Marcos or Aquino?
“Are you a pro-Marcos or anti-Marcos?” and “Marcos or Aquino?” are the most frequently asked questions from my friends or anyone. Who am I for? Do I really have to choose? Can’t I just be on the center of the two sides? I don’t know. I’ve learned the biography of the former presidents Ferdinand E. Marcos and Corazon Aquino (let’s include her husband) from first grade up to now. I have heard so many stories about them and their regimes that I don’t know who and what to believe anymore. Nowadays, propaganda and conspiracies are so common in the media, newspapers, history books, and in the internet. You can read many information about them easily, so easy that you didn’t even know that you’re reading the lies and the false ones. Corazon Aquino had the charisma but I think she despised the Filipino farmers, and I think it is somewhat wrong to convict 16 military officials in a mistrial for the death of your husband, right? It is a miscarriage of justice! Ferdinand Marcos had the leadership skills and the prospect to be the utmost president of the Republic of the Philippines. But, he somewhat became catastrophic to the economy, politics, and to the society, and he left the Philippines far less competitive. Ferdinand’s list of accomplishments is as long as his crimes and delinquency. The impact of their regimes are still haunting this present time and I don’t understand why. Yes, you can’t just move on from the oppression that those years brought to you and to your family, but can’t someone forget the past for the sake of their country in the present time?
Marcos or Aquino? For now, no one. I will not choose a side because I don’t know the truth. I hope the Filipino people will soon realize that it divided the community and now it slowly divides the younger generation and students, who weren’t even born before those years and didn’t even know the real story. The Philippines is facing so many great problems, tribulations, menaces, adversities, and the burial of Marcos to the Libingan ng mga Bayani is a least of it. The civil war in the Mindanao is still raging, the Chinese folks are slowly abducting the West Philippine Sea, there are killings everywhere and the death toll rises, there are still a great majority of the poor, the corrupt officials are on the government, etc., and yet what are we all doing? Both regimes had many crimes and they also had achievements. It’s not easy to see the good in spite of the bad, because there were incidents which happened that we may never fully comprehend. I don’t look down to those pro-Marcos and pro-Aquino groups protesting about their anti-slogans or whatsoever, but I hope when it comes to much more significant matters that will surely affect the present there will be a unity between them. Let’s just pray for those who died during those malevolent times and that it will never happen again. The Philippines is a beautiful country with many races and ethnic groups, religions, language and dialects, and I always desire that there will be a continuous unity from each Filipino even though we are with different perspectives, faith, beliefs, and own understanding.
THIS IS A RECAP OF SOME OF THE THINGS I’VE LEARNED ABOUT THEM FROM MANY SOURCES AND PEOPLE
Let’s start with their depraved acts:
The Marcos Regime
Ferdinand Marcos defeated Macapagal in the 1965 election, and Sergio Osmena Jr. in the 1969 election. On the first four years of his presidency, Philippines was on a big debt and bankruptcy and to continuously lend money from foreign banks, the Marcos regime lowered the value of Peso and they increased the taxes that the price of the products also increased. During his second term Marcos faced a host of domestic problems. Many university students and other Filipinos actively opposed the continued U.S. military presence in the Philippines and Marcos’s support for U.S. policy in Vietnam. Revolutionary groups were getting active and stronger so that the Marcos regime attacked the people, and they suspended the writ of habeas corpus to freely abuse those who tried and were fighting their power. And on September 21, 1972, Ferdinand Marcos declared the reign of Martial Law in the country. The human rights were slowly abolished and the freedom of speech was taken away from the people and media. Marcos changed the Constitution of 1935 to give himself and his cronies an unlimited time to their reigning power and it gave him an absolute power. Hundreds of decree and laws were made and strengthen to give the foreign capitalist a big privilege, therefore the rights of the Filipino workers were taken away and they suffered from a very low salary. They plundered the Philippine economy through their system of “crony capitalism,” in which they controlled monopolies in industry, communications, and banking. He was accused for the assassination of Benigno Aquino Jr. and it sparked the anger of some, especially his wife Corazon Aquino. The Marcos regime was vanquished with the 1986 People Power, but it didn’t end and gave solution to the real crisis of the country.
The Aquino Regime
Corazon Aquino won against Marcos on a snap election. An army revolt and demonstrations on her behalf led to Aquino’s inauguration. Under the Aquino regime, the crisis of the country worsened. Aquino continued to give the foreign capitalist a privilege for them to get more profit from her own countrymen. The increasing foreign investor and capitalists didn’t help on the rise of the economy. Instead, Aquino begged to the foreign banks to lend her some more, and this act worsened the lives of the people. From 26 billion dollars, the country’s debt heightened to 30 billion dollars by the year 1992. The Aquino regime pretended that they despised the structure of the Marcos regime, with this disguise the Aquino regime attacked the people with fascism, especially the Filipino farmers. The Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) gave more power to the landlords on their large agricultural lands. The Herrera Bill (RA 6715) took away the rights of the Filipino workers to complain. The Aquino regime also pretended that they were interested with the peace talk, but they didn’t really. After the “peace talk” failed on January 1987, Aquino stated the “total war”. Under the power of the “total war”, they organized a campaign and military operations that were more powerful, bigger, and more destructive than the ones with the Marcos regime. Because of the failure of the Oplan Mamamayan, they changed it into Oplan Lambat Bitag 1 at 2 (OLB 1 at 2), which was constituted by Gen. Fidel Ramos to ‘pigilin ang paglago ng mga armadong kilusan sa pamamagitan ng solusyong militar’. All of it failed to stop the growing and lasting revolutionary power, but it made a great destruction and a cross to bear for the people. The Aquino regime also attacked a legal party and one of the most terrible and brutal was the Mendiola Massacre on January 26, 1987, were many protesting farmers were killed and wounded.
Now, let’s talk about their great accomplishments.
The Marcos Regime
- Completed 20 Power plants
- Completed 9 major bridges in the Philippines including hundreds of bridges under 100 m long
- Established and founded 108 universities and colleges, and 37 high schools
- Established many infrastructures like hospitals (Philippine Lung Center, Philippine Heart Center, etc.), museums, parks, theaters, and conventions.
- NLEX
- MRT (the first in South-East Asia on that time)
- Manila International Airport (now Ninoy Aquino International Airport)
- Promoted human rights and civil liberty
- Directed the country through difficult times
- Elevated nationalism and the Filipino language
I repeat, this is just a little information about them. I have limited resources and I researched about the info that were stated by some friend and relatives to know if it is clearly a fact.
Luz, 19
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