KARL Marx, in his famous treatise ‘The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte’ first published in 1852, noted that ‘history repeats itself, first as a tragedy, second as a farce.’ For Marx, history is “cyclical” and not “linear” where certain “patterns” from the past are showing themselves in the present.
In the early ‘80s, President Marcos Senior was frustrated by the local compradors and US Imperialism in making the Philippines an industrial powerhouse and self-sufficient thru his ’11 Major Industrial Projects.’
Marcos Senior believes that these projects can make the Philippines develop side by side with South Korea and Taiwan who are pursuing their own industrialization in earnest back then.
But compradors like the Ayalas won’t support the projects while Uncle Sam made sure Marcos Senior cannot find foreign funding for them.
The resulting ‘maldevelopment’ ensured the country remains poor and vulnerable to external shocks and the people, desperate and discontent, receptive to the idea of “revolution” preached by the CPP-NPA. Incidentally, the “movement’s” growth in its early years was nurtured by a faction of the local elite like Ninoy Aquino (America’s “contingency puppet”), the Dy political dynasty in Isabela and secretly, by Western intelligence services.
With misery spreading under Marcos Senior’s ‘Kilusang Bagong Lipunan’ (KBL) the people’s anger was fueled too by accusations of massive corruption in government involving his family.
Failing health, America’s economic “squeeze job” thru the IMF-World Bank and the murder of Ninoy in August 1983 coalesced into a political crisis that Marcos Senior cannot possibly survive leading to his and his family’s exile to Hawaii in February 1986.
The ‘EDSA Revolution’ also known as the ‘Yellow Revolution,’ is the “template” for America’s ‘regime change’ operations everywhere, dubbed by the Western media as ‘Color Revolutions.’ They are history repeating itself as a tragedy in the number of governments they destroyed, the number of insurgencies they created and in the death of millions of their victims from the Middle East and down to Ukraine in 2014.
Presently, the Second Marcos regime is also under fire over accusations of massive corruption that extends to his family thru his first cousin and his allies in Congress.
With misery spreading as was during the First Marcos Presidency, the “promise” of a “better life” and “inclusive growth” for all under President Marcos Junior’s ‘Bagong Pilipinas’ slogan sounds eerily like the promises under the KBL of his late father: A farce, especially when they have to literally wallow in flood waters during most days while those who have been plundering the people’s money continue to live in safety and luxury.
Meanwhile, America’s “squeeze job” thru its puppets inside his administration made President Marcos Junior stand firmly in America’s camp in its war preparations against China, a decision that is leading the country down the path of another cycle of maldevelopment towards becoming ASEAN’s least develop economy.
And this time around, the situation is darker with the prospect of the country facing potential destruction when war with China comes.
From within, it is also being destabilized by the Communists for his decision to “co-opt” them in Congress despite losing in the elections.
Pray that another death—the sudden passing of former president Duterte while in foreign hands—would not also result to another political crisis that he and his family may not also survive.
Should this happen, many would excuse it by saying, ‘Nabudol kami!’ (We were fooled!).
And that would be history repeating itself, as a farce.