BAGUIA
A light breeze blew about the capital as people came in trickles to the People Power monument on Epifanio de los Santos Avenue on the night of the 18th of November.
Many may have already forgotten, but for those who came, the past was fresh. On this date a year ago, the remains of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos were interred in the nation’s grave for heroes.
The protesters were clothed in black, hue of mourning and rage. There were young people and old, men and women, parents and children. They stood together behind a large white banner that read “Never again; never forget.”
What should not be forgotten? What should not be allowed to recur? The episodes that made up the nation’s long dark night under martial rule.
An old lady held a black cardboard with crimson writing that spelled out how little seems to have changed between then and now.
Back then, killings known as salvaging became widespread. Now bloodshed is still commonplace though renamed extrajudicial killings.
In the past, autocracy culminated in the declaration of martial law. Today, authoritarianism threatens to manifest itself in the form of a revolutionary government that is intolerant of viewpoint diversity.
Yesterday, we decried a tyrant’s amassing of ill-gotten wealth. Today, the answer to whether our top leader possesses hidden wealth continues to elude us.
On the platform at the feet of the sculpture of triumphant marchers by Eduardo Castrillo, some protesters planted lighted candles. The scene was reminiscent of a cemetery in the first two days of November. The candles helped call to mind the murdered and disappeared, the tortured and killed, the unjustly arrested in the days of Marcos and in the present dispensation.
It must be so in the days ahead. The candles must not be little symbols of resignation or hopelessness, nor mere tokens acknowledging that yet another human being has fallen in the night or that honor has forever left this or that democratic institution.
At one point during their demonstration, the protesters took enlarged copies or the new postage stamps that contain a photograph of the dictator and tore their copies to bits.
The defiance is necessary, even if with the way things are going it may be hard to put things back in order in these parts.
Lessons from the bottomless font of wisdom will come and they now must come through bitter experience to those who have, by forgetting history’s teachings, mistaken uncouthness for sincerity, fabrication for truth, brutishness for might.
The lessons will come to those who have, by forgetting the lessons of history, confused mob rule with democracy, bullying with leadership, vendetta with justice.
Progress cannot be real when founded on bloodshed. Discourse cannot be substantial when founded on lies. The popular cannot be beneficial when it is deaf to the oppressed. Vainglorious leadership will defeat itself. All these the forgetful will have to relearn.