Not in my hometown
Magdiwang
The politicians have started campaigning for 2004.. so we should also
start educating our electorate! please pass on this message to other
pinoys (here and abroad - absentee voting now in effect) who wan to
take positive steps in helping ensure we elect worthy candidates!
===============================================================================
Not in my hometown
--by Cynthia Patag
http://www.inq7.net/opi/2003/apr/26/opi_commentary1-1.htm
"We're never coming back," my eldest sister declared. "Iloilo is
primitive! All those shanties!" My sister and her cardiologist husband
reside in Texas, USA. To think Iloilo province prides itself in having
a broad middle class.
I am a true-blue Ilongga. When my family relocated to Manila in 1972,
right after I graduated from high school, this "promdi (provincial
lass) experienced a culture shock of enormous magnitude. When I came
back to Iloilo early this year, I got another shock.
The first jolt came when I went to the West Visayas State University
(WVSU) to enroll for a Bachelor of Science in Education diploma. The
dean of education, Dr. Andora, mentioned casually that their guest
speaker for this year's graduation rites was Congresswoman Imee
Marcos.
"Kaya naman namamatay na 'tong bayan natin, eh! (That's why this
country is dying)" I protested. "if there's one person who ravaged our
country, it's Ferdinand Marcos. Before he became president, or
nation's debt to the World Bank was one billion dollars. By the time
the Marcoses were driven out of this country after 21 years in power
by the EDSA People Power Revolution in 1986, the amount had risen to
20 billion dollars. Today, our nation owes its foreign creditors 54.5
billion dollars. We have never recovered from the rapacity of the
Marcos regime!"
Maybe I should have warned the dean not to get me started. But then I
remembered Liliosa Hilao.
On April 4, 1973, Liling, 23 and a fourth-year journalism scholar at
the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila [University of the City of
Manila] and editor of Hasik, the student publication, was picked up by
four burly agents of the Constabulary Anti-Narcotics Unit (CANU), led
by Lieutenant Rodolfo Garcia, at her house in the Project 2 district
of Quezon City. Two days later, Liling was found dead in a toilet at
the CANU headquarters and foaming at the mouth. She had reportedly
drunk muriatic acid.
An independent inquiry showed that Liling had been severely tortured,
sexually abused and then killed by her captors. The military officer
held principally for her torture and death was Lieutenant Arthur
Castillo. He remains in the military service.
On April 7, 1986, the SELDA group of former political detainees filed
a class action suit against Marcos before the Federal District Court
of Honolulu, Hawaii, for gross human rights violations. Liliosa
Hilao's case was the first to be presented in court.
"But the sins of the father shouldn't be vested on their children,"
said the dean.
In his speech at the 17th anniversary or the Presidential Commission
on Good Government, Executive Secretary Alberto Romulo noted "the
thorough and systematic plunder of the Treasury and government banking
and financial institutions and corporations during the Marcos regime,
such as the DBP (Development Bank of the Philippines) and the PNB
(Philippine National Bank),
so much so that in 1986 and 1987 alone, at least 209 billion pesos of
taxpayers' money was required to bait them out." Romulo lamented that
many years later none of the Marcoses and their cronies were behind
bars.
"As Christians, we must learn to forgive," the dean reminded me.
I had to take a deep breath. "The Marcos family is not asking for
forgiveness! I told her.
During a visit to General Santos City, Imee Marcos, who many believe
is seeking a senatorial post in 2004, said, "We are willing to
apologize provided we know what it is we are supposed to say sorry
for."
In March 1997, the US Federal District Court ordered the Marcoses to
indemnify 10,000 human rights victims of the Marcos regime to the tune
of two billion dollars. Lawyers representing the victims cited at
least one human rights case involving Imee Marcos.
The victim's name was Archimedes Trajano, a 20-year-old student of the
Mapua Institute of Technology. In 1973, during a forum held at the
University of Santo Tomas, Trajano asked Imee Marcos why she was
serving as chairperson of the Kabataan Barangay (Youth Council) when
there had been no election. Immediately after the forum, Imee's
bodyguards abducted him. A week later, his corpse was found. It bore
unmistakable signs of torture.
Trajano's parents sued Imee Marcos for murder and torture before the
US Federal District Court of Hawaii. In 1992, the court found Imee
Marcos guilty and ordered her to pay Trajano's parents the sum of one
million dollars.
"Those are your perceptions," the educator retorted.
Whoa. What's next for Imee Marcos-an honorary doctorate?" How naive of
me.
"And what did Imee donate to WVSU?" I asked.
"Nothing."
As if. I decided to enroll at the Central Philippine University.
**
"Nothing," Dr. Rosario Acerson of the Iloilo Doctor's Hospital (IDH)
replied when I asked her if she had anything new to say after the
Supreme Court ordered the Kuratong Baleleng case reopened. A week
earlier, upon he recommendation of Dr. Rene Juaneza, the IDH board had
invited Senator Panfilo Lacson to be the guest of honor and speaker at
the launching of the IDH Kidney Foundation.
Were the doctors who had worked hard to put up the foundation aware of
the character and background of their guest of honor? "I can't
tolerate this," Dr. Acerson said.
As if. Exactly what she couldn't tolerate, she didn't explain.
My hometown is giving me a colossal culture shock! The general apathy
I've experienced alternately disgust and saddens me. But lately, thank
God, I have met some Ilonggos with a social conscience. Let's not
forget Jund Abordo.
To this day, the Marcoses have not paid a single centavo to the human
rights victims, many of whom have passed away. In the meantime, Imee
Marcos, with
gazillions of loot at her disposal, is everywhere in the Western
Visayas region.
"Artista ang packaging, 'day!" [Being packaged as an actress!]
"Nangangampanya na talaga" [Campaigning in earnest], with a formidable
national media network to cover her activities. The buzz is that her
staff solicits invitations for her grace events in the remotest towns.
Malls are not spared.
The local government officials who invite her a equally revolting.
(Are they
salivating for blood money as doles?) Shame.
Then there's the legendary short memory of Filipinos. I call it
cowardice.
The youth compromise 59 percent of the voters in 2004. Most of them,
however, are not aware of the major role Marcos and his cronies played
in the "death by decomposition" of our nation, as Nelson Navarro once
put it. Every day, as many as 3,000 Filipinos, among them members of
the upper middle class, leave our country, having lost all hope for
our country.
If Imee Marcos wins a Senate seat in 2004, she will be the first
Marcos to win in a national election since EDSA People Power I,
although she won't be the first to use the Senate as a refuge from
civil and criminal suits. "Pag itong isinuka na ng bayan ibabalik pa
sa poder, patay na" [If this person that the nation rejects will be
restored to power, that's it for us]. Justice will never ever come to
pass "sa mahal nating bayang Pilipinas" [in our beloved country the
Philippines]. So help us God.
-----------------------------
Cynthia Patag has a Bachelor of Arts in Literature degree from De La
Salle University and is now working on a second diploma so she can
teach English to public school students.
Rebecca Chua Enriquez
and elitism. Short of an atomic cataclysm, nothing with ever change in our
country. People Power" was an excuse to leave work and school for a few
days. It was never a "movement" and the lack of firm will on the part of the
masses means it never will be a "movement".
Jobs, opportunity, etc., are found by who you know, not what you know. It is
so simple that people in our country wallowing in this never-ending farce
cannot see it.
Those "common" people you see demonstrating for the Marcos clan, you know
the ones, ragged clothes, only three teeth left in their mouths, etc., are
doing so because they have fond memories that the Marcos regime gave them a
prize tricycle route, etc., etc. Ideology has nothing to do with it. Nor
does logic.
So, escape if you can, travel and live abroad, then go back, be duly shocked
at the squallor, then regal in the cheap prices and the privilege you are
now accorded by being "from abroad". Oh, yes, bring a few trinkets or cans
of Spam along to perpetuate the myth that all is well.
"Woke up on the sarcastic side of the bed" Pigette
kurakot
It's thje only chance for people to make extra buck....IMHO they should call
an election EVERY month
k
"Magdiwang" <magd...@operamail.com> wrote in message
news:6fba2938.0309...@posting.google.com...
Just JT
Sabi ni "Magdiwang" <magd...@operamail.com>:
>
> PLEASE read. We have to do something for our country.
>
> The politicians have started campaigning for 2004.. so we should also
> start educating our electorate! please pass on this message to other
> pinoys (here and abroad - absentee voting now in effect) who wan to
> take positive steps in helping ensure we elect worthy candidates!
HOw can we possibly educate the electorate when the election process is
really a circus. There are no policies and issues discussed. It's all
personalities and mudslinging and personal attacks. Even an educated person
deep into political issues would have difficulty figuring out which
candidate is worth voting for. They all look like crooks anyway.
--
DalubHonestPolliesCan'tPossiblyWinAnyway