Whoever knowingly profits by the crime of corruption is guilty of it.

Subject: ANTI-CORRUPTION MEASURE; MARCOS GUILTY OF "INCEST" ???
Re hero's burial for the late dictator Marcos

Prof Cesar's suggestion to commission experts to assess the martial law regime is well taken, especially while the rest of Marcos family are still around to refute any unflattering findings--if they can. If they cannot, their inability to do so will serve to validate the findings. The results of the study and evaluation should be perpetuated for posterity through putting it in a book. Doing so is in fact an ANTI-CORRUPTION MEASURE.

Whoever knowingly profits by the crime of corruption is guilty of it. While this is the case, the families of notoriously corrupt government officials do not suffer for their crimes and are even elected to public offices.

Reason: we Filipinos have a very short memory--because the older generations, witnesses to what it was in prior years, slowly vanish and become outnumbered by young voters who did not suffer in the past. What's more, it is appalling how some supposed intellectuals are blinded by their own biases and prejudices. They cannot see what were wrong with the past martial law regime and other intentionally corrupt regimes. Thus, families of even blatantly corrupt government officials easily attain respectability and are able to launder the fruits of corruption of their elders.

To remedy the situation, books must be written to serve as permanent written record of past big-time cases of corruption and their perpetrators, to be posted to the Internet as well as donated to public and university libraries nationwide.

Consequently, in my still in-progress book manuscript on corruption (na hindi ko matapos tapos dahil sa mga ibang ginagawa ko), one of my recommendations is as follows:

Among the suggestions to Civil Society Organizations (CSOs): Commission the writing of books on corruption cases that will make grafters and their benefiting families go down in history as the corrupt and evil people that they are.

So that big-time grafters will know the lasting impact of their crimes, which can visit succeeding generations of their families--thereby discouraging them and others from committing further corruption--civil society groups with means have to finance and commission technical experts and journalists to write books on what is happening today on corruption and governance. Through the books, let those government officials who committed or abetted corruption, despite the supplication to the contrary by civil society groups and concerned citizens, go down in history as the corrupt and evil government officials that they are. Complimentary copies of the book should be donated to the libraries of the national government, local government units, and public and private educational institutions.

ON THE ISSUE OF HERO'S BURIAL FOR MARCOS

A father may love his baby girl, care for her and provide her everything until she grows up, but if he RAPES her afterwards, he is guilty of INCEST and crime worthy of the most severe punishment--death sentence in the Philippines when capital punishment was not yet abolished. All of the good things he did to his daughter in the past are obliterated--or reduced to nothingness--by his heinous crime and no longer counted in his favor.

Marcos might have served his country as a supposed decorated war hero, legislator, and highest government official, but if he RAPED the NATION afterwards, then his merits for his past services to the nation are obliterated, as in the case of a father who raped his daughter. What's more, it can be said that he merely used his past early services as stepping stone to his ambition--winning the presidency of the land, where he in turn served his personal interests at the expense of the people.

In which case, Marcos should suffer for his RAPE of the NATION, which he did through abolition of democratic institutions, violations of human rights, crony capitalism that destroyed level playing field and stifled economic growth because it discouraged local and foreign investors, enrichment through rampant corruption in government, and other misdeeds that in his time doomed and transformed the then second most prosperous economy in Asia into the basket case of the region, in the process, among other things, (1) destroying our sense of values or the moral fiber of the nation--we learned to accept and accord respectability to grafters in our society, even considering them smart, because they are able to enjoy their loot and get away with it--(2) institutionalizing government corruption that has been sucking the lifeblood of the nation, as well as (3) consigning to poverty and misery the bulk of the now almost 100 million Filipinos--about 11 million of whom are in diaspora, at tremendous social cost to them, the separated families, who have to endure unbearable pain and longing for being away from loved ones. The unfortunate among them are subjected to abuse in host countries, so they go home broken in body or spirit or both, with those in the most heart-rending cases in coffins....

The poison fruits of corruption in the martial law regime are in the form of huge deposits in foreign banks/foundations, claimed assets in the Philippines and abroad, etc.. The fact that parts of the unexplained wealth were actually recovered by the Philippine government is testimony to the truthfulness of the alleged corruption.

The allegations by Marcos apologists that he could have industrialized the nation if he was not driven out of office is hogwash--because he simply could not do it. To begin with, he was President for roughly two decades and he failed to do it. Then, before EDSA I, the government was bankrupt. We unilaterally declared default in the payment of our foreign loans and had become pariah in the international financial community for many years, as admitted by former Bangko Sentral Governor Gabriel Singson. (From less than half billion dollars, our foreign loans ballooned to more than $28 billion during Marcos time, with not much to show for it.) Some manufacturing companies using imported raw materials closed shop owing to our economy's lack of precious foreign exchange--when all the while huge amounts in dollars were stashed by our corrupt officials in Swiss and other foreign banks. Most of all, it was too late for our envisioned new manufacturing companies, because by then we could no longer compete with our industrialized neighbors, whose industries have grown so much that they now have the great advantage of economy of scale over us.

Marcos could have made reparation for his sins to Filipinos by making good on his promise to bequeath his wealth to the people, but a brilliant lawyer that he was, it seemed he knew how to do the difficult part--accumulating great wealth--but did not know how to do the easy part, disposing of it. Shortly before his death, when he summoned Vice President Doy Laurel in Hawaii, he set CONDITIONS for the donation of his wealth to the people. He wanted then President Cory to agree to the conditions otherwise the donation would not be implementable. (The government's agreement to the donation to private parties is needed because the government is in fact running after the Marcos wealth for itself.) However, Cory did not want to have anything to do with his wealth because she was astute enough to suspect a witting or unwitting trap. If the conditions were unacceptable and she rejected them, later on her detractors would falsely attribute the failed donation to her demanding a big share of the wealth, which demand the Marcoses supposedly turned down. On the other hand, if the negotiation succeeded and the donation materialized, later on she would still be falsely accused of secretly getting her own big share of the wealth. In either case, it was a NO WIN situation for her, something that the late Doy Laurel failed to fathom.

In reality, in his will, Marcos could have simply bequeathed his wealth to the people under his desired conditions, then, once he was gone, assuming his conditions were acceptable, it was up to the government to agree, and to the people to comply, as precondition to the people's getting hold of his wealth. Better still, if he really wanted to do the right thing, even while he was still around, he should have simply donated or returned his unexplained wealth to the people without any conditions in the first place.

By and large, in the end, Marcos does not deserve a hero's burial. Bestowing him undeserved honor in his death is tantamount to adding insult to injury to his victim--the Filipino NATION that he appeared to have RAPED.

In fact, as President of the Philippines and as such the deemed FATHER of the NATION, his apparent "incestous" rape of the nation is treated in the book of his own former subordinate government official, entitled THE MARCOS REGIME: RAPE OF THE NATION (New York: Vantage Press, c1985. xi, 285 p.: ill.; 24 cm.), written by the staunch nationalist Filemon C. Rodriguez, former Marcos-appointed pre-martial law Chairman of the National Economic Council, the forerunner of today's National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), as well as the then Chairman of the Phinma group of companies--where he worked in tandem with group president Ramon del Rosario, Sr., father of La Sallite Boy Blue, former Finance Secretary in the Cory administration. Considering that much of the unpleasant truth about the martial law regime surfaced after EDSA I, the cited book is certainly incomplete and needs updating and amplification through another book at the present time.

Mar Tecson

March 26, 2011