23 years after

For people in many countries I have visited, the most famous — or notorious — Filipinos seem to be Imelda and Ferdinand Marcos.

I mention Marcos’ widow first because her shoes, her fabulous jewelry and flamboyant lifestyle appear to have captured the imagination of the world more than the rise and fall of her husband.

The most common question I am asked, when I am introduced overseas as a Filipina, is, “How is the woman with the shoes?”

The answer to that question is an indictment of the state of our nation. Imeldific — the other half of the couple that gave us such terms as kleptocracy, edifice complex and conjugal dictatorship — is still going strong as she approaches her 80s.

Still singing and flashing her jewelry, indicted many times but never convicted, unbowed, unrepentant, Imelda Marcos is the personification of our national failure to correct the mistakes of the past, punish crooks and move on.

She is the living inspiration of everyone who believes that some are smarter than others; that you can have your cake and eat it, too; that crime pays, and pays enormously.

Imelda is a child of destiny, and living proof that life is unfair, so people should stop whining and just accept their lot.

The former first lady and her children, their relatives and cronies are fully rehabilitated. They are unbeatable in local politics and are kingmakers in their respective turfs. The loyalist who flew into exile with the Marcoses, Eduardo Cojuangco Jr., is fast reclaiming his tag as the Marcos-era “pacman” – not the Pinoy boxing sensation, but the game icon that gobbled up everything in its path. As in the Marcos years, “pacman” is again suspected these days of gobbling up companies in partnership with or on behalf of a bigger “pacman.”

Crony capitalism is back, with the players focusing on sectors where they can still enjoy monopolies, or where the right connections give them an unfair edge over legitimate competition.

Though Malacañang insists that President Arroyo intends to step down as scheduled at noon of June 30, 2010, her allies (and relatives) at the House of Representatives are hard at work fast-tracking efforts to convene Congress into a constituent assembly to revise the 1987 Charter and give her a shot at staying longer in power.

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President Arroyo, the other child of destiny, the child of EDSA II, warned the other day, “The world embraced EDSA I in 1986. The world tolerated EDSA II in 2001. The world will not forgive an EDSA III, but it will instead condemn the Philippines as a country whose political system is hopelessly unstable.”

With those words, President Arroyo practically begged for censure. And the critics obliged, pointing out that in the January 2001 reprise of people power, Filipinos tolerated her, not EDSA II. Not surprisingly, the President is skipping today’s rites marking the 23^rd anniversary of the original people power revolt.

Also, aren’t supporters of Joseph Estrada insisting that their mass action to try to restore him to power from late April to May 1, 2001 constituted EDSA III?

To be fair, the international community in fact expressed misgivings about EDSA II, and would likely frown on another people power revolt.

But this is partly due to the fact that the two popular uprisings have not led to reforms that could have fulfilled Ferdinand Marcos’ famous pre-martial law vow. “I promise you, my countrymen,” he intoned, “this nation will be great again!”

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The only people who have been sent to prison for the sins of the Marcos regime are the low-ranking members of the Aviation Security Command, now defunct, who were convicted of assassinating Benigno Aquino Jr. and Rolando Galman.

Aquino’s heirs point out that the soldiers are also guilty of a second and still continuing crime: the cover-up of the twin murders. To this day, the soldiers insist on the Marcos regime’s version of the crime: that Galman, a communist hired gun, was the one who assassinated Ninoy Aquino.

Yet the child of people power II is in a rush to pardon all the soldiers. Ninoy’s heirs smell vindictiveness, Cory Aquino having called on the President to resign. Others wonder if the pardons are being granted as a favor to individuals suspected of involvement in both the twin murders and the cover-up.

With the mastermind of the Aquino assassination still unidentified, and the Marcoses and their cronies enjoying their wealth and never punished, we should not be surprised that all the pestilence unleashed on the nation during the dictatorship are still around.

Corruption has become so entrenched in our culture that the only time we see any hope of bringing crooks to justice is when the international community is dragged into the mess, as in the case of World Bank-funded road projects.

Murderers still operate with impunity, kidnapping, torturing and executing militant activists, journalists and legal professionals including judges who cross their path.

George Santayana’s famous quotation plays like a broken record in our head: Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

Today, 23 years after the original people power revolt drove out Ferdinand and Imelda, we find ourselves increasingly experiencing many Santayana moments.