Skip to main content

A Unity that Can Withstand the Wind

SENATOR FERDINAND Marcos, Jr. seethed when he learned that President Benigno Aquino III made up his mind to not grant any state honor for the burial of his father and late strongman Ferdinand Marcos. In his mind, the decision foregoes a chance to unify the divided nation.

This is a classic case of turning the table that lawyers know very well when trying to twist the facts of a case in favor of their clients when the truth would have been unfavorable. The Philippines has a long history of convicted criminals who insisted into their graves that they were innocent of their crime.

If only the truth is more powerful than those who refused to accept it for defensive reasons, especially when admission can open floodgates for restitution. If only...

But there will never be true unity when reconciliation remain famined from the withholding of the truth. Those who suffered the injustices of the Marcos regime will never be fully reconciled to the memory of those injustices, and neither to those personalities who made possible such violation not just of their basic human rights but even in the destruction of the lives of those they love.

And without genuine reconciliation between the victim and the oppressor, there will never be true unity even if the dead dictator be given the highest honor this country can ever give.

The true key to the unity of Filipinos is not, and will never be, the honorable burial of Marcos. It is the honest and frank admission of sins that had been committed in the past, which provides the chance for the victims to forgive. Without that forgiveness, there will be no reconciliation, and consequently, no true unity.

If Senator Marcos is sincere in making concrete efforts to bring unity to the Filipino people, there is only one thing he needs to do: admit the horrifendous sins of his father's administration and seek the forgiveness of the victims of that administration while they are still alive to give that forgiveness. Otherwise, the evil that the Marcos regime brought to the country will remain festering in our midst.

The beautiful lessons of repentance came to the fore when the late Pope John Paul II humbly sought forgiveness in behalf of the Catholic involvements in the horrinfous sins committed in the name of the Church throughout history; and such an effort towards reconciliation healed so much of wounds that evil had caused in the victims' lives. 

If Senator Marcos can do that, so much grace will come upon the country simply from that act of reconciliation. And our motherland will be a more beautiful and a happier place to live.

At the end of the day, sincere desire for unity and reconciliation must not be dependent on according honor to anyone else, be it a long-gone dictator. It must be based on love and truth. Without these cementing the nation, the so-called 'unity' will be a farse, and even a weak gust of wind can bring that union down to where it used to be. And such effort at 'unity' will be as good as none.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Senate as a Protector of the Unborn

SHOULD SENATE BILL 2497 becomes law, the Upper Chamber would once again distinguish itself as a bastion of rationality and moral discernment in a Congress that has been confused over whose right must be protected the most--that of the mother, or that of the unborn child? The mother bill House Bill 4244, sponsored by Representative Edcel Lagman, believes that mothers must be protected with the protection of the unborn child given only a lip service. While Section 3(i) recognizes that "abortion is illegal and punishable by law," it does, in a twist of linquistic doubletalk, not support the idea that such is a serious break of the law; and instead proposed that "all women needing care for post-abortion complications shall be treated and counseled." It is like giving treatment and counseling to a serial killer after murdering a child, and then simply saying, "You may go now. Just come back to us for a regular check on your wounds." HB4244 is an all-mother bil...
Post a Comment
Read more

When the High Court Starts to Misinform

THERE WAS AN ATTEMPT to misinform the Filipinos, coming from the Supreme Court lately through its spokesperson Atty. Midas Marquez, its Acting Chief of the Public Information Office. Midas claimed that he had an affidavit signed ( reportedly under pressure ) from the person involved in the distribution of official case documents of Ombudsman Chief Merceditas Gutierrez in her petition to have the High Court stop the impeachment hearing against her at the House of Representatives by the Committee on Justice, docketed as G. R. No. 193450. One claim said that copies of the 65-page petition (248 pages, including the annexes) were distributed and placed on the conference table of teh en banc session conference room on 14 September 2010. In a press statement issued dated 9 March 2011, Associate Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno put the facts clearly and unequivocally: "My office received the Petition on September 14, 2010, at 2:15 p.m. No other copy was received by me or by my staff either ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Skirting the Issues of Bad Journalism

AMADO DORONILA of the Philippine Daily Inquirer writes today about the perceived coercion that President Benigno Aquino III made on the press in defense of his "passion for flashy cars," and for  his lifestyle as a "pampered son of a wealthy family living an unfrugal life." I encountered some confusion on how Mr. Doronila reasoned out his understanding on how frugal life is meant to be lived. Does he meant to keep the money on the vault unused simply for the sake of not spending them? That will be a suggestion for a miser's lifestyle. Aquino may have "bought," actually exchanged, a third-hand Porsche for his old BMW for approximately the same valuation of P4.5 million. In effect, there was no significant money spent for the acquisition, except perhaps a sales tax if that applied. And here Mr. Doronila concluded that the new President of the Republic is living an "unfrugal life" (did he expect Mr. Aquino to sell the luxury car he had befor...
Post a Comment
Read more