Why The Philippines Has Never Been A Nation

One of the Filipino writers I admire the most is F. Sionil Jose though I haven't read not even one novel that he has authored. I am more in awe because of his views on the Philippines in relation to history. He was born during one of the most interesting periods in the nation's history. He has lived under all Philippine Presidents and with his mind, is one of the thinking minds who is in the best position to comment on why the Philippines has been in a rut since 1945.

Last May, Rodrigo Duterte became the 16th President of the Republic of the Philippines. Since his assumption to the Presidency on June 30, 2016, the brickbats haven't stopped coming his way from his detractors. Despite his call for unity after it was clear he won and his promise of not pursuing a vendetta against his political enemies, he had barely warmed his seat when his critics started zeroing in on his war on illegal drugs.

After seven months in office, Duterte has accomplished far more than any other President in the post-Marcos era. For the first time in its history, he has laid down an independent foreign policy as prescribed in the Constitution. The Philippines is breaking away from the influence of its former colonial master, the United States. The rift was caused by the outgoing Obama administration's criticism of Duterte's war on drugs and the spate of killings which normally accompanies such a war.

The second break came because of the issue with China which seized Scarborough Shoal in 2012 and banned Filipino fishermen from entering the rich fishing grounds. The US egged on the Aquino administration to file a case at the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague. The court ruled in favor of the Philippines middle of last year but China indicated earlier that it wouldn't abide by the ruling and will thwart any attempt to enforce it.

Since then, Duterte has pursued a policy of rapprochement with China. He discussed the issue with the Chinese Ambassador in Manila and was invited to visit China after a cursory meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jin Ping on the sidelines of the ASEAN Summit in Vientiane. Xi invited Duterte to visit China. Duterte returned from the visit with firm commitments for Chinese grants in aid to help the Philippines modernize its creaking infrastructure. A week after his return, Filipino fishermen have been allowed to fish at the shoal again after four years. The Chinese have warmed up to Duterte and lifted a travel ban to the Philippines opening up tourism opportunities for China's middle class population of 300M people.

The President has also implemented common sense bureaucratic reforms and has repeatedly reminded government bureaucrats that they work for the people and not the other way around. There will be no tolerance for red tape and corruption. He has committed to spend P1T on infrastructure. He has ordered the Department of Health to conduct a study of the best practices of the Cuban health care system and how it can be applied in the Philippine setting. He has also signed an Executive Order implementing a Freedom of Information writ on the Executive. The other week, he signed another Executive Order mandating universal access to family planning in a bid to implement the Reproductive Health Act which hasn't been implemented on account of a restraining order filed at the Supreme Court by its opponents. The Philippines is projected to hit the 105M mark this year and population growth has to be curbed as government can't keep up with the pace of the increasing burden on the delivery of basic services.

Yet, despite all of these positive measures, Duterte continues to be pilloried and vilified on the domestic and international front, by both local and foreign media, along with his critics in the political opposition.

In May 2015, Sionil Jose wrote, as a primer to Presidential candidates, the following;

The new president must fully understand his role, his limitations, the priorities.

He has many important changes to make. First, a new Constitution must transform government into a parliamentary system.

The tenure of the president should also be changed to four years with the possibility of reelection all the way to the third or fourth term. Remember, it takes at least a generation — 20 years, for a laid-back nation to rise. This is the experience of our neighbors, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore. Six years without election is much too short for a good ruler and too long for a bad one.

A president must always ask himself tough, unrelenting questions regarding our country’s basic problems. The young officers, Fidel V. Ramos and Jose Almonte, asked of themselves in the ‘50s, up in the Sierra Madre where they were fighting the Huks: Why are Filipinos killing other Filipinos?

Why are we poor? Why are we so disunited?

Image matters. A president likes pop music — well and good, but he must also attend concerts by Filipino composers at the Cultural Center to show that he appreciates Filipino talent. In a country where multitudes have to walk to their jobs, he must not traipse around in a Porsche, even if he can afford two.

And most of all, even if he is bright, he must still surround himself with excellent people. They will not go to him — he must go to them, win their support. Which means that he circulates, that he is in the know because he listens.

Ramon Magsaysay, the best president we ever had, had clear-cut goals, foremost among them to give justice to the very poor. To promote integrity in government, he set himself up as the example. He knew his limitations so he surrounded himself with the best and the honest:

Emmanuel Pelaez, Raul Manglapus, Manny Manahan, Rafael Salas — all of them of presidential timber. It is the panderers, the intellectual riff-raff, the opportunists who will crowd around the president and get what they can while they are strangling him with praise.

In the exercise of his duties, the president must have no friends, no classmates, no hobbymates.

So many former public officials could help the new president. From the P-Noy regime, Brother Armin Luistro, Rosalinda Baldoz, from the Arroyo government — Gilbert Teodoro, Esperanza Cabral, from the recent past, Oscar Orbos, Dick Gordon. And the women — Miriam Santiago, Loren Legarda, Winnie Monsod — they matter.

Corruption is rife all over the world but more so in the Philippines where it is culturally abetted by hypocrisy and social acceptance. The new president must show iron determination; he must abolish the most corrupt department in government — the Bureau of Customs; let the Army take charge in the interim while it is being staffed by completely new personnel selected from the best already in government.

He must increase revenues so public servants will get better pay.

Attend to businessmen with extreme caution. Remember always that the logic of business is profit and the logic of government is service. Convince or force the dollar billionaires to keep their money here, create more jobs, increase production, particularly food so we will have food security.

And confront the Catholic Church. Birth control, divorce — these must be promoted to improve this country’s future. In fact, all churches should be taxed!

What so many of our leaders do not realize — their minds being colonized — is that many of our problems are deeply rooted in history, in culture — problems endemic to feudal, agrarian societies undergoing modernization. It is crucial for a leader to understand this past, this culture. Our own history is littered with the rubble of good intentions gone awry.

A president’s worst enemy can be himself, his bloated ego that he cannot master, which is then transformed into greed and or tyranny. This ego is what destroyed Ferdinand Marcos; he looms so large in our national consciousness now as the kind of leader we must never have again. Look keenly at our politicians then for so many of them are like Marcos. They are in the wings, waiting."

For Manong Frankie, Duterte wouldn't make a good President as he believed him to be unidimensional. Duterte can't kill everybody he thinks is bad for the country such as the politicians, smugglers and oligarchs. He should be aware of his limitations. At best, he thought Duterte would make an excellent Secretary of Interior and Local Government, a task which he believes is limited to the implementation and maintenance of law and order nationwide.

The truth is, nobody gave Duterte an outside chance of winning the Presidency then because his political party didn't have the machinery. He didn't have the financial backing of big-time businessmen and was generally perceived to be an uncouth probinsiyano whom voters wouldn't gravitate to because he wasn't on the national scene long enough. He also didn't play any part in the movement to oust Marcos. His mother did but Duterte became the beneficiary of his mother's efforts as he was appointed the OIC Mayor of Davao after Cory became President. He did support Aquino in 2010 and campaigned for him but his name was never mentioned as Presidential timber.

It was only after he went on a "listening tour" to supposedly promote Federalism that Duterte's name started popping up in discussions of viable candidates as coffee shop talk swirled about who actually had the best chance of defeating the Liberal Party machinery which had the full weight of government behind it as well as being awash with campaign funds.

The Philippines has always been described as the sick man of Asia as it constantly misses the opportunity to take off economically. It was the first to become independent in the region after World War II. Its people spoke English and is the most Westernized in the region. Yet, Malaysia and Singapore, which only achieved independence from the British in 1963, both managed to overtake it economically in less than thhirty years. What exactly prevents the Philippines from joining the ranks of its peers as a second world or even a first world nation in the region?

Sionil Jose writes about his conversation with the second President of the post-war Republic, Elpidio Quirino, who retired to his Novaliches home after the loss of the Liberal Party in the 1953 elections;

"At the time I was working on The Pretenders, the first novel in my Rosales saga, I had a talk with former President Elpidio Quirino who had then retired in Novaliches after being beaten in the presidential election by Ramon Magsaysay. He had expounded on his economic plans for the country, the building of hydro electric dams, steel and industrialization based on agriculture. President Quirino confirmed what, early on, I realized — that steel was indeed the basis of modernization — and coal as source of power. All the industrial countries accepted these basics. So in The Pretenders, I had a major character, an industrialist, whose project in the novel is the building of a steel mill."

It's generally acknowledged that Quirino was one of the most corrupt President's in Philippine history. He was Roxas' running mate in the 1946 elections which had Roxas running against Osmeña who succeeded Quezon, after the Great Mestizo died of tuberculosis at Saranac Lake, New York from complications of tuberculosis. Quirino then succeeded Roxas after he died from a massive heart attack at Clark Field.

Quirino ran for reelection in 1949 in what was perceived to be one of the dirtiest and most violent ever. He utilized the dossier in political enemies which Roxas had compiled with the help of Col. Agustin Marking and his brother Yay. Marking then ensured that each politico whom they had the goods on would support Quirino. Quirino won a second term but was hounded by corruption allegations. These would set the stage for the Americans to groom Magsayasay as his successor. Edward Lansdale, the CIA station chief in Manila convinced Quirino that he needed a more credible Defense Secretary to defeat the communist insurgency in Central Luzon.

Magsaysay was appointed Defense Secretary and together with a blueprint conceived by Lansdale and Col. Napoleon Valeriano, Lansdale's fair haired boy in the military, proceeded to form Batallion Combat Teams which went after the Huks in their areas of operation. Valeriano's dreaded elite Nenita Unit led the way as they pentrated the lair of the Huks in the mountains. By the next election cycle in 1953, Magsaysay bolted the Liberal Party to run for President under the Nacionalistas. Magsaysay won the Presidency as planned by the Americans.

Manong Frankie had this to say about Magsaysay:

"Ramon Magsaysay, the best president we ever had, had clear-cut goals, foremost among them to give justice to the very poor. To promote integrity in government, he set himself up as the example. He knew his limitations so he surrounded himself with the best and the honest: Emmanuel Pelaez, Raul Manglapus, Manny Manahan, Rafael Salas — all of them of presidential timber. It is the panderers, the intellectual riff-raff, the opportunists who will crowd around the president and get what they can while they are strangling him with praise.

In the exercise of his duties, the president must have no friends, no classmates, no hobbymates."

Magsaysay never saw through his vision as he died in a plane crash in Cebu in 1957. He was succeeded by Carlos P. Garcia who ran again after he completed Magsaysay's unexpired term. Garcia then lost to Diosdado Macapagal. Macapagal was supposed to serve for one term only as the Liberal Party candidate to give way to then Senate President Ferdinand Marcos. Macapagal reneged on the agreement and Marcos bolted to the Liberals for the Nacionalistas. He defeated Macapagal in the 1965 polls.

From Quirino to Macapagal, which was a total of twenty years, no major infrastructure development projects were undertaken. There was only the repair and rehabilitation of those damaged during the war. The plantation style economy was continued which was highly dependent on sugar and coconut based products for export. Most everything else was imported given the exchange rate against the dollar was only P2.00-$1.00. There was some manufacturing but this only served the needs of the domestic market and none was meant for export nor was there any investment in groundbreaking industries. The twenty year period between the end of the war to the sixties was spent reviving the fortunes of the oligarchs. Then, as now, most of the investments were geared to real estate development. The Araneta's had Cubao. Joseph McMicking had Makati.

Ferdinand Marcos had a vision for the Philippines to become the primus inter pares among its peers in Southeast Asia. The Philippines was actually ahead because it was the melting pot of trade in the region before World War II. It was only surpassed in development by Japan which was able to rebuild because of massive amounts of American aid. MacArthur implemented the Asian equivalent of the Marshall Plan for Europe. By the time the sixties rolled in, Japan was a rising industrial giant again.

Marcos embarked on the most massive amount of infrastructure spending since the end of World War II. He recruited the best and the brightest to his administration and was also active in forging alliances with the newly independent countries in Southeast Asia. But he wasn't wanting in political enemies. Who was become his most prominent enemy was elected to the Senate in 1967 in the person of Benigno Aquino Jr.

Ninoy, as he was fondly called, was the son of Benigno Sr. and grandson of Servillano, a General in the Revolutionary Army of Aguinaldo. Benigno Sr. served in the Japanese Puppet government of Jose P. Laurel during the war. He was also an ally of Manuel Roxas and was instrumental in the organization of the Liberal Party.

Sionil Jose thus describes Ninoy as:

"The assassination of Ninoy Aquino this month three decades ago evokes so many memories primarily of Ninoy himself. He was a fabulous politician, articulate, affable and well informed; he had many acquaintances and admirers in the country, the region and around the world, in media, academe, in the enclaves of influence and power. I am just one of the many who had the opportunity to know him when he was starting out, at 17, as the youngest cub reporter in the old Manila Times where I was then working. He had come to me one early evening at the suggestion of the Timeseditor, Dave Boguslav. He showed me his copy, did this three times during the week. Soon after, Ninoy went to Korea to report on the war that had broken out in the peninsula and made a name for himself.

Though much younger than I, Ninoy shared this ideal which can only be brought about by revolution. This many did not know — he believed in it. Remembering him now and our purloined past diminishes us. We see how our country has decayed, betrayed by our leaders. Manny Pelaez asked when he was almost killed by an assassin’s bullet during the martial law years: “What happened to us?” We must continually ask ourselves the same question.

Was he for real? He belonged to a rich haciendero family, his roots were entwined with the elite and his marriage strengthened his oligarchic ties. His father was a Cabinet official in the Laurel government, which collaborated with the Japanese. Was he just trying to please those of us who believed in revolutionary change and who, like him, were writers, too?

Or, in espousing revolution, wasn’t he like other members of the elite playing the old double game, siding with the angels just in case the angels win?

He knew of what Franklin Delano Roosevelt did in the United States to end the Great Depression of the Thirties: he betrayed the Eastern establishment — his class."

Aquino never formally completed his college education. He became a correspondent for the Manila Times during the Korean War. When he returned, he became Special Assistant to the President, Ramon Magsaysay. He then married the daughter of Jose Cojuangco, Corazon Cojuangco, which cemented their family's hold on Tarlac. It was also during Magsaysay's incumbency that the Cojuangco family managed to acquire Hacienda Luisita from Tabacalera which owned the sugar plantation and central since the Spanish times under Royal Grant. The Lopez family was also vying to purchase Luisita but Magsaysay out his foot down as the Lopezes already controlled much of the sugar plantations and centrals in Iloilo and Negros. Gaining control of Luisita would've turned them into the head of the sugar cartel in the country.

It was also Aquino who negotiated the surrender of Huk Supremo Luis Taruc. Taruc had grown weary of the struggle to keep the organization whole as he was being challenged by the Lava brothers. Ninoy convinced Taruc that it was in his and the country's best interests to give Magsaysay a chance seeing as how he wasn't a part of the establishment. Magsaysay started out as a mechanic for a bus company in Zambales when he enlisted in the Philippine Army when war broke out.

Aquino parlayed his closeness to Magsaysay by running for Mayor of Concepcion, his hometown and later on Governor of Tarlac. He skipped running for Congress and went straight to the Senate as soon as he qualified for the age requirement in 1967.

Aquino never crafted any law while in the Senate. He made it his job to be the Marcos' adversary. He spent his time as Senator delivering privilege speeches exposing anomalies in the Marcos administration and the propensity of Imelda to construct edifices such as the Cultural Center of the Philippines. He revealed Marcos' secret plan to retake Sabah from Malaysia utilizing a Muslim commando force under the command of Col. Eduardo Martelino named as Oplan Jabidah. He later claimed that the Muslim recruits were massacred in Corregidor by Martelino himself, in Corregidor, where they had been confined for training.

Barely a year as Senator, Aquino again reached out to the Communists. He engineered a regime change in the party and ousted the Lava brothers who took over from Luis Taruc. Aquino then installed Amado Ma. Guerrero as party chief. Guerrero is the nom de guerre of Jose Ma. Sison.

A communist insurgency is nothing without an armed component. Ninoy tapped Bernabe Buscayno to head the New People's Army. Buscayno had been an underling of the elder Huk commanders in the 50s. One of them was Ninoy's uncle on his father's side.

Manong Frankie confirms Aquino's close ties to the Communists:

"Was Ninoy ready to betray his class? To destroy the very instruments of power which he used in his climb?

As later events he himself initiated showed, the answer is yes.

He was loquacious and trusting, but I found out that in spite of his openness, there were many things he did not tell us, among them, his support for the New People’s Army (NPA). After he was released from jail at the conclusion of EDSA I, the renegade Army officer, Victor Corpuz, came to me. He confirmed that, indeed, Ninoy actively supported the NPA. Marcos was right then in his suspicions. But during his regime even I myself was for the New People’s Army as the only viable alternative to the dictatorship."

Sison himself admitted to masterminding the bombing of the miting de avance of the Liberal Party during the midterm elections of 1971 at Plaza Miranda. Aquino was supposed to be the main speaker but was conspicuously absent at the time of the explosion. Aquino claimed he was late in arriving because of a prior engagement. He blamed Marcos for the bombing and claimed it was part of the scenario detailed in Oplan Sagittarius or the plan to declare martial law.

In light of Sionil Jose's revelations about the mindset of Aquino towards reform in society, politics and government, could he have been planning a revolution together with the Communists to topple the State?

By the Constitution, Marcos would end his allowable two terms of office in 1973. Speculation was high that he would field Imelda as his succesor. The Liberal Party then was headed by Gerry Roxas, son of Manuel and the father of Mar. Depending on what he and Ninoy discussed, either of them could be the standard bearer but given Gerry was the son of the founder, the odds were that he would be the one to run against Imelda, if ever.

Roxas against Imelda wasn't going to be a close race. The First Lady took to politics like a duck takes to water. She campaigned relentlessly and regaled the voters with her singing. She also developed a knack for public speaking. She is also Waray in ethnicity which meant she could influence the whole Eastern Visayas to vote for her. Roxas was an average public speaker who was no match for for oratorical skills of Ninoy which was just below Marcos'. Ninoy also connected with voters better. An Imelda-Ninoy duel at the polls would've been as thrilling as a world championship boxing match.

The problem the Liberals had was if Roxas didn't give way to Aquino, there was a chance Aquino would run as an independent under his own party which would split the opposition vote. Imelda would run as a Nacionalista.

Marcos made the speculation moot by calling for amendments to the 1935 Constitution. Congress passed a law calling for a constitutional convention. Delegates were elected and by the time of the Plaza Miranda bombing, the convention was almost done with the amendments. The form or government was to become a parliamentary one after the French model with a unicameral legislature.

Marcos has been frustrated by the gridlock in Congress. He needed economic legislation passed but couldn't get through the opposition which was stonewalling him.

Aquino's countermove was for the Communist Party of the Philippines to stage massive rallies and demonstrations against the oligarchy and the government. Jose Ma. Sison parlayed his teaching skills into converting students at UP into believers of the promised utopia of Communism where all people would be equal in a utilitarian society. He fomented a class war not led by the por but students from the middle class who had been conscientisized by the ostentatious display of wealth by the oligarchs with their Kahirup Ball and lavish parties marking special occasions which were written about in the society columns of the broadsheets. This led to the First Quarter Storm where daily rallies against the government were held coupled with bombings and burning of government assets and facilities. The Communists took the battle to the streets of Manila from the hinterlands of Central Luzon.

In effect, Aquino set up Marcos for the perfect political storm on several fronts. The offshoot of the Jabidah Massacre was the formation of the Moro National Liberation Front again under the auspices of Ninoy Aquino. He tapped Nur Misuari to head the MNLF. Misuari was a UP educated Muslim academic and activist with similar beliefs as Sison. Misuari wanted autonomy for the Muslims in Mindanao. Marcos was now fighting one insurgency and a secessionist movement on top of facing gridlock in Congress.

The Quintero scandal also rocked the Constitutional Convention. Delegate Eduardo Quintero alleged that Marcos bribed certain delegates into passing his pet provisions. Aquino again took advantage of the situation by saying that the constitutional amendments would need from be studied again to ensure that nothing would favor Marcos.

It was under these conditions that Marcos finally ran the gauntlet and decided to declare martial law on September 21, 1972. Marcos arrested several Senators and Congressmen. He padlocked Congress and all the media outlets. He suspended the writ of habeas corpus and arrested both subversives and known criminals. Martial law was a means to establish his vision of the New Society or Ang Bagong Lipunan.

Twenty-two years later, Marcos was ousted in a civilian backed military coup which also had the blessing of the United States. Ninoy Aquino was assassinated upon his arrival on August 21, 1983. His death triggered protests against Marcos which led to him calling for snap Presidential election in 1986. Marcos faced Aquino's widow, Cory. Despite allegations of fraud on a massive scale, Marcos was declared the winner. Cory vowed more protests including a call for civil disobedience against the Marcos government. It was Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile's failed coup attempt against Marcos which paved the way for her ascension to the Presidency courtesy of the intervention of the United States.

Manong Frankie writes of Marcos' fall from power:

"OD (Onofre D. Corpus Marcos' Education Secretary and later UP President) knew I did not like Marcos. I told him the reasons. At one time, OD visited me; he said, Marcos, like us, was Ilokano which meant he worked hard, persevered, and most important of all, he had a sense of history. I also wished him luck. We continued to talk about government, culture, modernization. I always argued that the ultimate modernizer was the revolutionary.

I understood fully why OD joined Marcos — it is seldom that academics, particularly intellectuals are given a chance to move the mountain. Now, he could do just that. Slowly, I kept away; I was worried that with my speaking freely, my friendship with him would end.

I was not wrong about my estimate of Marcos. On that Sunday that EDSA I was blooming, another compadre, Serafin Quiason who was then director of the National Library, joined OD who had already quit government and I for lunch at a restaurant in Angono. There, we post mortemed the Marcos regime, what the Philippines would be like without him. The anarchy and chaos that may come. And worse — the moral decay."

The last paragraph is very significant because all of the three friends present at the lunch at the restaurant in Angono agreed that anarchy, chaos and moral decay could follow the demise of the Marcos regime.

Thirty-one years later and the post-mortem analysis has come true. The Aquino and subsequent allied administrations after have only served to institutionalize corruption at all levels of government. It has been democratized. Not a single reform measure promised by Cory has been fulfilled. They milked the cronies with what they could get and set aside any semblance of governance. All of the plans made by Marcos' technocrats were shelved and as a result both Metro Manila and regional urban centers are choking under the weight of increasing population density and unemployment. Criminals have run loose and the drug problem has exploded to pandemic proportions. Infrastructure development has been neglected. The capacities haven't been keeping up with the increase in population.

The oligarchs have free rein over industries to the point that the average Filipino is at their mercies. Government has aided the oppression instead of abating it. The high cost of basic commodities coupled with the high cost of power, water and lack of affordable housing are the burdens the average Filipino bears. It is ironic because the economic growth is also fueled by the sacrifice and perseverance of overseas Filipino workers. Labor as an export product is the only one that keeps on giving long after it has reached its destination.

The election of Rodrigo Duterte last May 2016 has been fraught with controversy as he is both an outsider and a non-conformist. He has admitted to admiring the positive qualities of Marcos for which the opposition has been ganging up on him as they look at him as Marcos reincarnated. But it bears reading what Sionil Jose thought is necessary for the Philippines to break out of the rut it's in. He writes:

"When Ninoy was given a brief furlough by Marcos, the writers Nick Joaquin, Nestor Mata, Greg Brillantes and I visited him in his Quezon City house on Times Street. The house was filled with the military. We were all photographed, our fingerprints taken. When I returned to the bookshop where several writers were waiting, I told them what happened. No one wanted to go with me when I visited Ninoy again.

As you enter the Times house, there is a small room to the right of the living room — a closet, I think. When Ninoy saw that no one among the soldiers in the house was looking, he dragged me into this room, closed it and said, “This room is not bugged. We can talk here.”

We did for about half an hour. From my bookshop, he bought a lot of titles on politics, economics, history. Now he wanted books on religion, philosophy. Most of all he repeated what he had told us in that bookshop meetings, that he still believed in the necessity of a revolution but that “We cannot afford what happened in Vietnam — a million killed. Perhaps, just 500.”

He must have had already in mind who those 500 would be.

I repeated what Pepe Diokno said, that once it starts, violence cannot be controlled. I said it is the risk we must take, so too, the outcome of a revolution may not be what we want but at least, the major obstacle to liberty will be removed — the oligarchs, the king, the czar, the mighty landlords--whatever. And the playing field will be leveled at last."

By the above, it's quite obvious that Aquino himself believed that there has to be some degree of purging in society. 500 people killed by his estimation may be low or high depending on the criteria he set. But the lingering question is, if Ninoy Aquino did succeed Marcos, how would be have governed? Would he have declared a revolutionary government and pursued reforms in both government and society or would he have brought back the old system of government as Cory did with the 1987 Constitution. To speculate on what would've been the course of action of the deceased is pointless. What has been established is the fact that if there is anyone to blame for reviving the Communist insurgency and establishing the Muslim secessionists, it's none other than Benigno Aquino Jr. To an extent, if he didn't do so, Marcos may have not declare martial law at all. After all, it has only been Aquino's camp which has been insisting that it was Marcos' plan to declare martial law all along. But if this were true, why would Marcos have taken the pains is calling for a constitutional convention to amend the 1935 Constitution? Marcos could've declared martial law first then subsequently form a body to draft a new Constitution which would have all the necessary provisions to perpetuate himself in power. The act the Aquino camp ascribes to Marcos doesn't fit his pattern of action given that Marcos had always acted within the bounds of the law. The proof is the fact that NOT ONE of the Presidential Decrees he issued was overturned by the Supreme Court as being unconstitutional or illegal.

A month after Duterte's inaugural, Sionil Jose shocked the establishment with the following piece:

"The Duterte Revolution"

We are at the start of a revolution that is uniquely Filipino in the same way that EDSA 1 was. The past decades that were a slow drift to an implosion due to rampant corruption, weakened institutions and the apathy of Filipinos has finally been arrested -- not by a man on a white horse, or a soldier atop a tank, but through the ballot by a foul-mouthed Indio, the first politician courageous enough to challenge the Catholic Church and the powerful, arrogant and, yes, unclean media. His ideology in its basic simplicity is love of country and people, and a willingness to sacrifice for it.

The ramifications of Duterte's assault on the rotten status quo, which has begun with the war on drugs, will go deeper into the matrix of our society and government as police, politicians and powerful Filipinos are subjected to the harsh scrutiny of the revolution. Eventually the highest enclaves of privilege will feel its impact for the simple reason that rampant corruption also afflicts our business and banking sectors.

Many of our problems are due to the irresponsibility of the oligarchy; they are the number one culprit of our economic and moral decline. They argue and make decisions from comfortable positions. The revolution is happening, and they cannot see it. Perhaps, when it reaches them, they will be forced to be more socially involved and invest in enterprises that will "spread money like fertilizer." They may even bring home the money they have stashed or invested abroad, and participate in the resurgence of ethics and patriotism.

Populist programs particularly in education, in health and in housing are an absolute necessity but they should not cultivate mendicancy. It is important that many jobs are created as President Roosevelt did during America's Great Depression. The monetary aid being dispensed to the very poor under the past administration should be stopped and in its place, jobs.

Populist programs should not bankrupt the economy and result in dire shortages of food and medicines as is happening in oil-rich Venezuela. Apart from creating jobs and therefore increasing production, the Duterte government should also widen the tax base and intensify tax collection. As in the United States, tax evasion should be dealt with severely by imprisonment and confiscation of assets. There is hardly anyone in this country that is put in jail for tax evasion. It will take a lot of courage to do this, but President Duterte has tons of it.

HIS MASSIVE SUPPORT cuts across ethnicities, across social, economic and generational divides. All sorts of people supported his election, among them those who saw where the wind was blowing. Even the Moros did. The Left did not; as with EDSA 1, their feet were not on the ground. They supported Grace Poe instead, unmindful of the big money that was behind her.

Yet, upon occupying office, President Duterte took the high moral ground by accommodating the Communist left and extending a hand to the Moro rebels. The response of these rebel movements to his offer of a unilateral ceasefire and peace will validate -- or invalidate -- their sincerity. It is only with peace that we can have real development.

The first weeks of the Duterte administration have already given us hope in several sectors -- in agriculture, in the welfare of our OFWs, in transportation, education, housing, telecommunications and services. And most of all, access to the very top for the aggrieved, and transparency of government transactions, long withheld by politicians and the powerful with secrets to hide.

His major failing, as I see it, is his accommodation of the Marcos dictatorship. Why? He is fully aware of its evil, its immoral excesses, and its singular role in impoverishing our country. For that reason it is too early to be euphoric.

MAKE NO MISTAKE though. This revolution is rooted in ethics and patriotism as were most revolutions in the past. It will not be a quick fix. The Mexican and Vietnamese revolutions lasted one generation; we must be prepared for the painful process, the collateral damage, the emotional travail.

Yet there is no certitude, no guarantee, that this revolution will create a free and just society. Remember how the French revolution devoured its own children, Madame Roland exclaiming before the guillotine, "Oh liberty, what crimes are committed in your name!"

That revolution ushered Napoleon, just like the American Revolutionary War preceded the Civil War, the Chinese revolution brought about the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution that decimated hundreds of thousands, and the Iranian revolution brought about Islamic fundamentalism. But the revolutions changed these countries forever. For this is what every revolution does -- it alters society, and transfers power from the oppressor to the oppressed.

It is a risk that all people must take to be free of oppression, to have justice. It is up to the survivors of any revolution to realize that it does not bring immediate social benefits to the people. At its conclusion, it is precisely at this opportune time that revolutionaries have to work harder to make that cataclysmic change bear fruit. It is the time when they should depart to be replaced by excellent administrators who have the technical knowledge and expertise for development. The sword must now be forged into a plowshare.

IN USHERING a meaningful change for the Philippines, President Duterte has incurred the wrath of so many in all levels of society, from the slums to the perfumed precincts of the very rich who feel that their status and privileges are threatened. It is very possible that this very day, conspiracies are being hatched to assassinate him. If such plans succeed, they may well halt the revolution although several changes have already been made permanent.

But our past has shown how Filipinos easily forget and are not all that vigilant. Soon, the baser side of our nature, our instincts, will prevail. President Magsaysay brought about a clean government but upon his death in 1957, in that airplane crash which up to this very day is considered by many as sabotage, corruption returned instantly. And the very stalwarts who supported Magsaysay could do little to stop the resurgence of this evil.

Whatever good the Duterte revolution succeeds in implanting in the Filipino consciousness must therefore be made permanent, institutionalized. This can be made possible by constant testing under stress, as metals are tested and strengthened by fire, and by also ingesting in our hearts the ideal of love of country and people -- and the willingness to sacrifice for it -- so that we can redeem this unhappy country at last."

Manong Frankie is guardedly optimistic but only because of Duterte's closeness to the Marcos family. Duterte never hid his admiration for the late strongman during the campaign. He admitted that while his mother was a Coryista, he never was an admirer of the former President.

After the surprise burial of the late President's remains at the Libingan ng mga Bayani last November, Manong Frankie's tune changed. It appears that there is to be no compromise with regard to the issue of the Marcos family. What he and the other detractors of the President want is for Duterte to completely severe his ties with them and continue to pursue the prosecution of the cases against them for ill-gotten wealth. The ultimate goal is never to see a Marcos return to Malacañan as President.

Most great nations have experienced a revolutionary upheaval as a catharsis to cleanse both society and government of the ills that plague both. Revolutions for independence are often bloody because it is the same as being at war with a foreign power. Throughout the history of the Philippines, there has never been a legitimate revolution in the true sense of the word.

The Philippine Revolution of 1898 was co-opted by the ruling class, the Ilustrados. A pleibian started it but no sooner than it started that he was wasted out. Murdered. This is the fate which befell Bonifacio and Luna at the hands of the elitists Aguinaldo, Paterno, Buencamino and Mabini. They were out to protect their class first and foremost and not achieve true independence for the motherland.

Marcos also started a revolution with his New Society - Ang Bagong Lipunan. Filipinos thought then that Marcos was serious about breaking the shackles of the oligarchy. While Marcos did make a breakthrough in infrastructure, his economic record is mixed. His focus on agricultural industrialization fell flat in the later years but he did get government to work for the people by making sure they could afford the prices of basic commodities. Marcos made the presence of government felt among big business. In fact, it was strongly felt as if the cronies actually surrendered all that Marcos entrusted to them, it would actually comprise the list of the Top 20 Corporations of the Philippines at that time. Ang Bagong Lipunan actually spawned a new breed of oligarchs, one which Marcos could call his own.

The Yellow apologists keep on insisting that EDSA was a revolution. It wasn't. It was actually a failed coup attempt turned successful with the intervention of the United States who wanted Marcos out in order to protect its interests in the country. The catalyst was Aquino's assassination. Is there not enough basis to speculate that Aquino, the King apparent, was sacrificed for the Queen, Cory? The US has done far worse when it comes to effecting regime change in other countries where it holds sway. Just think who was the most disgruntled member of Marcos' inner circle who had been passed over? This is no different from the mysterious circumstances of Magsaysay's death at Mt. Manunggal in 1957.

Thirty years after EDSA and coming on the heels of a bookmarked Aquino administration, nothing has really changed. What has happened is the democratization of corruption and cronyism. Even media is no longer exempt after it was given a taste of power at the seat of the table when the plot to oust Erap was hatched as soon as he won the Presidency. Media continues to gloss over the anomalies of the Yellowtards while highlighting those of its political enemies.

They have also dismantled whatever protection or safety net were in place for the average Filipino. The Ministry of Energy was abolished and its assets sold off. After the blackouts which happened at the tail end of the Cory administration, the Department of Energy was revived but what assets weren't sold during the Cory administration were disposed of in the Ramos administration. As a result, we now have one of the highest cost of power in the world.

Duterte is actually the last hope the Philippines has. But as early as now, one thinks of what will happen next after his term ends, if he's even able to complete his term. To this day, Duterte still has to contend with the twin legacies of Ninoy Aquino; the Communist insurgency and the Muslim secessionists. The latter have proved more cooperative as they wait on Duterte's promise of autonomy by way of a Federal system of government. The Reds, on the other hand, are up to their old tricks. Duterte has bent overall backwards by giving them three choice Cabinet posts which cover their main advocacies. Give them your hand and they start demanding for your arm. They have joined the Yellowtards in protest against the Marcos burial. Of late, they have also joined the protests about the alleged state sponsored killings of those involved in the drug trade. Their militant labor union, the Kilian Mayo Uno, has surfaced again after lying low since the start of the millennium.

What the Philippines needs now is a real revolution. A hard reset in the manner of tech speak. Wipe the slate clean. Use violence against those who will oppose the revolution extend a hand to those who are willing to cooperate. This is necessary because the Philippines has been suffering from an overdose of democracy that is actually democrazy in action.

The minute Duterte mentions about the strict application of powers available to the President, the opposition immediately screams dictatorship and human rights violations. Corruption must be controlled and bureaucratic reforms based on professionalism and meritocracy should be institutionalized.

There should also be an honest to goodness separation between Church and State. Roman Catholicism is never good for nation building because it doesn't instill the concept of honor. Let one sin 7 x 700 times and you will be forgiven. The Filipino politicians take this to mean that they can continue stealing from the public but they will always be forgiven by donating a sum to the Church. Most of our neighbors in the region practice either a form of Confucianism, Buddhist, Shinto or a combination of a little of all but the common thread is the concept of personal honor.

The Church, as the moral guardian of society, has also been remiss in its duties with its hypocrisy. Have you ever seen a progressive Catholic country? Look at Italy. The most economically progressive region of Spain is Andalucia and the people there aren't of Spanish origin. This is why Andalucia wants to become independent of Spain because they're carrying the whole country on their backs.

As far as the Marcos family is concerned, as them for a one time lump sum payment. Pay off the claims of those who won the class action suit in Hawaii. It doesn't make sense to pay off the claims of the so called martyrs who were actually communist rebels out to overthrow the State. They made the choice to fight in a war and they got killed in the process. End of story.

Finally, the oligarchy must be dismantled once and for all. Industries must be opened up to foreign competition. If Philippine companies can acquire regional companies on the strength of the profits they generate domestically then there's no reason why they can't survive with genuine competition in the local market. There should be a antitrust law that will prevent the establishment of cartels, monopolies and oligopolies.

To follow RG San Luis, click on image above.