“When his words were pointing against the messenger himself”
It is not surprising if the “Revolution” in EDSA was also itself a product of Marcos’s own words. Be it the desire for Political Liberation, Economic Emancipation, and of Social Concord, his words were rather pointing against himself as the people themselves were trying their best to shift from the politics of personality towards politics of principle.
However, despite change of leadership and even changing the constitution this doesn’t make way for the changes people desired, let alone to hear them trying to express in the spirit of having freedom and democracy in the country. Wages remained low, prices continue to increase, Of course these people who marched and demand major social changes in the streets are also engaging in gainful work in order to assure a life worthy of dignity, but reality becomes otherwise as society itself is an arena wherein exploitation and survival as its truths- as seen by today’s subservience to neoliberal capitalism, globalisation, and a government forcing people to pay taxes to pay debts. Marcos and his successors did preach alot of “nationalism” as if to placate the feelings of the people, but will the people get contented in the superficial as promoted by the administration?
Perhaps society forgot that the people didn’t oust Marcos for the sake of ousting him and his circle; for it was itself a product of an irreversible process that’s sweeping the developing world- whose demands both morally and historically, the mitigation if not the elimination of mass poverty, injustice, want, ignorance and illnesses, which can be accomplished by an empowered populace and in turn transformation of societies into adequate environments for development. Again, Marcos said that just to claim “a new society” takes place in the country, but the situation becomes otherwise as the very administration itself sworn to upheld the social order people detest with. Having one oligarch, despotic landlord or warlord for another, while rephrasing existing reforms and laws if necessary to show that change has undergone.
That until today remains a “standard operating procedure” regardless of denials. Of course they would say that “no democracy can be authentic if it the captive of an oligarchy whose interests are at cross purposes with those of the majority”, but again becomes otherwise the way Marcos dismantled the old congress to destroy the accumulation of privilege, corruption, and oligarchic captivity- yet his Batasang Pambansa consists of those from the old order itself, happened to be supporting Marcos and Marcos provide them the privileges he himself “sworn to remove it” if not playing one clique after another. And these traits remained even after 1986 until present.
In one of Marcos’s notes he said about the need for “capitalism with a human face”, but reality shows that capitalism has no conscience let alone pretending to have one. There are those who promote fair trade even under capitalism, but there are also those who simply riding in it and claiming they’re promoting fairness and justice while obviously exploiting, hence corrupting the very nature of fair trade or any idea that tries to give capitalism a semblance of fairness and justice. Marcos would even show that “capitalism with a human face” as better than that of welfare statism or any other alternative idea - no wonder why the budget being spent on edifice complexes as a showcase of “development”, initially eschewing need for mass housing, better healthcare and education, only to be needed as political leverages and in exchange for loyalties. The trade and loan agreements that claiming to be for national development during his time and those of his successors brought short term growth that turned out to be bubbles waiting to be bursted and thus affecting every walk of life as it pays every peso for it.
For sure loyalists strongly disagree in this note given their strong support towards the past administration and its present day counterpart. The current administration promised to make the country great as that of the past administration with its promise of change. But find it ironic that they themselves adhere to personality based form of politics than seriously adhering to their idol’s so-called desire for a politics of principle. On second thought since they wished for radical changes, the problem is does radical changes limit to that of top to bottom decrees? Of pressing need for constitutional amendments? They hated oligarchs yes, but did they talk about the need to remove the very order that benefited the oligarch? Or just because that oligarch happened to be in an opposition against their idol?
For sure there are a lot of questions to answer, but to cut this note short the need for a politics of principle is in fact manifested through an empowered populace- and not from self-proclaimed leaders whose intent is to perpetuate power while claiming to be improving the well being of the people. After all, of what is politics of principle if reality shows its otherwise? As far as a concerned person knows was that the call for land reform, national industrialisation, an end to unequal agreements, freeing political prisoners, freedom of press, speech, and expression, and self determination for national minorities is itself the struggles for economic emancipation, political liberation, and social concord- and these doesn’t simply end in EDSA, Mendiola, or even in the mountains of Cordillera.
For as ever concerned folk are still taking some time to seek truth from facts as the order’s narrative is countered by its inconvenient facts, and if time comes, a time of reckoning against an ever rotting order may occur once again.