I borrowed this title from a Facebook meme because I believe it best reflects the sentiment of the silent majority in the country today who for nearly six years has been praying for a better, decent, effective, and credible government.
The phrase, lifted from the lyrics of the Beatles’ song ‘Let it Be’, is pregnant with prose of hope: “… And in my hour of darkness she is standing right in front of me, speaking words of wisdom, let it be… And when the night is cloudy there is still a light that shines on me, shinin’ until tomorrow, let it be.”
Vice President Leni Robredo, who has recently thrown her hat into the political ring to vie for the presidency, has become an overnight symbol of hope and resiliency. The masses feel for her, seeing her as a battered government leader who has been subjected to orchestrated, vociferous, and daily bashing by no less than President Duterte himself, his allies, and thousands of die-hard supporters and trolls of the deposed dictator’s son Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos Jr. Many marvel at how the mud slung at Robredo has easily slid off each time, shrugged off by Robredo who has thus far refused to be cowed by intimidation, harassment, and groundless accusations. She has seemingly become immune to misogynist rants, and has in fact made good use of them. When diehard Duterte supporters (DDS) insulted her feeding program, saying that her brain has nothing but ‘lugaw’ (porridge), she called her outreach program ‘Lugaw ni Leni’. What seems to be her most effective weapon is tirelessly working on her various Office of the Vice President (OVP) socio-civic projects without fanfare. By her silence, Robredo has proclaimed that she prefers to be judged by her actions that seek to benefit those on what she calls ‘laylalan ng lipunan’ (the downtrodden).
When the pandemic struck and the whole government machinery seemed to halt in shock, the OVP sprang into action and optimized its limited funds by forging tie-ups with the private sector and non-government organizations to provide assistance to those in need. Her efforts, instead of being lauded and supported by the Administration, were ridiculed in the print and social media. Day in and day out, a hundred or more online trolls appeared to shadow her every move to publicly insult and downplay each noteworthy endeavor she undertook.
The unfazed Leni is no stranger to hecklers. Her family—especially her late husband, then Interior and Local Government Secretary Jesse Robredo—had been a target of unfounded attacks by political rivals. As its mayor for 18 years, Jesse Robredo transformed the once-sleepy Naga City in Camarines Sur into a premier city in the Bicol region. By the end of his first term as mayor (1988-1998), he catapulted the city into a model of local governance in the country, and a workshop of governance innovations—making it a magnet for other local governments worldwide in search of governance paradigms. It is apparent in the way the OVP is run that Leni has adopted Jesse’s mantra of “good governance is good politics.”
Unprovoked anti-Leni tirades recently spewed by presidential aspirant and Manila City Francisco ‘Isko’ Moreno left a bitter taste in the mouth of many Filipino voters. For someone who says he is advocating for national healing, Moreno came off as a “lawyer” for Leni’s bitter presidential rival Bongbong Marcos. It is as if Yorme (as Moreno prefers to be called), is lip-syncing Duterte’s and Marcos’ misogynistic, anti-Leni diatribe. Yorme’s beef? Leni is not after unity because she allegedly abandoned the Liberal Party to run as an independent presidential candidate, conveniently glossing over the fact that he too left the Nacionalista Party to run under Aksyon Demokratiko. He also questioned why Leni seems to be “more interested in defeating Bongbong than fixing the country’s pressing problems”. Among his most foul insults is calling Leni’s supporters “yellowtards”, displaying a pattern of muckraking his political handers are experts at. For a troll to result to such a flagrant display of bad manners is somewhat understandable, but definitely unbecoming for someone running for the highest position of the land.
Yorme also has a shallow reading of the country’s political landscape. It is not about a battle between two families. It is about the quest of a family to rewrite Philippine history by obfuscating the evils and excesses of Marcos Sr.’s totalitarian rule. Marcos’ 20-year reign had sunk the country to an economic pitfall. It was a time when the country’s coffers had been made into the private piggy bank of the Marcoses; when critics were illegally imprisoned, mercilessly tortured, or unceremoniously killed. Of this I write, not from reading Google files or from stories relayed by relatives or friends, but as someone who lived in fear and personally suffered from the heavy hand of the repressive Marcos regime.
Perhaps, Yorme should study the accounts of two retired jurists about the Marcoses’ ill-gotten wealth. Former Justice Artemio Panganiban described as a “milestone and perhaps the most damning Supreme Court ruling against the Marcoses—the one on Republic v. Sandiganbayan: It forfeited in favor of the Republic more than $658 million plus interests owned by Ferdinand and Imelda but hidden in front foundations and organizations.”
On July 15, 2003, then Justice Renato C. Corona ruled that “$304,372.43… [was] the only known lawful income of the [Marcos couple from 1965 to 1985] since they did not file any Statement of Assets and Liabilities, as required by law, from which their net worth could be determined.” This ruling on the Marcoses’ lawful income, Panganiban observed, “became crucial in subsequent cases which deemed as ill-gotten any cash, [bank] deposit or asset owned by the couple in excess of such sum.”
There are other instances when the Philippine government won its ill-gotten wealth case against the Marcoses, but only a few victories by the Marcos Family due to technicality, were given more prominence by the traditional media and later amplified in the social media. In fact, it is in this latter platform where Marcos and Duterte rule.
In her recent testimony before the US Congress, Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen testified that the company prioritized “astronomical profits over the safety of the platform’s billions of users and it should not come as a surprise that the social-media giant was responsible for the rise in authoritarianism in the Philippines.” Haugen’s testimony fortifies a 2017 study by the University of Oxford which found that $200,000 or about P10 million was spent to hire trolls who spread propaganda for Duterte and attack his critics using Facebook and other social- media platforms.
Should the Filipinos forgive and forget the ill-gotten wealth of the unrepentant Marcoses and their Martial Law abuses?
Posted in her official FB account, former Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno says: “Stealing from government coffers is a crime against the Republic of the Philippines, the corporate entity trying to recover the ill-gotten wealth; the People of the Philippines whose criminal laws were violated; the poor who have been deprived the benefits of the money that was stolen; and the taxpayers who will continue to shoulder the loans that the Marcos government incurred….”
As Sereno points out, anyone who blocks or discourages the act of holding those thieves accountable is an enabler in the ‘works of wickedness’.
Translated from the original Filipino in which her post was written, Sereno reiterates: “And what is right? To ask for the ill-gotten wealth to be returned to the nation’s coffers. And for the thieves to ask for forgiveness, given the huge amount of what was stolen. Brothers and sisters, open your eyes. Three final decisions of the Supreme Court ruled that Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos stole from our country. And this stolen wealth is what Mrs. Imelda and her three children, including Bongbong, are now claiming to be legitimately owned by them.”
According to Sereno, the Supreme Court’s exact words are: “The joint income tax returns of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos cannot, therefore, conceal the skeletons of their kleptocracy.” To those who seem bent on rebuking people for wanting what is right and true to prevail, she pleads, “For the love of Christ, please think very carefully.”
Sereno continues: “Imelda’s liberty is not proof that she did not steal. The civil proceedings of those three cases had the final judicial pronouncement that the concerned assets were ill-gotten or stolen wealth. Imelda was convicted for seven counts of graft. She is out on bail and filing an appeal with the Supreme Court.”
Will Leni pave the way for truth and justice to finally prevail in the Philippines?
For comments and suggestions, e-mail me at mvala.v@gmail.com