When Will We Learn?

At Large : An endless debate

Rina Jimenez-David
Inquirer News Service

THIRTY-THREE years after the declaration of martial law and 19 years after its final vestiges -- namely the Marcoses, their cronies and the whole criminal gang -- were supposed to have been swept away by history, we look around us and discover that not only are the Marcoses still very much around, but that we're still debating the same issues.

The legacy of Ferdinand Marcos is once more under scrutiny, what with the revived issue of his possible burial in Libingan ng mga Bayani [Heroes' Cemetery]. As a "war hero" and guerrilla leader, say his friends and family, Marcos deserves to be interred in the heroes' burial grounds. This, even if historians and critics say he faked his wartime record on which his medals were based, and may even have in fact collaborated with the Japanese. As a former president, add his boosters, he more than deserves a place alongside former presidents, dead soldiers and even national artists. But, counters the other camp, the human rights abuses and wholesale plunder that he presided over and even masterminded cancel out whatever honors the country owes him.

As authorities drew up plans for the celebration of the Centennial of Philippine independence in 1998, observers were astounded when it turned out that historians were still divided between the "Magdalo" and "Magdiwang" factions of the Katipunan, still preoccupied with assigning "blame" for the ultimate failure of the Revolution on Andres Bonifacio or Emilio Aguinaldo. I won't be surprised (if I live that long) if by the time 2072 rolls around, the country will still be debating the merits of martial law, if Marcos did right by suspending civil rights and most legal protections on the excuse of turning back a Communist insurgency and creating a "New Society."

* * *

THAT strikes us -- the generation that lived through martial law -- as funny and even absurd. Our memories, fading as they are, remain sharp about how we felt on the day martial law was announced, the pervasive fear and apprehension that swept through campuses and streets, and the terror spawned by arbitrary arrests and summary executions.

To us, any recollection of martial law is as sharp as a black-and-white photo, the good and the bad outlined with clarity and precision. No wonder we are puzzled and not a little dismayed when later generations, including that of our children, seem to have dimmer and softer recollections, the acuteness blunted by time and second- and even third-hand sourcing.

Unfortunately, it is their generation, the generation of Filipinos who have only vague recollections of those years, who will be making the ultimate decisions regarding the Marcoses and the consequences of the martial law years. This is because our generation, whose legacy it was to fulfill the mandate of the Edsa People Power uprising, took our sweet time resolving the many cases against the Marcoses and the cronies, from stolen wealth to human rights violations, contract murders to wholesale theft of public funds, and even the tacky renovations made on Malacañang.

The Marcos family and the cronies know only too well that time is on their side. The longer they delay resolution of the many lawsuits they face, the better their chances of walking away with the loot and -- it galls me to say this -- even the honor.

* * *

THAT'S why it's important to keep reminding the nation about what martial law was really about and what life was like for Filipinos in that time of absolute power and absolute corruption.

I remember an article on Imee Marcos entitled, "Imee's Endless Apology." And indeed, it does seem as if, no matter what she does, the Ilocos congresswoman could not do enough to let us forget her family history. But it's an endless apology only because she, her siblings and especially her mother, have so far refused to say "sorry" for those events of 33 years ago. They have not only refused to apologize, they have also so far failed to make amends, restitution or accept their proper punishment.

If Imee is tired of being held to account for the "sins" of her parents, then this generation of Filipinos is even wearier of having to keep stoking the bitterness and bile, because coming to a premature peace entails forgetting and forgiving, meaningless without proper penance on the Marcoses' part.

Which brings me to those who say it's time we achieved "closure" on the entire martial law episode. By "closure" they seem to mean capitulation, as if an honorable burial, the settling of stolen wealth lawsuits, the abandonment of human rights victims, would wipe our memories clean.

* * *

AND this is why we cannot now look upon the current scandal in our political life and say the nation's welfare depends on "moving on," cutting our losses and reasoning that there are many shades to truth and it is not important to know who really won in the last elections.

That's what decades of shading the truth about martial law has done to us: blurring the ethical distinctions that make it possible to tell right from wrong, truth from falsehood, honor from high crimes. If we now say that despite the surfacing of evidence of cheating in the polls, it is more important that Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo remain as our president for the sake of national stability, then we might as well say that all the lives destroyed by the Marcoses were worth it because Imelda built the Cultural Center, the Heart Center and other examples of her "edifice complex." We might as well bury with full honors the Marcos remains, and hand back Imelda's purloined jewelry.

We are still sifting the issues bequeathed to us by martial law. And we are doomed to an endless revisiting of those issues unless we learn the right lessons -- including truth-finding and truth-telling -- and teach them well to our children.