“If the ‘matuwid na daan’ continues, in a generation’s time we’ll be a First World country,” an emotional President Aquino said in his final State of the Nation Address last July. More of the same rhetoric on our “great leap forward” to modernity will surely make it to the airwaves as the Aquino administration hosts the Economic Leaders Meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) in Manila on Nov. 18-19.
unwitting court jesters of the world, filipinos are, the philippine government, even religious leaders, included. we’re always good for a laugh or two, laglag bala being only the latest gaffe that has the world laughing in exasperation if not in pain, for us. as for the looming summit, we won’t even need stand-up comics to entertain putin and obama atbp. happily shutting down this third world economy so world leaders can safely party for their economic gains is already too tragic-comic for words anyway. esp because the palace doesn’t get it. joke’s on us.
i thought it was white noise that would go away fast — something the aquino admin would quickly resolve the most painless and graceful way possible, seeing as the APEC summit looms, and the idea is to put our best foot forward, kunwari walang traffic in the air and on land, walang vagrants and beggars, everything’s perfect, lalo na (dapat) sa notorious NAIA.
so i don’t get it. that it’s gotten to the point when travelers are wrapping up their bags and suitcases in plastic, what a hassle, and what a spectacle! yet the palace does not mind? the palace does not see it as too embarrassing, too mortifying, for words — this only-in-the-philippines moment, LOL — and can’t see a way to simply decriminalize possession of a bullet or two? or confiscate it but let the traveller go? after all, really, what’s a bullet without a gun? am i missiing something here?
otherwise, it would seem to be a show of due process kuno to spare who-knows-who. or, wait, is this in aid of distracting from the lumad who are now in liwasang bonifacio and whose presence in manila and the rightness of whose cause the palace has yet to acknowledge? someone please say it isn’t so.
no surprise that marcos jr. is running not for the presidency but for veep. testing the waters muna siyempre, kahit pa naniniwala silang the marcos regime 1965 to 1986 were good years, better than cory’s, fvr’s, erap’s, gloria’s, and noynoy’s put together. in fact, say ni bongbong, kung di nag-EDSA, we would be advanced and first-world like singapore. LOL. yeah, those were good years, the best years, even, of THEIR lives, i.e, the marcoses’ and their cronies’, in particular, no doubt about it, but of nation?
please naman, itigil na ang pagbibilog sa ulo ng taongbayan. the marcos regime was more bad than good for nation, the promised revolution from the center did not materialize, we’re still paying for foreign debts that went into failed (looted) industries and white elephants like the bataan nuclear power plant. and let me not get started on how oppressive, repressive, suppressive that strong-arm rule was, thanks to how marcos the dictator and brilliant lawyer crafted proclamations, executive orders, decrees, and amendments not only to buttress, solidify his (and his heirs’ and cronies’ heirs’) hold on, and everlasting entitlement to, political power (overt and covert), but to preserve and promote forevermore the interests of the ruling class, from the protection of landholdings to control of the nation’s monetary policies — laws and policies that continue/d to be invoked by, and to serve, post-EDSA administrations, from aquino to aquino, mother and son. how’s that for irony.
I am very happy that I was born into the Marcos family. I congratulate myself for picking my parents very well. I have never felt it to be a burden. I have only felt it to be an advantage, a blessing and I am very thankful that I am a Marcos,” he said in a press conference in Quezon City.
faced as we are with the prospect of a marcos to marcos, from father to son, the line “I congratulate myself for picking my parents very well” is worthy of note. it would seem that bongbong believes in past lives and reincarnation – only in occult/mystical thought is there a notion of the unborn soul choosing one’s parents and the circumstances to be born to in the present life. but the concept of reincarnation is all about evolving, growing in wisdom, leveling up, as in a spiral of evolution. for bongbong, since he chooses to follow in the footsteps, and avail of the attendant advantages of the legacy, of his father, then to evolve, that is, to level up, to save the country from perdition, to fulfill the promise of a national revolution sa puso, sa isip, at sa gawa would demand that he acknowledge and learn, first, from the mistakes, the failures, the sins of the conjugal dictatorship. otherwise he is fated to repeat the patterns of corruption and violence set, established, during the rule of his parents, and we should be very very afraid.
meanwhile, on social media, the question still is, should we visit the sins of the father on the children? i’ve always said, yes, in the sense that, if bongbong is sincere about moving the country forward, then he should acknowledge such sins, and do what he can to make amends. only then can we have a conversation about marcos times not being all bad. only then can the nation truly move forward. but, no, i can’t see any of that happening soon, as the imeldific one seems still to be calling the shots, and she could live forever.