In this file photo, presumptive vice president ‘Inday’ Sara Duterte take a selfie with president-elect Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr. in a campaign sortie prior to the May 9 national and local elections. The former senator’s apparent landslide victory in the polls raised immediate concerns but his advocacy to pursue continuity and patriotism has triggered a unifying effect among Filipinos.
When you can’t make them see the light, make them feel the heat.
— Former United States president Ronald Reagan
SOME people, especially the so-called ‘Pinklawans’, are in a quandary over the question of the landslide victory of president-elect Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos (BBM) Jr. and his running mate ‘Inday’ Sara Duterte-Carpio in the recently concluded national and local elections.
We would recall that upon seizing the presidency in 1986, a vindictive president Corazon Cojuangco-Aquino started her relentless persecution of the late ex-president Ferdinand Edralin Marcos Sr. and his family, making it sure that members of the Marcos family were demonized in all ways possible—even going to the extents of defacing what structures and organizations the clan had left behind.
Something similar to this happened in Egypt thousands of years ago when statues and monuments of a discredited pharaoh were destroyed on orders of a successor who branded him as a heretical ruler of the Nile. But history tells us great men are never really forgotten or struck out of our memories.
On probably (Cory) Aquino’s instigation, criminal cases were likewise filed against BBM’s father, all focusing on his allegedly ill-gotten wealth. And even his closest associates, tagged as ‘Marcos cronies’, were also persecuted and forced to return what they had reportedly stolen from public coffers.
President Marcos Sr., whom the Americans whisked to Hawaii at the end of the bloodless February 1986 People Power Revolt, desired to return to the Philippines so he could defend himself in court, but the widow of the late senator Benigno ‘Ninoy’ Aquino Jr. refused to allow Marcos’ repatriation.
That refusal notwithstanding, the criminal cases against President Marcos were still pursued by Aquino’s hand-picked Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG), which was headed by an ex-senator whose ambition to become president in either 1973 or 1977 was effectively derailed by the advent of Marcos’ martial law proclamation in September 1972.
The big irony of it all is that the PCGG was seen by many as corrupt and incompetent because many of its officials and so-called ‘agents’ abused the authority given to them. They symbolized institutionalized corruption and became the purported ‘evil’ they were supposed to fiscalize in the first place. And after more than three-and-a-half decades, it’s amusing (and galling) to realize that the public moneys spent on the operations and expenses of the top anti-corruption body was far more than the alleged ‘ill-gotten wealth’ it supposedly was able to recover for the country.
Still, Aquino and her flunkeys continued to demonize the Marcoses, even after Ninoy’s widow stepped down from seat of power in 1992. And her hatred of Marcos and his family survived her own death and continued on during the administration of her son, Benigno Simeon ‘Noynoy’ Aquino III.
When President Marcos died in 1989, the hate-filled Corazon Aquino refused to allow his remains to be returned to the Philippines and following this, four presidents after Aquino ignored the issue. It was only the strong-willed President Rodrigo Roa Duterte who finally paved the way for the rightful burial of BBM’s father at the Libingan ng mga Bayani. Yet, even that burial, lawful and proper under the Constitution and the law, was hatefully opposed by sectors closely allied with the Aquino family.
So now, after deep contemplation and study, our contemporary electorate has shown their willingness to put an end to the vindictiveness sowed by the Aquinos as well as the damaging propaganda that was peddled to tarnish the Marcos name. In reaction, Filipino voters also saw in BBM a silver lining of hope that could usher in a better tomorrow.
The majority’s disapproval for everything that represented the Aquinos and their lackeys was undoubtedly manifested on Election Day, when voters overwhelmingly gave their blessings to Bongbong Marcos.
Equally monumental is ‘Inday’ Sara’s victory.
The reelection of President Duterte would have allowed a continuation of his accomplishments, but the Constitution forbids a second term for any sitting president; this is where his daughter comes in as her being an independent-minded person makes her fully capable of initiating what is best for the country while tempered with the will to continue her father’s political legacy and achievements.
So, with BBM and ‘Inday’ Sara on the same team, we expect continuity and no-nonsense public service. That, simply said, explains why they won by a landslide in the May 9 polls.
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In this file photo, presumptive vice president ‘Inday’ Sara Duterte take a selfie with president-elect Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr. in a campaign sortie prior to the May 9 national and local elections. The former senator’s apparent landslide victory in the polls raised immediate concerns but his advocacy to pursue continuity and patriotism has triggered a unifying effect among Filipinos. (Photo: Daily Tribune)
