By Artchil B. Fernandez
“All that is needed is unity,” Bongbong Marcos declared and the malignant problems besetting the nation are solved.
The Philippines is poor and late developed, unity is the answer. Poverty is endemic in the country, unity is the solution. Unity will fix unemployment, criminality, poor health and social services, lack of access to education, broken bureaucracy, environmental degradation, and other societal ills. Bongbong Marcos has only one answer to the problems of the nation, unity.
Sounding like a broken record, Bongbong Marcos kept harping on, again and again the word unity in all his campaign speeches. Unity is his campaign mantra, the magic word he preaches that will make all the troubles of the country disappear.
Complex and complicated problems of the country are all rooted on one cause, lack of unity the dictator’s son claimed. Once Filipinos unite, he asserts, the country will get out from the quagmire of poverty, corruption, underdevelopment and whatever that torments it. This is the simplistic view of Marcos junior on Philippine social reality.
Bongbong Marcos, however, did not explain why and how lack of unity made the Philippines a poor country. He also failed to spell out how and in what way unity will solve the serious problems facing the nation. While he hammers on unity as his solution to knotty and perplexing social problems, Marcos junior never tells Filipinos how he would unite the nation.
What is the basis of unity that Bongbong Marcos is talking about? On what basis will he unite Filipinos? What is his concept of unity?
It is one thing to say unity is the answer and vow to unite the nation. It is completely a different matter how to do this. What it is in the dictator’s son that will unite Filipinos? These are the questions the campaign of Marcos junior never bothered to expound.
Is unity for Bongbong Marcos embracing the lies, falsehoods, misinformation, and disinformation he and his campaign are shamelessly promoting? Is unity for Marcos junior accepting his family’s attempt to revise history and erase the collective pain and suffering of the nation during the time the conjugal dictatorship ruled the country?
If the unity Bongbong Marcos is preaching means erasing the history of the horrors of martial law, such unity is never possible. Why will Filipinos of good will who value honesty, integrity, credibility, and truth accept lies and falsehoods? How can anyone who has a high moral standard embrace dishonesty and fabrication?
Deceit, cheating, crookedness, trickery, and fraud cause division, conflict, trouble, and strife. Duplicity will never produce unity. If the dictator’s son insists on the lies and falsehoods of his family if he wins, it will lead to national division, disunity and discord.
Bongbong Marcos’ presidency will only further divide the nation for Filipinos who value morality will refuse and will never accept lies and falsehoods.
Thousands were imprisoned, tortured, killed or simply disappeared when Marcos senior ruled the country for twenty years with iron fist. The Supreme Court of Hawaii found the dictator Marcos guilty of human rights violations and ordered his estate to pay 10,000 victims in a class suit $ 2 billion for damages. If Marcos junior is a uniting person he claims to be, how would he unite with the victims of his family’s brutal rule since he keeps on denying the horrendous human rights violations despite a court ruling?
Is corruption and plunder bases of national unity? So far, the candidacy of Bongbong Marcos has succeeded in uniting dynastic families like the Arroyos, Estradas and others accused of committing plunder and massive corruption. His family is found guilty of amassing ill-gotten wealth as proven by the decisions of Philippine and Swiss Supreme Courts. It is estimated that the Marcos family stole $ 10 billion from the Filipino people.
Is the unity Bongbong Marcos talking about forgetting and ignoring the plunder of national treasury by his family? Filipinos who value good government, honesty in public service and are strongly averse to graft and corruption will not unite with the corrupt and crooks. Filipinos who are for good, decent, and upright leadership will never unite with thieves, robbers, and plunderers.
How then can the leadership of Bongbong Marcos bring unity or unite the nation? Like oil and water, honesty and dishonesty will never mix. Good and evil, light and darkness will never unite.
The unity of Bongbong Marcos is a fallacy. His leadership will never unite Filipinos and the nation. It is impossible to forge a unity between honest and dishonest people. The unity of Marcos junior is an illusion and as fake as the Tallano or Yamashita gold his campaign has been spreading to fool and deceive voters.
If by stroke of great misfortune Bongbong Marcos wins the presidency his rule will the most divisive and conflict-ridden ever in the history of the country. A Bongbong Marcos regime will only bring disaster and calamity, marked by division and strife.
He will impose the lies and falsehoods of his family on the nation and protect their ill-gotten wealth. Filipinos who uphold the truth, honesty and good governance will definitely oppose and resist Marcos junior’s effort to rewrite history and secure his family’s stolen wealth. The result is national discord.
Only truth, justice, honesty and morality can bring unity. Deception brings destruction and death. This is the lesson of the story Eve and the Serpent in the Garden of Eden.
