MILLENNIALS' QUERY: WILL I VOTE FOR BONGBONG?

 

I suggest 5 factors Millennials must examine.

FACTOR I. LOOT

If you Google "Marcos Loot," you will get 5,610,000 results in 0.53 seconds. Top 10 results:

1. "P174B recovered from Marcos loot, P125B more to get" - Rappler, Sep 29, 2021

2. "The $10bn question: what happened to the Marcos millions?" – The Guardian, May 7, 2016

3. "Unexplained wealth of the Marcos family" – Wikipedia

4. "Where did Marcos Hide His $10 Billion Fortune? – Bloomberg, June 28, 2021

5. "Marcos' loot: the details – and the relevance today – CMFR-Phil, Oct 8, 2021

6. "Law of Duterte Land: Marcos ill-gotten loot and where to find it" – Facebook, Oct 5, 2021

7. "Anti-graft court orders turnover to PH gov't of P1B Marcos loot" – YouTube

8. "Where Marcos stashed multibillion loot" – Inquirer, Sep 17, 2017

9. "Marcos's Loot May Be Shared by Filipino Victims" – The New York Times, Oct 28, 1995

10. "The Buddha, the gold, and the myth: How Marcos looted the Central Bank" – Amazon, Jan 1, 1997

FACTOR II. ECONOMY

"It's the economy, stupid" is a phrase, according to Wikipedia, coined by James Carville, the strategist in Bill Clinton's successful 1992 presidential campaign. Here and now, I suggest you read "The Marcos years according to statistics" by Andrew J. Marasigan in his Philstar column "The Corner Oracle" on Oct 27, 2021 as excerpted below:

"Numbers don't lie and records show that the economy grew by an anemic annual growth rate of only 3.8 percent during Marcos' 21-year rule. The peso depreciated from a strong P3.92 to one US dollar in 1965 to P19.99 in 1986; per capita income (nominal) increased by only three-fold over 21 years while it increased ten-fold in Thailand and Malaysia. Unemployment was at 7.2 percent in 1965 and surged to 33 percent in 1986. Poverty rates were at 7.2 percent in 1965 and rose to a staggering 44.2 percent in 1986.

"With so much economic wreckage and debt under Marcos' leadership, it was only in 2004 that the country was able to surpass GDP per capita income of 1982. We lost two decades of economic development – four decades if you include Marcos' 21 years in office. A generation of mismanagement is why the country remains a lower-middle-income economy today."

FACTOR III. PROVERBS

"A proverb is a short, generally known sentence of the folk which contains wisdom, truth, morals, and traditional views in a metaphorical, fixed, and memorizable form and which is handed down from generation to generation." (Wolfgang Mieder)

"Like father, like son." A son's character or behavior can be expected to resemble that of his father. Qualis pater, talis filius ("as the father, so the son") and patris est filius ("he is his father's son") are Latin sayings cited as the source of the English proverb. Other similar proverbs are:

"The apple doesn't fall far from the tree."

"Birds of a feather flock together"

As the old crows so does the young

FACTOR IV. BIBLE

"Every good tree produces good fruit, but a rotten tree produces bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, and a rotten tree cannot produce good fruit." Matthew 7:17-18

"Grapes are not picked from thorn bushes." Luke 6:44

FACTOR V. SNIPPET OF THE PAST

Excerpted from the book "Impossible Dream: The Marcoses, the Aquinos, and the Unfinished Revolution" by Sandra Burton.

Day 3, February 25, 1986

"It was a pathetic performance. Marcos continued to play the role of an absolute ruler as if he still had a kingdom. Hopelessly isolated from the reality of the revolt, which was now all but over, he announced that he was accepting the resignation of Ramos and declaring a state of emergency. Parodying his martial law proclamation of fifteen years before, he announced that he was taking over all public utilities. Broadcasting stations, he said, would have to "confirm all news with the minister of information."

"The pressure inside the palace was taking its toll on the sleepless First Family. After the press conference, BONGBONG MARCOS PULLED A GUN on a presidential aide whom he accused of mishandling his father's television appearance. (Underscoring mine)

Day 4, February 25, 1986

"And 2:45 a.m. Manila time, Marcos placed a call to Senator Laxalt. It was an afternoon in Washington, and Laxalt was meeting in a Capitol Hill office with Armacost and Habib. Marcos had received not only President Reagan's message offering him asylum and the stronger verbal message relayed by Blas Ople, but the blunt public statement from the White House as well. Yet he was not ready to concede defeat.

"They are telling me not to use force, how do they expect me to govern?" a belligerent Marcos asked Reagan's friend.

"After conferring with the president, Laxalt called Marcos back. By now it was 5:30 in the morning in Manila. The senator told him that power-sharing would be impractical and undignified. He repeated the president's invitation to the Marcoses to move to the U.S. His considerable reserves of determination and defiance now practically depleted, Marcos turned to Laxalt for advice. What should he do? He asked. Laxalt put it to him straight.

"I think you should cut and cut cleanly. I think the time has come."

AFTERTHOUGHT

A family was having dinner when they heard a knock on the door. The father opened the door, talked briefly to the visitors, closed the door, and then came back to the dining table, and said:

"Out-of-town guys looking for a space to rent. We have an idle basement. But, not in our home. Their boss -- I know his father."

If you're the head of the family, won't you think and do the same?