The Forgetfulness of the Philippine People

THE FORGETFULNESS OF THE PHILIPPINE PEOPLE

FRUSTRATED NETIZEN WRITES TO 16 MILLION DUTERTE VOTERS

Federico D. Pascual Jr.

The Philippine Star, April 10, 2018 - 12:00am

We share below an open letter of netizen Gege Cruz pouring out in social media her disgust with the 16 million voters who handed the presidency to Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte in 2016. (This version is 500 words shorter than Cruz’s original rant that we edited to fit space.)

You’ll never hear the end of it from me for your Duterte vote. And the more intelligent, the more educated, the more well-bred, the more “Christian” you are, the more I blame you. Shame on you!

…One reason I got from friends – because he’s the only one who can achieve radical change that this country badly needs. Bullcrap! There was never ever any empirical proof of that. You just believed the macho stories. You bought into the myth they built with manipulated polls and paid trolls.

It was a vote of desperation. And you chose to be desperate at a time when our country was at its best economic standing in a long time. When we were emerging as a new tiger. Desperation makes you stupid, you know.

Because you were angry about traffic, frustrated with the MRT, outraged by laglag bala. You voted for the one who only said he would solve those problems, without presenting any viable solution, just imaginary numbers and ridiculous deadlines. Naniwala naman kayo!

You just felt like voting for him. Basta. And look at where that vote has brought us. Loans piling up. Peso slipping. Jobs and investments dwindling. Grants disappearing. Our islands being grabbed from us. Corruption growing. Nepotism, cronyism, incompetence, the death of meritocracy. Wala nang bigas! May crime at drugs pa rin! At may traffic pa rin!

Eto pa – “Hindi siya trapo!” Tingnan mo ngayon – trapo na siya, at isa pa siyang malaking doormat – Welcome, China! Our Islands, Yours Na. Tinapon ang ating victory sa Hague. At binenta ng libre ang bansa natin. With loan interests on our side. Hindi pa natin tapos bayaran ang mga utang ni Marcos, eto na naman!

See: https://www.philstar.com/opinion/2018/04/10/1804450/frustrated-netizen-writes-16-million-duterte-voters

The worst part for me is that just when we are about to turn the economic development corner and have nearly paid off the Marcos debt after 30 years, the Philippine electorate places another massively corrupt politician into office.

MARCOS YEARS MARKED ‘GOLDEN AGE’ OF PH ECONOMY? LOOK AT THE DATA

Kevin Mandrilla

Rappler.com, March 5, 2016

The notion of a ‘golden age’ of the Philippine economy under the Marcos regime, especially during its latter years, is a big, fat lie

…for the newer generations with virtually no means of recalling the brutal martial law era and the economic hardships that it brought, perhaps one of the best ways of reliving the Marcos economy is by revisiting the data and opening yourselves to the story these data show.

…We lost two decades of development

[Refer to above chart]

What the graph shows: A continuous increase in GDP per capita (or income per person) is usually understood as an overall improvement in economic welfare. [The chart] shows that Philippine GDP per capita declined after 1982 and did not reach the same level until 2003, or 21 years later.

What it means: This severe retrogression of Filipinos’ income per person – called “lost decades of development” – testifies to a truly dark era in our economic history. It took the country an entire generation to recover from the bad outcomes of the Marcos regime’s economic policies and management. Even with this data alone, it is difficult to understand why many people cling to the idea that the Marcos regime, taken as a whole, brought about the Philippine economy’s “golden age.”

https://rappler.com/voices/imho/marcos-economy-golden-age-philippines

“A Nation That Forgets,” February 25, 2018:

https://oddsandendsgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2018/02/a-nation-that-forgets.html

“Plunder Financed by Debt,” June 22, 2020:

https://oddsandendsgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2020/06/plunder-financed-by-debt.html

“Forgetfulness is the incomprehension of those who misconstrue the past.”

See: https://poetryofgonzalinhodacosta.blogspot.com/2018/07/politics.html