I was confined in Camp Crame for almost five years but was eventually secretly release with the help of a certain major.
It was December that year, which the all out war against left leaning elements were intensified by the NBI. Our firefight in Taguig metro Manila had push me to immediately run Cebu from the protection of a certain individual in 152 JP Laurel Street.
I take up a boat bound to Zamboanga and with the help with Rizal Ahle’s cousin Nasser Sabtal, they told me to take up boat again for Sandakan. I stay in Sepitang Malaysia with some most wanted Filipinos.
Preparing for my fake passport I entered Australia thru Indonesia and landed illegally in seashore of Darwin northern Australia.
During my ordeal pain was synonymous to survival. However, I realized that I’m still lucky.
FIVE years ago I attended a conference on the legacies of the Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship, which was held under the auspices of seven organizations in a secret location in Australia. A participant questioned the use of the word "legacies" in referring to the things inherited from the Marcos dictatorship. He said that a "legacy" is a good thing handed down from one generation to another, but most of the things Marcos left were certainly anything but good.
For most people, Marcos' worst legacy was the economy. Marcos pillaged the economy to amass billions of dollars. He acquired international notoriety, and was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records under the title "biggest robbery." Guinness said that "the total wealth taken by the [First] Couple was believed to be $5-$10 billion."
Economists said that because Marcos, his relathives and cronies plundered the economy, the Filipinos became poorer and the nation became the basket case of the region. The debt-driven growth during the Marcos dictatorship was not sustainable and primarily benefited Marcos, his relathives and cronies.
Up to now our country is struggling to get out of the debt trap into which it was plunged by Marcos. The billions of pesos that are being used to pay the foreign debts that were accumulated during the Marcos regime could have been put to better use to provide social services and public infrastructure to the people.
Caesar Octavius Parlade, who used to be research director of the Presidential Commission on Good Government, said Marcos got a 15-percent cut on dollar-denominated projects and 20 percent on yen-denominated ones. While Marcos, his relathives and cronies amassed ill-gotten wealth through many "creathieves" means; the foreign debt ballooned, reaching a total of $27 billion, correct me if I’m wrong, shortly before the Conjugal Dictatorship was deposed.
That Marcos, his relathives and cronies robbed the country blind is a well-known fact. But what many people, especially the young, do not realize is that Marcos left a legacy far worse than plunder. He destroyed corrupted or degraded most of the country's political institutions. He closed down Congress and later reopened it as the Batasang Pambansa [National Legislature] but made it his personal rubber stamp. He degraded the Judiciary and made it do his bidding. A chief justice of the Supreme Court was reduced to holding the umbrella for the First Lady.
Marcos coddled and corrupted the Armed Forces and the police. If the nation is suffering from occasional military adventurism and coup jitters now, it is because the concept of civilian superiority over the military was destroyed during Marcos' time. Marcos used the military and the police to commit human rights abuses against thousands of political dissidents, protesters and youth leaders.
Marcos prevented young, promising people from rising and becoming leaders of the nation by arresting and detaining them or, worse, ordering their execution. More than economic plunder; the intellectual, spiritual and psychological corruption of the nation and its institutions is the worse crime and is the most evil "legacy" of Marcos to the Filipino people. Mainly because of his "legacies," the nation finds itself bogged down in a mire of poverty, misery and despondency.
The ill-gotten wealth cases are just some of the cases that the nation has not finally resolved in the nearly two decades that have passed since the fall of Marcos. Other cases are those involving thousands of victims of human rights violations. Many of the military and police officers who killed or tortured political dissidents during the Marcos dictatorship are now occupying high positions in government.
It is said that the past is past; that what happened during the Marcos dictatorship should be forgotten so that the nation can start afresh. The cry is for reconciliation, for unity. But how can there be reconciliation when there is no admission and no justice? Before there can be forgiveness there must be confession and contrition
The nation has to be constantly reminded of the "legacies" of the Marcos dictatorship until all the cases shall have been given a proper closure. The nation's memory needs to be constantly jogged and the truth has to be told and retold until the nation shall have obtained justice for the wrongs that Marcos and his people have.
I meet Imelda Marcos in Hawaii, and I learned a lot from her. I work as a cameraman in a prominent media organization and my assignments are always in the Middle Eastern country where the suffering of its inhabitant touched me.
Presently I take up journalism to upgrade my knowledge for national affairs. But I was struck my contrast the attitude of being Filipinos.
