IF MARTIAL law was such an abomination, as your editorials on Sept. 22 and Sept. 27 correctly pointed out—“the long dark night of martial law” and “Martial law would always be a total, monstrous aberration from democracy…”—why have the dictator’s decrees not been repealed?
The truth is, although the Filipino people threw Ferdinand Marcos the father out of power 29 years ago and he’s been dead the past 26 years, he still rules this country—through his more than 4,000 decrees and other issuances that remain part of the law of the land! They are the biggest monument to that historical aberration. Is it any wonder then that Marcos’ progeny is back, with nary an apology; or why we, as a people, can’t seem to take seriously that rare national accomplishment that was the People Power Revolution?
We can no longer expect any answers from such legal luminaries as Lorenzo Tañada, Jose Diokno, Jovito Salonga (I wonder how he is), Sedfrey Ordoñez, Marcelo Fernan, Joker
Arroyo, etc., who were in a position to have those decrees repealed; but Rene Saguisag and Nene Pimentel, among others, are still around.
—MIGUEL C. SUAREZ, Las Piñas City