Changing the Past

What the Opposition is doing is making Marcos a hero.

Before you read on, let me ask you a few questions.

- Is President Duterte a dictator?

- Are we living under an authoritarian regime?

From freedom of expression to freedom of assembly, these most basic manifestations of democracy, we enjoy them, do we not? . Of course, to people who suffer from persecution-mania, imagined suffering is just as real as, or if not more so than, real suffering.

It baffles me to no end why the Opposition would dare pull such a stunt in an age when information verification and fact-checking are literally at people's fingertips.

We see pages purporting to fight for democracy popping up almost everyday on socmed.

"HARANGIN AND DIKTADURYA" [Translation: Block the dictatorship]

What the....? Oh yeah. Let's stop the dictatorship! Let's stop the dictatorship! Oh wait! Who's the dictator again?

If we who live in this information/internet age are being lied to, or attempted to be mass-hoodwinked by the Opposition, all because they misguidedly believe that a dictator resides in Malacanan! How implausible is it to postulate that maybe, just maybe, they did the same thing to the Filipinos of the 1960s and the 1970s?

Of course we know that Marcos was rather atrocious at the height of his power and he did declare martial law. Professor James Carse wrote, "The meaning of the past changes depending on what happens in the future."

All this fear mongering is a disservice to the present as well as to the pains our forebears went through. They make us doubt whether or not the same trick was foisted years ago on the Filipinos.

Mass hysteria need not have a fire. It only requires a hysterical person sounding the fire alarm.

To follow Bryan on Facebook, click image above.