientific theories and established facts are always open to question... We don’t have to come to a conclusion. Let us not limit discourse...”
To this the yellow and pink trolls reacted so obviously without thinking. So biased and one-tracked, they are stuck with the argument that Martial Law is all bad.
One particular comment is from a self-proclaimed political analyst, Richard Heydarian: “FYI, there’s nothing to debate on dictatorship, especially the uber kleptocratic kind that produced zero world class industries a la neighboring Taiwan and Korea. Facts clearly show: It was a governance, economic and human rights disaster on so many level! Period!”
A real political analyst would know the moment he read his comment that this guy is a quack – a pinquack!
Allow me to point the real facts, social, economical and historical, the Cory government tried to erase in collaboration with the oligarchic-controlled media.
During the Martial Law era, the people were discipline and valued the traditional giving of respect to their parents and grandparents, to older people, to people in authority. Law and order are strictly preserved. You can walked at night alone without fearing of getting mugged or robbed; you can leave your bicycle in the street unattended without fearing it being stolen; narcotics are a rarity because drug lords are not cuddled but sent to the firing squad! In fact, it was probably the only time in history when the chaotic Divisoria is clean and orderly!
Economically, the Philippines was at its peak during the administration of President Ferdinand E. Marcos. The rice crisis inherited from the previous administation was solved through pioneering government programs and, by the middle of the 1970s, the country was already a rice exporter, probably the only time in our history that it happened.
Anti-Marcos proponents alleged that the Philippines was the “sick man of Asia” during the Martial Law Era. Again, this was the result of Cory Aquino Regime policy of adulterating the school textbooks. Looking back at history and World Bank records, however, says otherwise. The “sick man of Asia” connotation perhaps better pertained to the Philippines that Marcos inherited from President Diosdado Macapagal.
Based on World Bank data, the Philippines’ Annual Gross Domestic Product grew from 5.27 billion dollars in 1964 to 37.14 billion dollars in 1982, and Philippine GDP per capita more than quadrupled from 175.9 dollars in 1964 to 741.8 dollars in 1982, the second highest in Philippine history. Though it fell to 568.8 dollars in 1985. This despite many compounding factors, including extremely high global interest rates, severe global economic recession, and significant increase in global oil price, which affected all indebted countries in Latin America, Europe, Asia, and the Philippines was not exempted. All in all notwithstanding the 1984-1985 recessions, GDP per capita grew at an annual rate of 5.8 percent. Indeed, according to the U.S. based Heritage Foundation, 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” and “Masagana 99” programs, 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. Mathematics do not lie. No other president before or after Marcos was able to achieve this.
The anti-Marcos accused the former president of stealing tens of billions of dollar from the government coffers during his rule. The reality of which no factual or physical evidence has been presented in any court except for intangible allegations. In fact, most of the cases filed against the Marcoses both here and abroad were already dismissed. Marcos himself was quoted as saying: “I have committed many sins in my life. But stealing money from the government, from the people, is not one of them.” How do we go about checking this?
Again let’s do the Math, or the logical estimates, at least. How much money is there really in the Philippine coffers during the Marcos administration? If we include the local and foreign funds, donations and debts, how much money was there available for Marcos? Now, let’s go to government expenditures, how much money do you think his government spent with all the infrastructures built during his time? Five of the eight major dams and 17 hydroelectric and geothermal power plants still fully functional today were constructed during the Marcos era.
In 1983, the Philippines became the second largest producer of geothermal power in the world with the commissioning of the Tongonan 1 and Palinpinon 1 plants. It is also worth mentioning that because of the focus of the Marcos government on renewable energy sources, the country’s dependency on hydrocarbon fuel was at its lowest from the late 1970s to the early 1980s.
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. Not to mention the Light Railway Transit (LRT) system, sea and air ports, irrigation and flood control projects, water supply and drainage facilities, the Kidney, Heart, and Lung Centers, thousands of public markets, hospital and health facilities, arts and cultural buildings, etc. Marcos also spearheaded the development of 11 heavy industrialization projects including steel, petrochemical, cement, pulp and paper mill, and copper smelter. Add to that he Pilipinized major industrial companies previously owned by foreign congomerates.
Historians will one day ask: What would the Philippine Archipelago be without the Pan-Philippine Highway? What would Luzon be without the Candaba Viaduct, the North Luzon Expressway and the South Luzon Expressway? What would Visayas be without the San Juanico Bridge? What would Mindanao be without the Atugan Bridge?
During President Noynoy Aquino’s time, the entire archipelago suffered from drought and water shortage in an El Niño occurrence. The supply of water for irrigation in Bulacan and Rizal were cut-off just to maintain a reduced supply of drinking water for Metro Manila. Imagine if Angat, Ipo and La Mesa dams were not constructed during Marcos time. We would be exporting water from China, perhaps. On the other extreme, imagine if Magat and Pantabangan dams were not constructed. Northeastern and Central Luzon would turn into giant lakes during typhoon seasons. Imagine if the flood control system of Metro Manila was not rehabilitated during Marcos time. The inundation, destruction and damage after Typhoon Ondoy and the 2010 habagat onslaught would be more than tenfold. By the way, the Marcos government master plan of the flood control system for Metro Manila and surrounding suburbs was scrapped and construction discontinued during President Cory Aquino’s regime, simply because “it was a Marcos project.” No alternative plan was ever set in place. The same fate happened with the mothballed Bataan Nuclear Power Plant, which could have prevented the energy crisis of the 1990s and succeeding energy crisis that followed.
The 1986 revolt that ousted Marcos happened in the Ortigas intersection along the Epifanio de los Santos Avenue (EDSA). But did you know that EDSA (known as Highway 54 and Avenida 19 de Junio during President Manuel Roxas’ time), the 23-kilometer long highway we know today, was paved, lengthened, modernized and concretized by the Marcos government?
How much do you think all the aforementioned projects cost? Add the social services, the salaries of government workforce (civilian, police and military), and the miscellaneous expenses of the national government. I wonder, was there anything left to steal? The bigger wonder that the yellow and pink trolls refused to accept is the possibility that Marcos didn’t steal a centavo but, on the contrary, forked out billions to finance and complete his administration’s massive infrastructure projects.
These are concrete evidences that stood the test of time even though much of the records and documents concerning these Marcos programs and projects were ordered purge, burn and destroyed during Cory’s regime.
How about the allegation of human rights abuses? While there are real victims, it can be argued that he was not directly involved. Most of the cases happened during the time when he was already perceived to be at ill-health. He was not the one signing the arrest warrants nor ordering the alleged torture, abduction or killing, and he was not at his full faculty during the time. According to Amnesty International, most of the human rights abuses emanated from the Philippine Constabulary controlled by then General Fidel V. Ramos, who later staged a coup against Marcos. With favors and influences coming from the Democrats bloc in the United States, he was installed as president of the Philippines after Cory Aquino.
The alleged human rights victims were said to number more than 120,000. That many? One might want to check the list. Were they all happened during Marcos’ time? And again, did he really order the arrest and torture, or was it Ramos and the Constabulary, a tactical maneuver offered by the C.I.A. to create chaos and add dissent by the people against the Marcos’ government? I’m very sure the list will shrink considerably upon close scrutiny.
Every administration has a share of its gruesome acts of human rights abuses. Has everyone forgotten the 1987 Mendiola Massacre? The Hacienda Luisita Massacre? How come no one, no command responsibility prosecution was made accountable for this grave killing of peasants? Let us not splash a stigma on Martial Law or on one administration alone.
As we remember Marcos’ undoing, we should also recall his one last act of statesmanship. At the height of the EDSA Revolt, General Fabian Ver was coaxing President Marcos to launch an all-out offensive against Ramos and Enrile, but he refused because many civilians will be caught in the crossfire. That part was seen on television, but not once was it replayed. Had Marcos agreed to Ver’s plan, the scenario would be like the Tiananmen Square carnage in China. Thousands would have perished. Colonel Irwin Ver, then head of Presidential Security Command (PSC), in an interview recalling his last days at Malacañang, remembered Marcos ordering him for “strategic withdrawal to Ilocos.” When he apprised the president that they still have the capability to defend the palace for a long time, the latter responded: “I don’t want us to be shooting at our own people. We must resolve this peacefully.” In the young Ver’s own account: “Here’s my president who many thought was a monster, his back forced against the wall, and though armed with tremendous firepower at his disposal, would not fight his way out, but clear in his mind that he would rather avoid it. At the point when the only option left was to defend the seat of presidency, he chose to leave. He would not fire back at those who were ready to shoot him down. At that moment, I felt deep in my heart that I have served the right commander-in-chief.” Marcos’ last act of ceding power rather than see the shedding of a Filipino’s blood is a noble legacy in itself.
Incidentally, some miswritten books and Internet blogs should be corrected: Marcos didn’t flee to Hawaii. He wanted to go to Paoay, Ilocos Norte, but he was “kidnapped” to Andersen Air Force Base in Guam, before being taken to Hawaii, on the adamant insistence of Cory Aquino to U.S. Ambassador Stephen Bosworth that Marcos should be exiled outside of the Philippines immediately. There are documents, tapes and records to this effect.
Most Filipinos would know that Ferdinand E. Marcos as the tenth president of the Philippines who ruled for 20 or so years. Political information buff would know that he was once a Liberal Party member and the aide of former president Manuel A. Roxas; that he and Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino were best of friends then; that he became the Philippines’ youngest Senate President in 1963; that he joined the Nationalista Party and became its presidential nominee in 1965 after then incumbent president Diosdado Macapagal reneged an agreement that Marcos would be the next LP standard bearer; that he first became president in 1965 beating reelectionist Macapagal; and that he founded the Kilusang Bagong Lipunan (KBL) in 1977. Trivia enthusiasts, on the other hand, would know that his favorite numbers are 7 and 11; that he garnered 98.8 percent in the 1939 Bar Examination, the highest score ever recorded; and he was the Philippine Free Press “Man of the Year” in 1965.
Did you also know that from 1972 to 1986, the Marcos Administration codified laws through 2,036 Presidential Decrees, an average of around 145 per year during the 14-year period? To put this into context, only 11, 12, and 14 laws were passed by the Aquino administration in 2013, 2014 and 2015, respectively. Almost all of the laws passed during the term of Marcos remain relevant, still in force today, and are embedded in the country’s legal system.
Without going into lengthy arguments about his military medals, as there are those who claimed they were fake, two American presidents confirmed the awarding of those medals.
On August 8, 1985, President Marcos received a Soviet Medal of Valor “in recognition of his deeds and heroism against the forces of fascism and militarism” during World War II. And this is on record.
There are, however, many things yet probably unwritten about Marcos. Do you know for instance that his favorite color is white and red? White because, according to him, “is the essence of purity of mind, heart and spirit,” and red “represents courage and revolutionary thought.” Now you know why Marcos Loyalists wear red t-shirts.
Now let’s go on to heavier matters. Activists, radical, reactionary or otherwise, have been calling Marcos tuta ng Kano (American puppet), even until now. Let’s cite some instances which prove this wrong. On his first term as president, Marcos received a note from visiting U.S. president Lyndon B. Johnson asking him to announce publicly that he should send Filipino combatants to Vietnam. Marcos folded the note, put it in a matchbox and throw it in the waste can. In his speech, he vehemently refused: “As long as I am president, I will not send armed combatants to Vietnam.” He sent an engineering battalion and a medical mission instead. President Johnson got mad and was quoted as saying “who does this McCoy think he is?” The western press picked-up on the slang “McCoy.” When Tagalized out came Marcos’ street sobriquet, Makoy.
Another casing point is the declaration of Martial Law, the act of which became sort of a phobia among its victims and his political nemeses and, up to now, is being used as a national stigma. We will not talk about the reasons for declaring Martial Law (as there are a lot of Internet sites where you can google them), but the act itself. Immediately after it was declared on September 1972, U.S. president Richard M. Nixon called on Marcos telling him to abort and that the U.S. government will not support this action. Marcos defied “Uncle Sam,” the first and perhaps the only Philippine leader, until President Rodrigo Duterte, to do so. Since then, his friendship with Nixon soured.
Martial Law, with all the ill-effects glued to it, was also instrumental in pushing for the much-needed economic and social reforms in the country. It stopped the lethargic bureaucracy of the Philippine Congress. “The powerful opponents of reforms were silenced and the organized opposition was also quilted. In the past, it took enormous wrangling and preliminary stage-managing of political forces before a piece of economic reform legislation could even pass through Congress. Now it was possible to have the needed changes undertaken through presidential decree.” This was aptly pointed out by University of the Philippines economics professor and former NEDA Director-General Dr. Gerardo Sicat.
President Duterte is being recently lambasted by rightist and oligarchic elements for having an independent foreign policy. That is, a foreign policy not solely, mendicantly, dependent on the U.S. He is, however, not the first president to do so. In 1975, then First Lady Imelda Marcos went to Cuba. She learned from Fidel Castro that “after 30 years, any lease agreement between sovereign nations concerning land occupancy becomes permanent, and may only be abrogated by mutual consent.” This was based on Cuba’s experience regarding the Guantanamo Naval Base. That is how the base inside Cuba became US property. Since sovereignty was absolute within the premises of the said base, and the lease agreement cannot be unilaterally terminated. Upon knowing this, she immediately told President Marcos knowing fully its parallel consequence on Clark Air Base and Subic Naval Base.
The US military bases in the Philippines were established through the Parity Agreement in 1947, which also started the so-called “mendicant foreign policy.” Interesting to note that it was President Roxas who initiated this policy. Claro M. Recto and Jose P. Laurel opposed it. President Roxas even made a public speech of loyalty (according to Recto, more like subserviency or sycophancy), “kissing the American anus,” at the Kelly Theater on April 15, 1948.
After the abolition of the 1935 Constitution, and the ratification of the 1973 constitution, subsequent amendments and provisions thereafter was made and the military bases became renegotiable every five years. This made it possible for the Philippine Senate under Jovito Salonga to vote for the removal of the bases in 1991. President Cory Aquino was for the status quo. In reality, it is Marcos that we should thank, for the removal of the US military bases. Senator Salonga, for his part, paid a dear price for disobeying President Aquino. He was voted out as Senate President and his financial backer in the business community withdrew their support for his presidential bid.
Aside from this, current brood of students of activism should also know that it was during the Martial Law era that Claro M. Recto’s dream of cutting the chain of “mendicant foreign policy” became a reality. On April 1972, President Marcos initiated the establishment of diplomatic relations with socialist countries of Asia and Europe, which led to progressive trade relations and cultural exchange programs. This in turn marked the end of the Philippines’ period of mendicant policy in foreign affairs and the beginning of a new era of self-reliance. Recalling history, Marcos went to China in June 1975, where Chairman Mao Zedong shook his hand and told him “You must lead the Third World.” The following year, he visited Moscow and established diplomatic ties with Russia.
We owe it all to Recto’s dream and Marcos’ act of defiance against the US. Perhaps, the foremost reason, more than the alleged charges of abuses he committed, why he was stabbed in the back by “Uncle Sam” and ousted from office.
Can Marcos be considered a revolutionary? Before many activists’ eyebrows start flying, let’s profile the man through his writings and principles. In his book The Democratic Revolution in the Philippines (1979), he wrote: “The Democratic Revolution is a rededication to the historical aspirations of the Filipino people, but it makes demands not only on the political authority itself but on the very foundation of that authority: the people,” and “The fundamental reason for building a new society involves the outstanding fact of our age: the rebellion of the poor. This is a rebellion over which the might of government can have no avail, for the poor are, in many ways, the people for which government exist.” It gets more intense in the succeeding book, An Ideology for Filipinos (1980): “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.” He summed it up with his rallying cry: “Of what good is democracy if it is not for the poor?!”
One of the primary objective of Marcos establishing a “new” society is the “conquest of poverty.” Among the poorest poor and the most exploited in the Philippines are the peasant farmers. Land reform was the priority program of the Marcos presidency. But the fact is that before Martial Law was declared, the Philippine Congress was occupied mostly by landlords, oligarchs owning huge landed estates, and feudal vassals, and any and all attempts to pursue a genuine land reform program will not even reach first reading. Marcos had enough of this: “Our people have known enough of exploitation. It is time that our people shared equitably in the fruits of their labor and their land.”
On September 26, 1972, just five days after declaring Martial Law, Marcos decreed the entire country a land-reform area. A month later, he enacted the “Tenant Emancipation Decree.” It was put on paper with his own handwriting: “Decreeing the emancipation of tenant farmers from the bondage of the soil, transferring to them the ownership of the land they till, and providing the instruments and mechanism thereafter....” Marcos wrote it with his own hand because he felt it was both the pioneering and milestone program of his “New Society,” and to show his sincerity. For he knew then: “If land reform fails, then the entire program of the New Society fail.”
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.
Marcos initiated the development of the “Filipino Ideology.” This he did with the help of former activists and rebels, Nilo Tayag, Noni Villanueva, Horacio Morales, Dominador Arellano, to name a few. Tayag was the co-founder of the Kabataang Makabayan (KM), the forefront of youth and student activism during the first to the fourth quarter storms, and the idea and founding of the Kabataang Barangay (KB) undoubtedly sprouted from this concept. Instead of protesting on the streets against policies of government, why not be part of improving such policies; be part of building a “New Society.” Many other ideas deemed revolutionary like the movement for livelihood and development, Kilusang Kabuhayan at Kaunlaran (KKK), the pro-consumer market, Kadiwa, the Green Revolution, the Masagana 99, the Sariling Sikap, etc., were instituted by Marcos upon the advice of these former activists and rebels.
Marcos was a man bound by a visionary objective: “Our revolution’s mandate, indeed, is to render to our people the justice and the good life that are their birthright. Translating this broad mandate into principles and specific policies is the great mission of our time.”
All these reasons bottled up in the hearts and minds of the Pilipino people. For three decades they waited until another Marcos is ripe enough to carry the torch left by his fathers. Then the outpouring, the volunteerism, the solidarity, the courage, the vigilance, exploded in the May 9, 2022 Presidential Election. Ferdinand “Bongbong” R. Marcos Jr won by absolute majority, with a margin of votes bigger than his closest rival. History cannot be stopped in correcting itself. Destiny maybe fulfilled.....

But there’s a lot more to tell!
[Posted on Facebook on June 7, 2022. Most of the contents were taken from my earlier Blogspot posts]