I got this e-mail from somebody, the author is at the bottom: Martial Law (September 21, 1971) At first, it was welcomed by everybody hoping it was already the long panacea to all our life problems.
Lawlessness went on its ebb. Big and known criminals were eliminated. Bureaucrats were made to tender their resignation so that governance would be improved. Congress and senate were abolished and supplanted with government by decree in order to attain efficiency. It worked during the first five years.
It was dubbed a as "New Society". Every Sept 21 of the subsequent years was a big nationwide celebration of the gain of the new society. What went wrong however was that we had the wrong leader who initiated it. We had a plunderer, despot, murderer, kleptomaniac, womanizer, and a law and economic magician.
Lee Kwan Yu was a dictator but he did not plunder the wealth of Singapore and stash them out of his country. He did not establish secret and bogus accounts with Swiss and Cayman Island banks. He did not print Mickey mouse money every election to win approval to his regime. He did not allow cronies and relatives to take over government corporations, pile up behest loans from government banks and run away with borrowed funds. He was not a bar topnotcher and a brilliant economist yet he brought Singapore to prosperity, a financial center, the cleanest country in Asia and all the best that a country can showcase to the whole world.
We had low regard of our Asia neighbors before. Now our kababayans go there to work as domestics. What made things worst aside from having the wrong leader was our acquiescence, indifference, and the nationalism, and prudence. Many of us knew that after several years, Martial Law was no longer on the path we believe it was headed for.
We allowed it to go on and on until to our shock, we reached a Cassandra crossing, a precipice where there was no other choice but to jump overboard. In an unprecedented state of economic upheaval, many of us had to flee overseas as OFWs, and others forced to migrate legally and illegally as TNTs. Some of us jump for safety only to find themselves in worst trouble. Some landed in jail overseas for various reasons. Some ended as slaves. Others don't get paid for months and years. The horrible effects of Filipinos going overseas is the virtual breakup of families. A family whose father or mother is absent during most of the year is practically a broken family. It becomes a potential menace to the community. Children grow witnessing a mother having another man in her life in the absence of her husband. Children grow witnessing a father having a wife at home and another wife in his place of work overseas. Children grow who learn vices instead of values because of the absence of parents and from bad outside influence. Children grow without seeing their father or mother because the latter cannot go home, if he/she can, he/she cannot come back overseas anymore. And so we see and hear of young people engage in sex at early age, getting pregnant while in high school, and hooked in drugs and drinking spree. Children grow without learning values and virtues, which they are supposed to learn from responsible and ever-present parents.
Martial Law is gone. The despot is gone. But was our economic problem gone too? It did not. We did not gain anything from it. In fact, we only reap a whirlwind and economic disaster. It is still very much around, for the problem was not martial law nor the dictator but us. Martial law was a dark spot in our countries history. Yet we don't seem it ever happened. We did not learn from the horrible experience because we have been injected with moral anesthesia. The painful truth is we injected it ourselves. We cannot see anything wrong in our government and in our society.
Greed and venality is the game of the day and it's all right for us. We don't bother to say anything on what we see for we have no time and no courage to lift a word, write and speak of what we see as wrong.
There are indication that ill-gotten wealth are discovered and identified yet we don’t claim it anymore as belonging to us. We rather borrow money than take possession of our own wealth. We lost great minds in the person of Ninoy, Diokno, Roces and many others trying to defend and uphold our values. They may not have died during martial law. But this ideas and heroism were forgotten, ignored, not honored in our educational system and most of all nobody would like to learn from them.
If there is a survey of role models to be conducted now, I am confident that the topnotchers would be Erap, Fernando Poe, Richard Gomez and Jaworski. These people are worth more emulating than those who wrote great books and lead great lives.
To us, having extended family is no longer immoral. Gambling, begging, selling votes, cheating, and prostitution become decent means of livelihood. Hard work no longer pays. Crime does pay indeed. Injustice become a necessity. Justice is expensive and impossible. They are happening right now and we begin to accept them as realities. Unless and until we change, we will be under virtual martial law for no end. Politicians who take the helm of government will act and behave as such if we allow them. We will continue to see more cronies controlling the economy and stealing our wealth. Graft and corruption will do more irreparable damage. Exodus of more pinoys will go unbated and more intense. And the by-product is a vicious cycle of criminality, banditry, extreme poverty. This is just my tribute to those who died, lost properties and wasted their lives perhaps fighting against a regime and an evil that was Martial Law. Cheers! Vir Abueva Contributing Editor My Bohol Government Making-It-Work! Forum.
(Friday September 22nd 2000 09:31:07; http://books.dreambook.co/palo_leyte/msg.html )
Lawlessness went on its ebb. Big and known criminals were eliminated. Bureaucrats were made to tender their resignation so that governance would be improved. Congress and senate were abolished and supplanted with government by decree in order to attain efficiency. It worked during the first five years.
It was dubbed a as "New Society". Every Sept 21 of the subsequent years was a big nationwide celebration of the gain of the new society. What went wrong however was that we had the wrong leader who initiated it. We had a plunderer, despot, murderer, kleptomaniac, womanizer, and a law and economic magician.
Lee Kwan Yu was a dictator but he did not plunder the wealth of Singapore and stash them out of his country. He did not establish secret and bogus accounts with Swiss and Cayman Island banks. He did not print Mickey mouse money every election to win approval to his regime. He did not allow cronies and relatives to take over government corporations, pile up behest loans from government banks and run away with borrowed funds. He was not a bar topnotcher and a brilliant economist yet he brought Singapore to prosperity, a financial center, the cleanest country in Asia and all the best that a country can showcase to the whole world.
We had low regard of our Asia neighbors before. Now our kababayans go there to work as domestics. What made things worst aside from having the wrong leader was our acquiescence, indifference, and the nationalism, and prudence. Many of us knew that after several years, Martial Law was no longer on the path we believe it was headed for.
We allowed it to go on and on until to our shock, we reached a Cassandra crossing, a precipice where there was no other choice but to jump overboard. In an unprecedented state of economic upheaval, many of us had to flee overseas as OFWs, and others forced to migrate legally and illegally as TNTs. Some of us jump for safety only to find themselves in worst trouble. Some landed in jail overseas for various reasons. Some ended as slaves. Others don't get paid for months and years. The horrible effects of Filipinos going overseas is the virtual breakup of families. A family whose father or mother is absent during most of the year is practically a broken family. It becomes a potential menace to the community. Children grow witnessing a mother having another man in her life in the absence of her husband. Children grow witnessing a father having a wife at home and another wife in his place of work overseas. Children grow who learn vices instead of values because of the absence of parents and from bad outside influence. Children grow without seeing their father or mother because the latter cannot go home, if he/she can, he/she cannot come back overseas anymore. And so we see and hear of young people engage in sex at early age, getting pregnant while in high school, and hooked in drugs and drinking spree. Children grow without learning values and virtues, which they are supposed to learn from responsible and ever-present parents.
Martial Law is gone. The despot is gone. But was our economic problem gone too? It did not. We did not gain anything from it. In fact, we only reap a whirlwind and economic disaster. It is still very much around, for the problem was not martial law nor the dictator but us. Martial law was a dark spot in our countries history. Yet we don't seem it ever happened. We did not learn from the horrible experience because we have been injected with moral anesthesia. The painful truth is we injected it ourselves. We cannot see anything wrong in our government and in our society.
Greed and venality is the game of the day and it's all right for us. We don't bother to say anything on what we see for we have no time and no courage to lift a word, write and speak of what we see as wrong.
There are indication that ill-gotten wealth are discovered and identified yet we don’t claim it anymore as belonging to us. We rather borrow money than take possession of our own wealth. We lost great minds in the person of Ninoy, Diokno, Roces and many others trying to defend and uphold our values. They may not have died during martial law. But this ideas and heroism were forgotten, ignored, not honored in our educational system and most of all nobody would like to learn from them.
If there is a survey of role models to be conducted now, I am confident that the topnotchers would be Erap, Fernando Poe, Richard Gomez and Jaworski. These people are worth more emulating than those who wrote great books and lead great lives.
To us, having extended family is no longer immoral. Gambling, begging, selling votes, cheating, and prostitution become decent means of livelihood. Hard work no longer pays. Crime does pay indeed. Injustice become a necessity. Justice is expensive and impossible. They are happening right now and we begin to accept them as realities. Unless and until we change, we will be under virtual martial law for no end. Politicians who take the helm of government will act and behave as such if we allow them. We will continue to see more cronies controlling the economy and stealing our wealth. Graft and corruption will do more irreparable damage. Exodus of more pinoys will go unbated and more intense. And the by-product is a vicious cycle of criminality, banditry, extreme poverty. This is just my tribute to those who died, lost properties and wasted their lives perhaps fighting against a regime and an evil that was Martial Law. Cheers! Vir Abueva Contributing Editor My Bohol Government Making-It-Work! Forum.
(Friday September 22nd 2000 09:31:07; http://books.dreambook.co/palo_leyte/msg.html )
