In PH, dictators and kin get to live another day

Every Feb. 25 should be celebrated by those who heeded the call of Manila Archbishop Jaime Cardinal Sin to converge on Edsa.

But the family of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos should also see it as a celebration of life. In other countries, revolutions are bloody affairs, and the deposed leader is put to death. The Marcoses were merely exiled, and they got to live another day.

The lesson from the fall of the dictator should serve us well: Easy to grab power and be a dictator, but difficult to give it up. As George Santayana counseled us: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Jose J. Ferrer Jr., jjferrerjr1@yahoo.com