Never again? (1)
Never again?
Updated 10:03pm (Mla time) Sept 20, 2004
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A10 of the September 21, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
CAN it happen again?
Well, let's look again at some of the things that made martial law possible on Sept. 21, 1972.
First, there was someone who was willing to up the ante on rule-breaking and take enormous risks to make a bid for absolute power. That was Ferdinand Marcos who showed his true colors when he was still a young man by assassinating his father's political enemy, Julio Nalundasan, with a sniper's bullet. And who showed he would not be deterred by scruples by lying through his teeth at every opportunity. Chief of them was opposing Philippine involvement in Vietnam while he was still senator (and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's father, Diosdado Macapagal, was president), and promptly doing so when he came into Malacanang in 1965.
Second, there was American support for martial law. Independence in 1946 notwithstanding, this is a country whose political future has been shaped by the American will. At least it cannot go far astray of its political parameters without White House consent. The consent, or indeed active support, for martial law was given by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, the US president and secretary of state, respectively, architects of US support for iron-fisted rule in the Third World. Several months after they propped up Marcos, they engineered a coup in Chile, which led to the murder of its democratic president, Salvador Allende, and his replacement by a thug named Augusto Pinochet.
Third, there was tacit public acceptance, if not embrace, of martial law. The business community, chief of them foreign investors, certainly applauded it, alarmed by the rallies that were getting more strident by the day and finding in dictatorial rule the ideal conditions for making business, namely one that guaranteed low wages and high profit. The only time they would complain was when Marcos started stealing from them.
Neither did the public generally resist it. This was a country that teemed with poverty in 1972, no small thanks to a procession of leaders that perpetuated plutocracy, or "oligarchy," as Marcos himself referred to it, forgetting his own contribution to entrenching it. "Sakada" was more than a word, it was the epitome of destitution. Rightly so: The sugarcane workers lived in conditions that evoked a time other than the 20th century. It was a throwback to the days of feudal servitude, where the lords of the manor did not just own land, they owned people. There was at least little public resistance to martial law, which greatly embittered the opposition, chief of them Ninoy Aquino, who had expected the populace to erupt in rage at the rape of democracy. Quite simply, the poor were willing to pay to see whether things would not turn out the better for them, getting food in lieu of freedom. Pay they did, and dearly.
Lastly, there was tremendous instability and uncertainty. This was a time of ferment, groups and ideologies competing for power, amid a bleak economic horizon. This was also a time of unparalleled political violence. More than a year before September 1972, on Aug. 21, 1971, the opposition was decimated by a bomb that exploded in a campaign rally. A couple of months before martial law, the nation saw a flood of biblical proportions, which lasted for nearly a couple of months, and turned Central Luzon, the country's rice bowl, into a watery waste. Then a month or so before Marcos declared martial law, Greater Manila (as it was called then) was gripped by a series of bombings, much of it attributed to Marcos himself.
Five or so years ago, I was confident these conditions would never be replicated. Certainly not nearly enough to make another round of martial law, or authoritarian rule whatever guise it took, possible. I am not so sure today.
The one thing I had not counted on coming back, and so soon, was American support for iron-fisted rule in the globe. This was especially so after the US went on a staunch pro-democracy binge that not only rid the Philippines of Marcos--Ronald Reagan found himself increasingly isolated in his position that Marcos was not just part of the problem, he was part of the solution; his aides, particularly in the State Department, argued that Marcos was just the problem, period--but the world pretty much of communism. The late 1980s and early 1990s in particular were halcyon days in this respect, leading to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
With rugged capitalism triumphant in the mid-1990s--enough for Fidel Ramos, a staunch believer, to exhort the public to forget politics entirely and think Philippines 2000--I thought the final nail on US support for openly tyrannical rule had been driven into the coffin.
Not by a mile, as it turned out. 9/11 merely gave George W. Bush the excuse to restore it, and with a vengeance. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld are the modern-day versions of Nixon and Kissinger. They are equally vicious and ruthless, if not more so. They have certainly raised the stakes on carving the world after their image, opting for direct intervention, or outright invasion, rather than supporting tyrants who would stamp the imperial will upon their societies. Completely uncannily, they even have their own Vietnam to match that of Nixon and Kissinger. That is Iraq, where the US body bag has been mounting: A couple of weeks ago, it went past the 1,000th mark.
I am not a very superstitious man, but it's enough to make you believe Bush will be reelected, too. Nixon was, only to lose the presidency by impeachment some years later.
But if Arroyo should contemplate draconian rule, she will not find Bush and Rumsfeld deaf to entreaty. Assuming of course they are still around after November. And assuming they do not find an outright military cabal more preferable. (To be concluded.)
Updated 10:03pm (Mla time) Sept 20, 2004
By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer News Service
Editor's Note: Published on page A10 of the September 21, 2004 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer
CAN it happen again?
Well, let's look again at some of the things that made martial law possible on Sept. 21, 1972.
First, there was someone who was willing to up the ante on rule-breaking and take enormous risks to make a bid for absolute power. That was Ferdinand Marcos who showed his true colors when he was still a young man by assassinating his father's political enemy, Julio Nalundasan, with a sniper's bullet. And who showed he would not be deterred by scruples by lying through his teeth at every opportunity. Chief of them was opposing Philippine involvement in Vietnam while he was still senator (and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's father, Diosdado Macapagal, was president), and promptly doing so when he came into Malacanang in 1965.
Second, there was American support for martial law. Independence in 1946 notwithstanding, this is a country whose political future has been shaped by the American will. At least it cannot go far astray of its political parameters without White House consent. The consent, or indeed active support, for martial law was given by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, the US president and secretary of state, respectively, architects of US support for iron-fisted rule in the Third World. Several months after they propped up Marcos, they engineered a coup in Chile, which led to the murder of its democratic president, Salvador Allende, and his replacement by a thug named Augusto Pinochet.
Third, there was tacit public acceptance, if not embrace, of martial law. The business community, chief of them foreign investors, certainly applauded it, alarmed by the rallies that were getting more strident by the day and finding in dictatorial rule the ideal conditions for making business, namely one that guaranteed low wages and high profit. The only time they would complain was when Marcos started stealing from them.
Neither did the public generally resist it. This was a country that teemed with poverty in 1972, no small thanks to a procession of leaders that perpetuated plutocracy, or "oligarchy," as Marcos himself referred to it, forgetting his own contribution to entrenching it. "Sakada" was more than a word, it was the epitome of destitution. Rightly so: The sugarcane workers lived in conditions that evoked a time other than the 20th century. It was a throwback to the days of feudal servitude, where the lords of the manor did not just own land, they owned people. There was at least little public resistance to martial law, which greatly embittered the opposition, chief of them Ninoy Aquino, who had expected the populace to erupt in rage at the rape of democracy. Quite simply, the poor were willing to pay to see whether things would not turn out the better for them, getting food in lieu of freedom. Pay they did, and dearly.
Lastly, there was tremendous instability and uncertainty. This was a time of ferment, groups and ideologies competing for power, amid a bleak economic horizon. This was also a time of unparalleled political violence. More than a year before September 1972, on Aug. 21, 1971, the opposition was decimated by a bomb that exploded in a campaign rally. A couple of months before martial law, the nation saw a flood of biblical proportions, which lasted for nearly a couple of months, and turned Central Luzon, the country's rice bowl, into a watery waste. Then a month or so before Marcos declared martial law, Greater Manila (as it was called then) was gripped by a series of bombings, much of it attributed to Marcos himself.
Five or so years ago, I was confident these conditions would never be replicated. Certainly not nearly enough to make another round of martial law, or authoritarian rule whatever guise it took, possible. I am not so sure today.
The one thing I had not counted on coming back, and so soon, was American support for iron-fisted rule in the globe. This was especially so after the US went on a staunch pro-democracy binge that not only rid the Philippines of Marcos--Ronald Reagan found himself increasingly isolated in his position that Marcos was not just part of the problem, he was part of the solution; his aides, particularly in the State Department, argued that Marcos was just the problem, period--but the world pretty much of communism. The late 1980s and early 1990s in particular were halcyon days in this respect, leading to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
With rugged capitalism triumphant in the mid-1990s--enough for Fidel Ramos, a staunch believer, to exhort the public to forget politics entirely and think Philippines 2000--I thought the final nail on US support for openly tyrannical rule had been driven into the coffin.
Not by a mile, as it turned out. 9/11 merely gave George W. Bush the excuse to restore it, and with a vengeance. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld are the modern-day versions of Nixon and Kissinger. They are equally vicious and ruthless, if not more so. They have certainly raised the stakes on carving the world after their image, opting for direct intervention, or outright invasion, rather than supporting tyrants who would stamp the imperial will upon their societies. Completely uncannily, they even have their own Vietnam to match that of Nixon and Kissinger. That is Iraq, where the US body bag has been mounting: A couple of weeks ago, it went past the 1,000th mark.
I am not a very superstitious man, but it's enough to make you believe Bush will be reelected, too. Nixon was, only to lose the presidency by impeachment some years later.
But if Arroyo should contemplate draconian rule, she will not find Bush and Rumsfeld deaf to entreaty. Assuming of course they are still around after November. And assuming they do not find an outright military cabal more preferable. (To be concluded.)
posted by Dante at 11:12 PM
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