Aquino and Marcos need to work Together

President Noy Noy Aquino and Sen. Bong Bong Marcos seemingly have been trying to rewrite the "what if's" of the past, with Sen. Marcos claiming that the Philippines could be like Singapore today if his namesake was allowed to finish out his third term in office rather than be forced out by the EDSA Revolution of 1986, and President Aquino claiming that had Marcos remained in power, the Philippines would have ended up like Libya, erupting in civil war like the world has witnessed in February and March of 2011. Marcos wants his father buried in the Libingan ng mga Bayan with full military honors, while Aquino, whose opinions are clear on both President Marcos and his burial, has left it to Vice President Jejomar Binay to make the decision if Marcos is to be buried in the Heroes Cemetery or not. Binay, before he became Mayor of Makati, was a civil rights attorney who fought the Marcos regime during the Martial Law years, 1972-1981.

The issue is not with the what ifs of the past, but rather, with the what can be's in the future. These two leaders are seemingly bent on reliving the past, when in fact they should be working together to make the Philippines a better country than it is. While it is true that Ferdinand Marcos the 1st led the country in times of prosperity during his first term in office, everything except the population of the Philippines went downhill after he declared Martial Law, which was really a bogus grab at power. There was so much graft and corruption during the Marcos Martial Law years, that upon Marcos' ouster in the People Power revolution, there were claims that the Marcos family had amassed billions during their rule. In fact, during his forced exile in Hawaii, Marcos penned an opinion piece that appeared in the Los Angeles Times in which he guaranteed a return of some $5 billion to the Philippine government if he and his family were allowed to return to the Philippines. The administration of Corazon Aquino did not take Marcos up on his offer and he died in bitter exile in Honolulu. His family though eventually found its way back to the Philippines and today his children are in politics, with daughter Imee the governor of Illocos Norte (Bong Bong's former job), and son and namesake Ferdinand Jr. the senator.

President Noy-Noy Aquino's family has been entrenched in the Philippine political scene for decades. PNoy himself is an accidental president, who only was elected due to the sympathy vote upon the death of his mother. They too are of the ruling elite, with PNoy's father, Benigno Aquino assassinated at the Manila International Airport (now Ninoy Aquino airport) purportedly on the orders of Marcos, and PNoy's mother, housewife Corazon Aquino, who helped to return democracy to the Philippines with her election in 1986, thanks to Marcos' call for a snap election. Cory Aquino's legacy piece of legislation, the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program, known as CARP was supposed to have promoted the welfare of the landless by deeding them property that previously belonged to the landed oligarchs of the country, of which Cory's family was a member of with its Hacienda Luisita. While on paper the program sounded like it would help to free the laborers of the land from the bondage of the landowners, CARP was never really successfully implemented. In fact, the ownership of the Hacienda Luisita is still winding its way through the courts, more than 20 years after the law was enacted in 1988. The only legacy that Cory Aquino brought to the Philippines was a return to democracy, which is huge.

So where is the Philippines today? While the country has progressed somewhat, the two seeming ruling families are still feuding, with Bong Bong saying this and Noy Noy saying that, which is ridiculous considering what the country is doing on the international scene. Will Vietnam, which just a generation ago was at war, surpass the sick man of Asia? Will Laos or Cambodia surpass the Philippines in terms of GDP? Both President Aquino and Sen. Marcos are leaders of the country, they should put their collective heads together for the benefit of the FUTURE of the country rather than to try and secure familial legacies. Their namesakes histories have already been written. Trying to rewrite history is a waste of time. We know what Marcos the first brought to the Philippines, and we know what Cory Aquino's legacy was, as well as that of Benigno Aquino Sr. It is time for these two leaders to write their own histories rather than to fall back on or defend the histories of their parents.