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| Grabbed from Bongbong Marcos's Page |
While I maintain high regard and respect to everyone who tread the same road, I find it offensive when people push their agenda down to my (our) throat. It is enough that you can voice your agenda, but to tell (suggest to) us not to vote Bongbong is never acceptable.
You may have your stories about martial law and the horrible, as you call them, fate you had under Ferdinand E.Marcos's rule, but may I remind you that every story is personal. Though if you feel entitled to it, I thank you for restoring democracy, as your stories would say, but may I remind you again that we are liable only of our actions.
May I remind everyone that in the Philippines, politics is personal. When I say personal, it is experiential. When a politician had done something good to you, you vote for him. That's how I understand politics in our country. (Now that's personal, you may eat or spit that.) The default value is that: if the person has not done anything bad to you, then you will vote for that person (taken into account other factors such as track record, etc to break the tie, as two persons may fall within this "default").
I am a millennial and you can accuse me of forgetting the past, of not knowing enough of our history, of our shared destiny as some would say. You can accuse me all you want, but you cannot have monopoly to "knowing" things, events, etc.
I am not a millennial who forgets my past. In fact, I am a millennial who has great regard of my past, of our past as a country. But when I am talking about past, I am talking about personal past.
How do I judge martial law, FEM, and even Bongbong Marcos?
I judge on a personal level. This is politics. If this is justice, then let law take its due course.
As much as I should be personal, I asked my father about martial law. I asked some people within my immediate circle about
their experience of the Marcos's regime. I was "in" for the heavy beating of Marcos. I was expectant of such. But I was taken aback.
During the years of Marcos, they (people I've asked within my immediate circle) say that they haven't heard of or seen killings or massacre. The years of Marcos were years of low prices for commodities. It was "normal" as grandma would say. Curfew was enforced strictly and addicts were not the "ordinary". Relatively, they judge the period as good.
Worst, when I asked them about People Power that toppled Marcos and left them hanging for their dear life in Hawaii, they said "It was Manila's act, everything's normnal here." They had heard about People Power, but their communities were in "business as usual".
My memory went back to a conversation with a retired military stationed in Negros Island. During People Power, he said, they were just told to stay neutral and act ordinary as it was a power play. They were waiting for their commanding offer's decision. They would be siding with whoever emerged victorious.
Then I asked myself: if People Power is a national act to regain democracy, why my immediate circle did not act even if they knew about it? If People Power is the will of military in action backed by civil force, why this military man was just waiting for whoever would win before making a decision?
Then I asked myself: if martial law was evil, as a whole, as my basic education textbook says, why my immediate circle says differently?
Then I told myself: maybe martial law was good to those who just want to live a normal and happy life. Maybe People Power was initiated only by those who wanted to sieze power. (History of all revolutions around the tells us the same power hungry people toppling each other.) But this also does not erase the reality of those who suffered during the period.
Going back to Bongbong Marcos, I am voting for him because politics is personal. If my immediate circle told me differently,
I would have listened to these articles and voices demanding us millennials to shun and put a nail on Bongbong's head for being the son of FEM. But it wasn't the case.
Not only that, I've seen the track record of Bongbong. He can do something. If that's not enough to vote for him, then politics should be personal.
If you won't vote for Bongbong Marcos because you or your family suffered harshly during martial law or it is just your judgment of the information you digested about the martial law period, it is fine. That's your personal choice based on personal judgment and experience. Politics is personal. I respect your hatred for Marcos, but don't shove your hatred of him on us. You are getting personal.
