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.

Wednesday, September 21, 2022