Part Two
THE bitter irony came on November25, 1999, at the announcement in Malacañang of the formal creation of the Commission of the 1986 Edsa Revolution, when President Corazon Aquino warned President Joseph Estrada, by quoting American author George Santayana’s famous line, that: “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
She described the quotation as “wise words not just for our children and grandchildren, but for all of us to heed.”
Did she not remember the famous quotation when she was the president for six years and four months?
Obviously, she did not.
Ferdinand E. Marcos in 1972 declared martial law, abolished the Constitution, allegedly jailed his opponents, may have violated human rights and allegedly plundered the treasury and the economy.
Aquino in 1986 also ruled by decree, abolished the 1973 Constitution, violated human rights and betrayed the Filipino people.
By comparison, Aquino may have been worse than Marcos, judging by her own record.
Before the end of 1991, the Aquino administration strangely assumed all the P194-billion liabilities incurred by the Marcos administration in 20 years and unjustly dumped them on the shoulders of the
Filipino people.
It meant that, at that time instead of benefiting from Marcos’s alleged purloined wealth, each of the 76 million Filipinos in 1986 ended up with an additional liability of P2,421, using the P194 billion as a multiplying variable.
Not only that. By her action or inaction, she may have violated her own Constitution, because 419 accounts of the total assumed liabilities, valued at P147 billion, including 130 fraudulent loans granted on the behest of Marcos and his cronies, were the object of massive recovery operations and prosecutions by her own creation, the Presidential Commission on Good Government.
The Constitution, in Section 24, Article VI, provides that: “All appropriation, revenue or tariff bills, bills authorizing increase of public debt, bills of local application and private bills shall originate exclusively in the House of Representatives, but the Senate may propose or concur with amendments.”
Marcos spent P448 billion in 20 years; Aquino disbursed almost P1.6 trillion in six years and four months.
Aquino built a complex of overpasses in Metro Manila; Marcos constructed a network of roads and bridges.
It took a revolution to unravel Marcos; there was none in the case of Mrs. Aquino, but her regime left behind a paper trail that revealed its own incompetence, perfidy and misdeeds. Marcos resorted to propaganda hyperbole to obscure his failure; Aquino did the same with her yellow banners and confetti.
For instance, the popular impression that recalcitrant politicians and rebel soldiers were to blame for her government’s failure and economic debacle, as repeatedly dished out by her paid local and international propagandists, deserve a thorough review because neither the rebel soldiers nor the politicians were in charge of the country during her term.
Aquino and her bumbling Cabinet were.
They controlled the currency, contracted debts, shaped the budget, and decided the economic priorities with her hotshot technocrats.
It is easy to understand that Aquino and her Cabinet were indeed responsible if the people would only take a second look at her national budget and flawed economic policies.
For instance, from 1986 to 1991, the Aquino administration budget amounted to more than P1.6 trillion. Of this enormous amount, Congress (the Senate and the House) got a total appropriation of only P4.4 billion.
In particular, the legislature had a total appropriation of only P1.23 billion to P900 million for the House and P330 million for the Senate.
To be continued
To reach the writer, e-mail cecilio.arillo@gmail.com.