Kas 1 Reaction Paper - Kas 1 Essay PDF

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Evangelista, Lance Ferdinand N. B Public Administration | 2019-20621

Kasaysayan 1 (Kasaysayan ng Pilipinas) WFW3 Mr. Francis Justine Malban

The Greatest Fake News in Philippine History “Make it look good,” a ccording to Primitivo Mijares, t his is the statement of the then President Ferdinand Marcos to then Defense Secretary Juan Ponce Enrile before the staging of his ambush. It is undeniable that despite the massive evidence of the atrocities of the Marcos administration still many people are blinded by the lies that are prevailing probably because of the well executed propaganda of the Marcoses and their supporters. The documentary “Batas Militar” features all the important events that happened during the Marcos administration specifically during the Martial law regime in the Philippines. We can see in the documentary on how an intelligent guy like Marcos will be corrupted by power and on how his greediness become a threat to democracy in the Philippines. The documentary has also shown so many information that debunked different fake news that are currently spreading in different social media (golden age of the Philippines, greatest president ever, and etc.) that is trying to revise the course of history. One of the arguments of Marcos apologist in social media platforms is the existence of massive infrastractures in our country and that we should be grateful for Marcos for building those things to us. It is indeed a fact that Marcos was able to construct massive infrastructures that are still relevant today but we need to look at the bigger picture. Majority of the state sponsored infrastructures are loaned only and controlled or managed by his cronies; therefore, these projects doesn't have transparency and corruption exist. In fact according to Arch. Gerard Lico (2003) that the infrastructure projects of Marcos are just propaganda wherein he coined a term “edifice complex” to describe the practice of then Philippine First Lady Imelda Marcos of using publicly funded construction projects as political and election propaganda. In the documentary Imelda Marcos said in her interview that “What makes a home, love, what is love when made real, beauty,” it can be concluded that some of the infrastructures were just made for aesthetic purposes only, to serve as a propaganda that the Philippines is developing wherein in fact majority of the Filipinos are suffering. The claim of “golden age” or having a good economy, if we are going to look into the totality of the whole period of the Marcos regime data will show that it was also false. According to Prof. Alvin Campomanes of UP Manila in an episode of History with Lourd, the economy during Marcos first term was still doing fine but during his second term in the 1970s the economy is starting to fall and becoming unstable (Rivera, Enriquez, Cristobal, & Santillan, 2017). In the article of Punongbayan (2016), he has shown data wherein during the Marcos period we have lost two decades of development, the GDP rate has slowed down, the inflation rate is rising very fast, the administration has neglected some of the industries in the country while supporting his cronies, and the debt of the Philippines has ballooned exponentially. The last claim of the Marcos apologist is that during the Marcos administration the Philippines was very peaceful country were the law is strictly implemented. It is also claimed that the enemy of the state and the source of chaos in the country are the communist or the New People’s Army in the Philippines. If we are going to assess the peacefulness of Marcos regime it can be concluded that the obedience of the people of the law is just based on fear. The claims of “peaceful period” is contradicting to the existence of the human rights violation of the administration to different student leader, activist, and etc. According to the records of Amnesty International (2016) that 70,000 people were imprisoned,

2 30,000 were tortured, and 3,240 were killed during the Martial Law period. The then Senator Rene Saguisag also said that Marcos atrocities has also destroyed the natural evolution of leaders, where have we lost an entire generation of potential leaders who could have been our current leaders (Rivera et al., 2017). It is also important to note that the notion of the increasing threats of communism in the Philippine back then is also a lie. In the documentary Gen. Manuel Yan, a former chief of staff of AFP was against the plan of Martial Law, because he believed that that the threat is still under control and the situation is still manageable. Therefore, Martial Law has just used as an instrument to prolong presidency of Marcos. As an aspiring public servant in the future, I quite admire the brilliance of Ferdinand Marcos because he is a very intelligent lawyer, in fact he is a top notcher and well-known politician. Marcos is also a visionary, we have great plans for the country and he wants to make the Filipino cultures and values be recognized in the whole world. But intelligence alone is not only the basis for good governance and it will never be enough to be a great leader. I remember in the column of Solita Monsod (2019) in Philippine Inquirer during the anniversary of Martial Law last September she said, “‘Honor and Excellence’ is the University’s motto, and it is not by accident or literary standards that honor comes first. For without honor, excellence can be totally useless, if not misused. Only consider Ferdinand Marcos, an alumnus of the University. There was excellence, but honor was absent, and our country suffered for it. His dictatorship lasted 14 years, but it took the Filipino people 20 more years to get back the real per capita incomes they had lost as a result of his corrupt governance.” As a student and as a youth, I respect the memories of the people who haven't experienced/witnessed the atrocities of the Marcos Administration, for the fact that information is very limited and censorship is very prevalent back then. But it will never be an excuse to forget and neglect the people who have sacrificed their lives in bringing democracy back into our country during those period. It is our duty to fight against any forms of historical revisionism and we should also improve the level of historical consciousness of our people. We can only correct the corrupted values and thinking of Filipinos by having an in depth understanding of the past.

3 Source: Collas-Monsod, S. (2019, September 21). Intellectual dishonesty: Let the Faculty decide. Retrieved from https://opinion.inquirer.net/124109/intellectual-dishonesty-let-the-faculty-decide?fbclid=IwAR1P_dU pH-TJnCTDzuL_MymBxCSqk-6a3usyypsOK7ysaS5-PDnsMc3og68.

Lico, G. (2003). Edifice complex: power, myth, and Marcos state architecture. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press. Punongbayan, J. C., & Mandrilla, K. (2016, March 5). Marcos years marked 'golden age' of PH economy? Look at the data. Retrieved from https://www.rappler.com/views/imho/124682-marcos-economy-golden-age-philippines. Rivera, Enriquez, Cristobal, & Santillan. (2017, March 24). Martial Law Myths Busted. History with Lourd. Quezon, Philippines. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=140&v=LUfeatNvseI&feature=emb_title STATEMENT ON FERDINAND MARCOS' BURIAL AT LNMB: Amnesty International Philippines. (2016, November 18). Retrieved from http://www.amnesty.org.ph/news/statement-on-ferdinand-marcos-burial-at-lnmb/....