MANILA, Philippines - President Benigno Aquino III spent the 42nd anniversary of the declaration of Martial Law in Boston where he criticized former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo for not learning the lessons of the Marcos dictatorship.
After reminiscing about his family's exile years in Boston before the Filipino community there, Aquino again recalled the dark days of Martial Law in his policy speech at the Kennedy School of Government at the Harvard University.
Aquino said Filipinos will never allow Martial Law to happen again after regaining their freedom from Marcos. He then took a swipe at Arroyo by comparing her with the late strongman.
"[S]tarting in 2001, however, my predecessor, instead of learning the lessons of Martial Law, seemingly adopted Mr. Marcos' handbook on how to abuse the democratic process," Aquino said.
"At the end of her regime, our people were so apathetic to all the scandals and issues affecting her, and government’s inability to effect change, that the overwhelming ambition of so many was to leave the country," he added.
Aquino said Arroyo "put a premium on political survival" by appointing ousted Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona.
He also touted the arrest and detention of Arroyo as proof of a more accountable Philippine government.
It was not Aquino's first attack against Arroyo in his nearly two-week five-nation trip. In a speech at the Egmont Institute in Brussels, Belgium, he lambasted his predecessor for taking credit for the economic growth achieved by the Philippines.
Aquino described Arroyo's term as a "period of lost decade" when the country was "mired in a vicious cycle of corruption, deceit and negativism."