Open letter to Generation XYZ
The “veterans” of 1928-1945 are almost gone. The “Baby Boomers” of 1946-1965 are going. It’s you, members of Generation XYZ, who will shape the future of this country.
One of you is aiming to shape your future. Buyer, beware. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. is peddling a very dangerous line: “The past is past.” Look to the future. Let’s move on.
The past is never past; it always trails into the present. The Marcos past is not only trailing but is in fact still ruling. It’s a tremendously heavy load that the son has inherited—so heavy that even he wants to drop it as finished, expired, “past.” But does he, really?
Of what does this load consist? Three kinds:
First is the material hoard—money, jewelry, artworks, real property—a booty so bottomless that an ordinary math major would find it hard to convert its dollar values to its peso equivalents. “If you know how rich you are, you aren’t rich. I have no idea how rich I am.” Read all about it in “The Marcoses and the Missing Filipino Millions” by Caroline Kennedy.
This grand theft is still very present because the poverty it fueled continues to plague us. That we recovered from the economic plunge is a feat. But the government has recovered too little of the plundered goods. Wouldn’t we all want to know who is keeping them “hidden” so well?
Second is the “sacred” part of the Marcos debt, for it has to do with violence against life—imprisoned, tortured, killed, picked up, displaced, disappeared. How many thousands of them? “Salvaging,” it was called then; “human rights violations” now.
This is also very present. Will we ever know how many? And what about the many cases that remain unnamed, unreported, and therefore unsolved? So young, and too many were cut down in the prime of life. Read about them and view their names at the Bantayog ng mga Bayani. Loss of life is irreparable.
Third is the most insidious. This one comes creeping into our culture, penetrating every branch of government from the presidency to the lowliest level of the bureaucracy, into the military, into even the judiciary. Worst of all, it has seeped into such as you and me, that we have absorbed it unknowingly as a fact of life, and accepted and voted for “public servants” who are masters at it. Talagang ganyan, wala tayong magagawa. Say that often enough and it will come true!
Yes, “the most corrupt man in Philippine history” has effectively bequeathed corruption to our culture. George Sison writes in “And So It Is” (Inquirer Lifestyle, 2/21/16): “…[T]he corrupt… look around you, it is everywhere.” Soon after Edsa I, Joaquin “Chino” Roces saw it rising from the dead and denounced it in 1988. Thirty years after, despite sterling members, the collective character of Congress has sunk to “corrupt,” dragged down by its venal or absentee or second- and third-rate members.
So, this Marcosian travesty upon our culture is not only very present but perpetual as well. Cultural legacies are hardest to shake off. They stick for centuries—“400 years in the convent and 50 years in Hollywood” is still with us. It’s fine for positive cultural legacies; disastrous, if negative. Negative certainly is the culture of corruption. You can’t just say “enough”—“tama na, sobra na”—as to “crates of cash” and “crates of jewellery.”
Corruption was there in our generation. It will be there for you and your children. Getting numb or getting used to it is prelude to forgetfulness and misplaced forgiveness. Read “Marcos and the forgetfulness of evil” by Remmon E. Barbaza (Inquirer Opinion, 10/21/15).
Stay in there, frustrating, fighting corruption. Your now chance is the May elections. Claim it, writes Jo-Ed K. Tirol in “Reclaiming our story” (Inquirer Opinion, 10/22/15). Join Carmma, or the Campaign Against the Return of the Marcoses to Malacañang (Inquirer, 2/9/16). First-time voting millennials, get on board.
I trust that “Musings of an ‘Edsa baby’” by Gerald M. Nicolas (Inquirer Opinion, 2/22/16), that you are “disinterested and apathetic,” that “human rights… are passé,” that “‘moving on’ means forgetting the past…” are borne out of disappointment with your elders (that’s us) rather than your true convictions.
Do not fall for historical revisionism, the refuge and temptation of survivors of a shady past. The young Marcos is already doing it in his campaign statements. More in “Sidelining history” by Melba Padilla Maggay (Inquirer Opinion, 2/20/16).
Most of the commentaries here cited are by your generation. Hindi kayo nag-iisa.
“The sins of the father should not be visited upon the son” is now being bandied about. Is this the final flourish for “the past is past”? The German and Japanese peoples have been sorry for the sins of their fathers upon other peoples. Marcos has committed grievous wrong on his co-Filipinos. The scion is not sorry, not sorry at all.
Asuncion David Maramba ([email protected]; fax 8284454) is a retired professor, book editor and occasional journalist.
