Blogpost #3: Changes after the martial law

Everytime I hear the news from my father's radio, many people had been killed everyday by other crimes. My father told me that the is not very strong and the citizens are not afraid to break the law because of their own freedom. I asked my father what would be like when martial law still remains as a law for the Philippines. He compared his time to the present that during the martial law era, their crime rates were very low unlike in the present, everyone disrespects the law.

After the era of Ferdinand Marcos when Cory Aquino set us free, the filipino have the freedom to express themselves to the government and it's good to know that the authorities won't able to abuse the innocent citizens. However, the problem about freedom is that the citizens abused too much about their freedom. They break the laws, the government corrupts, the crime ratings increased and Manila became into a rotten mess just like this picture below.

As I read the article called "The Ghost of Martial Law" by Nathan Gilbet Quimpo. This article tells about what happened happened after the Marcos-era when President Joseph Estrada and Gloria Arroyo was following the footsteps of Ferdinand Marcos. However, this article tells about how those two former presidents corrupted so many taxes in a bigger different ways.

According to Quimpo "President Joseph Estrada and Arroyo apparently followed Marcos' footsteps.
Estrada amassed $78-80 million, enough to put him as No.10 in TI's list of the most corrupt rules. He was convicted of plunder but pardoned shortly afterwards". He was trying to say that former president Estrada was like Marcos for corrupting too many taxes but Estrada didn't reach Marcos' level because Marcos corrupted $5 billion during his era.

Well, there's a big differences between them and Marcos has the reason why he corrupt. The reason for that is he wants to develop the Philippines, unlike Estrada, corrupted taxes just for himself same as Gloria Arroyo,too.

While the martial law were still remains to remembered by the citizens who survived the Marcos-era. I read another article called "Ghost of Martial Law" by Ricardo De Los Santos. This article tells about the return of Imelda Marcos in 1991 and the bombing threat of Metro Manila from the Muslim but took the blame of Imelda Marcos.

According to De Los Santos "Indeed, it is a valid impression that specters of old are re-emerging. Martial law is again audible in people's discussions and concerns". He was trying to say that the martial law won't able to forget during those times because there so many filipino citizens who was suffered during the Marcos-era.

It's true that the people who survived during the Marcos-era is unforgettable and they will discuss to the young filipino people that they took the blame on Marcos. They said that his legacy is about the first ruthless dictator in the Philippines.

As a young Filipino citizen, I really don't know of which side I am if Marcos is a good or bad person because I've never experienced during those times and it whispers to all of the young filipinos same as I about the time of Marcos. According to the Philippine history book that Marcos was the most ruthless president in Asia while I read the articles from the Internet about the truth behind Marcos that he was a great person. We were blinded by those people who wrote books and articles. As for myself, I think Marcos did some good things and bad things about the Philippines same to us. Marcos is like one of us,too. As a human we do good things and bad things about ourselves, so stop judging that Marcos was the most infamous person in the Philippines.