Viral Facebook Post: THE PHILIPPINES (A FOOLED NATION)
Viral Facebook Post – The Philippines has an interesting history. From the very first ruler of the nation up to the current one, our history book has so much in store for our future generation to discover and to learn. One of the most controversial President our country have is the 10th President of the Republic of the Philippines, President Ferdinand Emmanuel Edralin Marcos (September 11, 1917 – September 28, 1989).
He is a known dictator, and also dubbed as the Filipino Hitler for his way of ruling the nation since he declared Martial Law on September 21, 1979. Many Filipino people lost their lives because of the said Law imposed in the country. Many hated his administration for this bloody event, but there are also a lot who is proud of what Marcos have done to our country.
Until now, there are a lot of debates arguing about Marcos regime, and some of them can be seen on some Facebook post.
In relating to this, one certain Facebook User Brix Gabriel wrote a very interesting Facebook post to every Filipino people how he sees our country.
The Facebook post went viral online garnering 41 thousand likes and 61.5 thousand shares as of posting on April 9, 2013.
The Facebook post reads:
“THE PHILIPPINES (A FOOLED NATION)
By: BryanI’m actually studying International Trade Law and Economics here at Busan National University South Korea. My Professor once said that one of the economic models of East Asia as well as the South during the post war era particularly in the 1960’s are based on Japan and the Philippines. He added that the Philippines is one of the richest nations next toJapan in that time and also once envied. Having said all these I was actually proud and happy seeing all my classmates of other nationalities looked at me with smiles on their faces.
But, what struck me the most is when my professor asked me, WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR COUNTRY? I couldn’t answer back. From this, I saw the sudden shift of emotions in the class. I went home having this in mind. I was quite puzzled of what really happened.
Then one day, my wife, a Korean national found a documentary about the late Pres. Marcos and his wife Imelda made by a Korean film company. He is actually very famous here in Korea and is known to be a great president.
In the documentary I saw a lot of things I couldn’t imagine happened during those days. I was surprised to see the prosperous and peaceful life the Filipinos back in those days were enjoying. I saw people wearing formal clothes (suits), a clean and magnificent city, happy people walking on the old streets of Manila, thriving communities and places everywhere and many more.
An interesting as well as quite controversial part of the documentary is the part wherein Bong Bong Marcos was interviewed. He was asked, the same question my professor asked me, WHAT HAPPENED TO THIS COUNTRY? He said, “My father loved and cared for this country a lot and my mother as well. While saying this, suddenly he paused with teary eyes and said, “We were betrayed by the Americans”. He believes that his father trusted them but they put him down. He also thinks that they used his mother’s (Imelda) lifestyle to further destroy their reputation. Though he admitted she is living an extravagant life, she also did a lot of accomplishments, Cultural Center of the Philippines, Philippine Heart Center, Lung Center of the Philippines, Kidney Institute of the Philippines, Nayong Pilipino; Philippine International Convention Center, Folk Arts Theater, and the Coconut Palace are all Imeldas’ brainchildren. Nonetheless, all major social and public buildings and institutions in the country today were actually built during the Marcos’s reign.
What inspired me the most is the time when I heard the story of the late president of Korea Park Chung Hee who visited the Philippines once in the 1960’s. Mr. Marcos and Mr. Chung Hee were believed to be good friends. Pres. Chung Hee and Marcos once visited the Radial Road 8 now called North Luzon Expressway. I heard that Mr. Chung Hee literally cried on Mr. Marcos’ shoulder saying “ I wish my country would be just like the Philippines”. Right after he came back to Korea he started a plan to create expressways similar to what he saw in the Philippines to literally connect the cities all over Korea which were divided by tall mountains. He succeeded on doing this. And, it is said that this move is one of the keys of the Korean economic boom. Unluckily, he was assassinated. Some say that the Americans were behind the assassination.
I know Marcos cared for his country a lot that he wanted to put it on the map. He even bought properties at Wall Street at that time because he wanted the Philippines to be known and dominate the world market. He also initiated a group of powerful south East Asian nations (SEATO) and is believed to have been headed by the Philippines and some countries to strengthen their economic relations further which is also one of the models of economic integrations (G2, G3,G7, ASEAN, and so on) these days. Another international diplomatic accomplishment of Mr. Marcos was the joint effort of Japan and the Philippines to form the Asian Development Bank in 1966 with headquarter in Mandaluyong. Some say that it somewhat became just like the world bank of Asia and its sole purpose is to give foreign aid to poor countries at that time. Unfortunately, the Philippines is the one receiving aid nowadays.
For me, I think Marcos is the best president the Philippines ever had. During his time the economy was at its peak, unemployment was low, peso against the dollar was at its lowest, poverty rate is not that high (compared today), in short the Philippines was at its finest.
But, not until the West came to realize that the Philippines will grow strong and powerful as time goes. Some say they were afraid it will take over the Wall Street as it already started buying properties and putting up state owned investment firms on its soil. One, thing is for sure, that they should stop this. Then it all began. They had their plan of destroying Marcos’ reputation and putting him down using the media and some manipulated social and political entities whose dark aim is to privatize Mr Marcos’ nationalistic legacies. The sad part is they succeeded.
And, the saddest part is, we were fooled as well.”
So what can you say about this one?
you were fooled alright, bryan, but that’s because you were lazy. you did not fact-check, you did not even bother to look up other sources of information to corroborate what you saw in that documentary, as well as the things you simply ‘heard’ as you yourself said. i suggest you google “the world’s all-time most corrupt leaders”, perhaps you might learn a thing or two.
Could very well be true. From a prosperous nation looked up by other southeast Asian nations during President Marcos’ time to the present nation riddled with graft and corruption poverty permeating everywhere. And we blamed it on the Marcoses. What, indeed happened to the Philippines? Sad, so very sad. But now we have hope for a new Philippines. We look forward for changes that will put the Philippines back to its former esteem. The Filipino people each and everyone should work with our new President elect, Rodrigo Duterte, to lift up our nation and our people, and free it from the clutches of poverty and corrupt government officials.
You must be kidding, man. When Marcos took over from Macapagal in 1966 the Philippine economy was the second best in Asia surpassed only by Japan. When the dictator was overthrown in February 1986 the Philippine economy became the basketcase of Asia, or the sick man of Asia The exchange rage was 2 pesos to 1 US dollar. Our foreign debt in 1966 was less than a billion US dollars. IN 1986 it ballooned to more than US$30(B). The Marcos family was adjudged the 2nd most corrupt ever eclipsed only by President Suharto of Indonesia. They plundered and lotted the coffers of the Philippine government by more than US$10(B) and stashed it in secret accounts in Switzerland and other offshore banking facilities, etc. The Philippine Commission on Good Government (PCGG) tasked to recover the stolen lot got back only 170 (B) pesos or roughly US $3.6 (B), leaving billiosn of dollars still with the Marcoses. No wonder our economy nosedived and the vast majority of the Filipino people suffered and mired in poverty. Had those plundered billions been used in the area of education, health, infrastructure, etc., this nation would have been one of the tigers of Asia by now in the likes of South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, Malaysia, India or even Vietnam which was totally devastated in the war which ended in 1975 and China which is now the second biggest economy in the world. Is this how you refer to Marcos as the best President ever have? Baloney!
That anyone who can write this rubbish claims he studied at a University is beyond me. Certainly he knows little of economics and the pitfalls of borrowing large amounts of money and the interest that has to be paid. The reason for the borrowing is to replace that which was stolen and shifted to private banks the world over. Marcos left the Philippines saddled in debt, while he, his family and cronies looted the wealth of the country. Those American properties were not for the use of Filipinos, but for the personal use of the Marcos family and friends. All decorated at exorbitant cost. And while the Philippines was on the UN’s list of countries with starving and malnourished, Imelda gave millions to the Vatican to curry favour with the Church and mute criticism. There are plenty of independent sources that gives an idea of the wealth expropriated by Marcos and his cronies, so I suggest the writer brush up a little before trying to white wash what was a brutal time for many innocent people.
So sad for what is happening with our beloved country . . When there was war in Korea and they have shortage in food , Phils. Was one of the countries who gave rice . . Now we are one of the poorest country . . Being mismanaged by the leaders after Pres. Marcos. We hope and pray there will be real changes with our newly elected Pres. Rodrigo R. Duterte . .
I hope Bryan can be a little bit more specific with the 1960s date. Let it be known that Marcos regime was 1965-1986. He inherited a good economic standing. During Macapagal term, Philippines was regarded as a regional superpower. Only at Marcos time did the country started to be known as the sick economy of Asia,(a good metaphor indeed as Marcos was also suffering from an illness that time). Anyhow, he touched a very salient point by bringing in the international picture in the 70s. The international arena was very mean to poor and developing nations, with the IMF implementing conditional lending that made debts increased. The Philippines was fairly doing fine, until Marcos took advantage of this conditional lending. He exhibited bad economic skill by spending more than what the country can earn, borrowing more than what the country can pay, hence our debt ballooned to an amount that we are paying even to these days. No, it wasn’t the Americans, it was his imbecile greed and imeldific spending that made our country back to the gravel. And besides, to claim that Americans fooled Marcos only goes to show how spineless he could be to not rise from it. To claim that Americans betrayed him only shows how stupid he was for letting it prolifer, intensely hurting Filipinos even to these days.
Kung prof ako na magchecheck at maggegrade ng piece na ito, i would say maganda na may objective data by including the infrastructures na naaccomplish. However ang timeline nya ay nagspan lang to what describes half of the Marcos regime– pre-Martial Law. Whatever happened to the Martial Law period? He inputted an emotional line about being “betrayed by the Americans” and referred to the later parts of the regime by inserting another emotional paragraph to finish. Objectivity lost, this was half a story. So bitin. Given this, it’s an opinion article.
Kaya nga nagimpose ng martial law dahil may gulo. Hindi martial law ang nagdulot neto. The aim was to fix the crisis our country was facing. But what happened? U let aquino destroy oyr country
I agree if what Marcos started did continue our currency rate would be mostly as High as $ and we didn’t suffer from poor education and didn’t become a Poor Country that we Have Now… So sad
I agree with both JF and Grace. What people defending him fail to see is how our economy suffered after he was ousted from power.
#neveragain
Bryan needs a lot more to learn about Marcos…he is still young and will have more time to read the real history. and take off his blinders 🙂
Hey gusto nyo va malaman ang pist martial law?
Hahaha nakakatawa tong mgato
What history of the Philippines shouLd we beLieve? The one witnessed by FiLipinos or the one formed by comments of someone who didn’t even Lived here? The Life that was experienced by our own peopLe or the documentary made by them of them for them?
I agree with you ,Mr Bryan.:)
That’s the TRUTH during the MARCOS REGIME.
The only time ,Filipinos experienced good & peaceful life than today.
TRUE that we are fooled esp’ly The MARCOS family.:)
So sad lang at may mga Yellowtards dito ,
na tila ang nanalalamang History
ay ung mga gawa-gawa lng ng Aquino government .:(
KUDOS ,Mr. Bryan ,
For revealing the truths about our Greatest & ever-loved Pres. Ferdinand Marcos ;
that the Aquino regime/s wanted & still trying-hard to hide.:(
Another TRUTH is that,
majority of us Filipinos suffered poverty during their administration.
Ewan lang kila IF, Grace MD & Stephen na tipong matatalino naman,
pero di nila alam ang tunay n katotohanan. SIGH !!!
Baka , they’re living a luxurious life with this administration
ky sila ganyan ..iniidolo ang pamumuno ng mga Abnoy..LOLs!
Nang mabasa ko ang post na ito sobra akong nalungkot,hindi dahil sa sinasabi ng iba na nabubulagan o mali ang impormasyon ng author kundi,ako ay nalulunkot sa nangyari sa bansa natin,i was shocked when i read na phillipines is the second rich country.I ask myself the same question as his professor ask him;”what happen to your country?”dito sa part na ito naitanong ko sa sarili kung ano nga bang nangyari,kung nagawa ni LP Ferdinand Marcos na ganun ung kondisyon ng ekonomiya natin bakit nagbago?why instead of improving our country eh nag hirap ito?hindi ko nasaksihan ang mga tunay na naganap sa panahon ng panunungkulan ng dating presidente ngunit marami akong naririnig na anti marcos at pro marcos pero para sa akin wala parin akong karapatan na magbigay ng aking opinyon sa pangyayari,ang tanging basehan ko lang ay ang mga libro at mga nakapanayam na mga matatanda na nakaranas ng panunungkulan ng namayapang presidente na hanggang ngayon ay namumuhay pa.