header image

HOME

This is the blog of Ian Rosales Casocot. Filipino writer. Sometime academic. Former backpacker. Twink bait. Hamster lover.

Interested in What I Create?



Bibliography

Friday, September 18, 2015

entry arrow9:26 PM | The Truth That Revealed the Lie

"What disturbed me, however, was quite a number of callers wondering what was so wrong with martial law. They had heard from their parents and/ or other 'oldies' that people were disciplined during that time, rice was cheap, gasoline was cheap, movies were cheap, the poor were less poor, life was generally easier. According to his parents, one said, prices were fairly stable then, the price of beer didn’t stray very far from the price of rice the way it did now. I said that was true in part. But underneath that lay one of the greatest deceptions of martial law. If art, as Picasso said, was the lie that revealed the truth, then martial law was the truth that revealed the lie. True enough, food was more plentiful then, things were much cheaper then, inflation wasn’t rife then. But all that was paid for by the sacrifice of future generations. Specifically, all that was paid for by the billions of dollars in loans Ferdinand Marcos got from foreign banks, much of which he, his family, and his cronies stole. Which debt doomed future generations to servitude: Which debt we are paying for now. Which debt our children and their children will be paying for tomorrow. Indeed it was paid for by the sacrifice of the generation of that time. The small comforts came alongside huge discomforts, or indeed epic deprivations: the deprivation of lives, the deprivation of freedom, and the deprivation of hope. Martial law robbed this country of its wealth: It was during that time that this country’s forests disappeared. Martial law robbed this country of many of its best and brightest: It was during that time that the youth who had taken to the hills were killed. Martial law robbed this country of its future: It was during that time that the country embarked on the path to becoming the sick man of Asia, subsequently to be left behind while the rest of the continent advanced." 

 ~ Conrado de Quiros, "The Hollow Years, The Full Years" from Not on Our Watch: Martial Law Really Happened, We Were There (2013), edited by Jo-Ann Q. Maglipon

Labels: , , , , , , ,


[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich




GO TO OLDER POSTS GO TO NEWER POSTS