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| BBM's INSPIRATION. President-in-waiting Ferdinand Marcos Jr. visits the grave of his father former President Ferdinand E. Marcos on Tuesday (May 10), a day after the national elections that show him winning by more than 16 million votes over his nearest rival. The young Marcos is grateful to the Filipino people for giving him the landslide victory and to his father who have been his inspiration throughout his life and taught him the value and meaning of true leadership. (Photo: BBM Media Bureau) |
By Noralyn Dudt
Ferdinand Marcos
Jr. the newly-sworn in president of the Philippines won the presidency by a
landslide. To some people in the United States, countries in Western Europe,
and Japan, this is difficult to imagine as the only "news" they have
been receiving from the mainstream media and social media have been that of a
dictator, Imelda's shoe collection, and martial law. To the majority of
Filipinos, especially to those 31 million voters who voted for him, Ferdinand
Jr, or BBM as he is affectionately called, is someone whom they have been
waiting for. I will refrain from using the term "God-send" but
judging from voters’ comments online that's actually how many of them feel.
Young and old alike, those inside the country as well as those working in
faraway places such as those young staff I met on the Viking Cruise exhibit
such fondness and optimism.
So why such sentiments ? Perhaps we should go back and take a
look at BBM's parents and what they did when they were residents of Malacañang Palace, the official residence of Philippine
presidents.
The late President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. was an achiever and his
wife Imelda (please detach the shoe collection from your minds for a while) was
the same though in different ways. Ferdinand Edralin Marcos was from the Ilocos
region of northern Luzon. He came from a people known for their diligence,
ambition, resilience, pragmatism, and frugality. He grew up in a town that was
burned down by the Americans in 1900 when the townsfolk resisted and put up a big fight against the Americans who were about to take over.
The town has had a history of nurturing leaders—not just the "run of the
mill" leaders but the brave and heroic ones who took risks and made a
difference: a bishop who could not tolerate the abuses of the Spanish clergy
broke away from the Roman Catholic Church and founded the Philippine Independent
Church, a general who refused to bow and salute the new colonizers from the
mighty United States of America who just defeated the Spanish Navy on Manila
Bay. He came from a place where a series of revolts against Spain took place, a
place where people did not and do not put up with the mundane. And most of all,
it was and is a place where loyalty is fierce.
A visionary, Ferdinand Sr. established through Presidential decrees, the Philippine Heart
Center in 1975 and the Philippine Lung Center in 1981 which were the firsts of
their kind in Asia at the time. The Children’s Medical Center was established
through another Presidential decree in 1979.
Next to his health policy was education—he "brought" (aka
extended) the state universities to the
provinces. Existing public colleges and universities in provincial capitals all
over the archipelago were incorporated with the state university in Manila, the
University of the Philippines. The Marcos presidency facilitated an aggressive
infrastructure program of expressways, local airports and with this, brought the remote villages closer to the big
towns and cities. Another interesting and beneficial project was the Masagana
99, an agriculture program that boosted rice production, elevating the incomes
of rice farmers which resulted in their higher
standard of living
BBM's mother, the former First Lady Imelda Romualdez Marcos, who
later became the Governor of Metro Manila, came from Leyte in the Visayan
region in the South. She came from a people whose culture differs
immensely from that of the Ilocanos. The
late historian, essayist and poet Teodoro Agoncillo wrote that the
"Visayan is happy-go-lucky and is more interested in the here and now than
in the past or the future... that the Visayan exceeds the Tagalog's for the
finer things in life, so much so that he is ready to spend his last peso for
these."
Such graphic description allows us to take a peek into Mrs.
Marcos' innermost thoughts and her desire to take on projects like the Cultural Center of the Philippines,
the beautification of Manila, highways, park, towns and barangays. "Beautiful things and places" were
always in her sight and was of course criticized for having such an outlook. But in the end,
people actually enjoyed the improvements that she undertook to accomplish. She
was also responsible for bringing electricity to the neglected remote parts of
Mindanao and extended peace to the Muslims there by helping build several
mosques. To help quell the Muslim insurgency in Mindanao, she traveled to Libya and begged the former
Libyan president Qaddafi to stop sending arms and weapons to the rebels. It was
a diplomatic feat. Although the
media reported all of these, they
were often juxtaposed with stories of
her lavish lifestyle and overspending. What stuck in people's psyche with "help" from the media would always
be the shoe collection so that these worthy achievements were completely
ignored. The recurring media motif of "grand shoe collection," hidden
wealth, dissenters being interrogated, made good optics for the oppositionist's
western "audience" and provided anti-Marcos groups fodder for
attacks.
It's worth noting that the Marcos era was a time of upheaval: the
Vietnam War that inspired and instigated violent student demonstrations; the
Communist-inspired insurgency; the massive incursion of guns from Red China;
the Muslim rebels in Mindanao; local
politicians with private armies who acted like they were above the law—even burning
a barrio to the ground because these folks did not vote "correctly and
properly." A road or a bridge that
could not be built because a local politician
pocketed public funds for his private use. It was a difficult time that
sowed the seeds of discontent, anger, and malice that would usher in the
implementation of Martial Law. Whether Martial Law was good for the country or
not is up for debate. I left the Philippines in 1972, just a couple of months
before Martial Law was declared. My husband Philip and I returned for a visit
in 1977. To Philip and I, it was a breath of fresh air: the Customs officials
at the airport were more efficient and disciplined; the taxi driver in Manila
that ferried us around seemed more honest; the streets were cleaner and there
was no odor in the air; the roads and bridges were in better condition. There
was a feeling of safety all around. To be fair, I am not trying to negate what
others say about their loss of "freedom" and the hardships they had
to endure during Martial Law. There were those who thought the country was
being driven to the wrong direction and they expressed it so. And there were
also those whose young minds that lacked direction were easily hijacked by opportunists who were power-hungry. I am aware that by enumerating the
achievements of the Marcos' presidency, I may be upsetting some very good
people. But I just want to provide some sort of context and perspective—that there
was more to the martial law and the grand shoe collection...that there was a
side which a lot of people are neither aware of or have chosen to ignore. And
until one is reconciled to this side, one may end up relegating his/her own countrymen as stupid for electing a former
"dictator's " son. BBM needs to be given the chance to exhibit that
he is able to lead the country through
the next six years. A unified country can help him accomplish what needs to be
done: return the Philippines on the world stage ready to eclipse or even
surpass her Southeast Asian neighbors in good governance, finance, and
education. To achieve this, multiple voices must be allowed to continue challenging the power
structure as these "multiple
voices" may bring good ideas to the table.
So... when friends and acquaintances in our international
community in the Washington DC area ask how and why a "dictator's"
son could win by a landslide, I tell them, "the people must have remembered and told their sons and daughters
how calming it was after those chaotic years of lawlessness... licensed from
the banner of "democracy".
(Noralyn Onto Dudt
originally wrote this piece for the international community. It has been
translated to German and Japanese and a Korean translation is ongoing. After
consulting The Ilocos Times managing editor Mitch Esmino, she was advised to
tweak it a bit for the readers of The Ilocos Times.)
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