Remembering the Late Fidel V. Ramos and Growing Up Afraid of a Possible Ramos Dictatorship

 

Today is the second death anniversary of the greatest president the Philippines had, the late Fidel V. Ramos. It's just fortunate that even if I was on one spectrum and some were called Dilawan--some of the Dilawans agreed with me on Ramos as a good leader, and the need to update the constitution. However, that wasn't the case back then. Having been born in 1985--that means that I passed through a Marcos presidency as an infant to one year old, and Ramos' reign lasted from June 30, 1992, up to June 30, 1998. That means I would be six years old by 1992. As a 1990s child, I grew up mostly under Ramos' presidency. 

I have memories of studying Civics & Culture for the first three years in Tagalog. We were taught that the late Ferdinand E. Marcos Sr. ruled the Philippines for 20 years and it was the darkest years of the Philippines. If I can recall correctly, Ramos began to call for the need for charter change when I was 9-10 years old. A lot of fearmongering came from the likes of school teachers or my childhood nanny (and I'm glad I'm no longer in contact with due to her her toxic positive attitude)

Anti-charter change ads came and went. I can't clearly recall those ads. Right now, even with Google and the digital age, I can't dig through older documents, even those that may require a payment. One editorial I could remember (and I wish I still had a copy of it) was a caricature of Ramos with a shadow writing, "martial law". If I can remember things correctly, my childhood nanny kept talking about martial law and how it's connected to term extension. Back then, the schools didn't only teach Filipino First Policy in Values Education. We were also taught that the reason why presidents rule for six years, no more  no less, to prevent another Marcos. Just the thought of hearing Ramos may have a second term, scared me out and I even vandalized my Civics & Culture textbook by putting an X on Ramos' face. In my mind, Marcos was only a dictator because he ruled for more than six years! Never mind that in the USA, presidents can get up to eight years maximum! Are the US presidents dictators then?

One anti-charter change ad I remember said that if we shift to a parliamentary system, a president will more than six years, and that should be a scary thought. However, an article from the Philippine Star mentions a much harder fact. The late Saloth Sar aka Pol Pot only ruled Cambodia for four years. However, those four years are much worse than any possible damage that happened during the last admiistration's drug war (if ever these will be proven) or even the first Marcos Administration. This excerpt really shows that a reign below four years isn't necessarily benevolent: 

The Khmer Rouge ruled Cambodia only from 1975 to 1979. In those few years, however, the Communist Party of Kampuchea under Pol Pot turned Cambodia into killing fields, with the party’s radical experiment in agrarian socialism leaving an estimated two million people dead.

Pol Pot committed suicide in 1998 while being held by a rival faction of the Khmer Rouge, and was not made to account for the genocide perpetrated under his watch. Last Thursday, however, a special Cambodian court backed by the United Nations found two other ranking Khmer Rouge leaders guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced them to life in prison.

There may not be much of life left in Nuon Chea, 88, called “Brother Number Two” when he was deputy secretary of the Khmer Rouge, and “Brother Number Four” Khieu Samphan, 83, president of Democratic Kampuchea. Several survivors of the genocide also expressed disappointment and said the punishment was not enough to give them closure.

But the two men are the highest ranking Khmer Rouge members to be brought to justice, and their punishment helps put Cambodia on the difficult road to healing. As stories of the genocide are revived following the verdict, the world is reminded that for the survivors, the atrocities can be impossible to forget. In the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh, victims’ skulls are piled high in a museum as a chilling reminder of the reign of terror and an admonition that it must not happen again.

The Cambodian genocide occurred at the height of systematic human rights violations perpetrated in the Philippines during martial law by the regime of Ferdinand Marcos. While the violations were nowhere near the scale of the Cambodian mass murder, justice has eluded the victims of martial law.

This isn't an attempt to prevent investigations against possible drug war casualties last term (and I confess I actually admire Dr. Raquel Fortun's work ethic, despite different spectrums) or the casualties during the first Marcos Administration. In short, it wouldn't matter if Ramos had another term, for another six years (or five, by parliamentary reckoning), if Ramos could rule for more than six years with benevolence. What needs to be highlighted is why Marcos' 20 years were terrible instead of saying Marcos was terrible because he ruled for 20 years. The late Lee Kuan Yew ruled Singapore for 31 years. Former prime minister Lee Hsien Loong ruled for more than 15 years before Prime Minister Lawrence Wong got his turn. LSH was also characterized as an excellent leader. Former prime minister Angela Merkel ruled Germany from 2005-2021--much longer than Adolf Hitler's 11 years rule of Nazi Germany. 

After reading From Third World to First, I wish I had a time machine to tell my younger self about why Ramos sought charter change. Until now, I feel really stupid that I feared charter change, all for the sake of fearing it. Some of my classmates back then would say, "Relax, it's just normal! We were only children when all that happened."  I was told that my fight with someone as a teenager was nothing more than childish disagreement. Now, time to share the words of the wise LKY and not just always share his quotes only about the Marcoses. Let's learn more things from LKY and sadly, it shows that Filipinos keep blaming Marcos for everything wrong, because they had a huge job to do and never did it. Now, from pages 304-305 of From Third World to First:

Mrs. Aquino's successor, Fidel Ramos, whom she backed, was more practical and established greater stability. In November 1992, I visited him. In a speech at the 18th Philippine Business Conference, I said, "I do not believe that democracy necessarily leads to development. I believe what a country needs to develop is discipline more than democracy." In private, President Ramos said he agreed with me that a British parliamentary-type constitution worked better because the majority party in the legislature was also the government. Publicly, Ramos had to differ. 

He (Ramos, emphasis mine) knew well the difficulties of trying to govern with strict American-style separation of powers. The Senate had already defeated Mrs. Aquino's proposal to retain the American bases. The Philippines had a rambunctious press but it did not check corruption. Individual press reporters could be bought, as could many judges. Something had gone seriously wrong. Millions of Filipino men and women had to leave their country for jobs abroad beneath their level of education. Filipino professionals whom we recruited to work in Singapore are as good as our own. Indeed, their architects, artists, and musicians are more artistic and creative than ours. Hundreds of them have left for Hawaii and for the American mainland. It is a problem the solution which has not been made easier by the workings of ta Philippine version of the American constitution. 

Let's face it LKY described the Philippine press to be rambunctious. Yes, that rambunctious press that tried to paint Ramos black when he tried to change things. However, according to Rappler, here's why Ramos' attempt failed:

Ramos Administration 

What they wanted: In 1997, the People’s Initiative for Reform, Modernization and Action (PIRMA), sought a parliamentary system of government and the amendment of Article 7, Section 4, of the 1987 Constitution, which states the the president is not eligible for re-election. According to previous Newsbreak reports, PIRMA was the brainchild of Jose Almonte, then President Fidel Ramos’ national security adviser. 

How they tried to achieve it: The attempt was done by way of People’s Initiative where a signature campaign, which claimed to have gathered 11.5 million signatures was submitted to the Supreme Court for decision.  

Why it failed: According to retired SC Justice Adolfo Azcuna, when the proposal reached the Court, it ruled that the people’s initiative was inadequate as it was asking for revision to the Constitution, rather than an amendment. 

“We decided that the people’s initiative then that reached the court was for a revision rather than an amendment, and therefore beyond the competence of a initiative to effect,” he said. 

Charter Change by way of people’s initiative can only propose amendments, not revisions to the Constitution. 

What was often forgotten was the fearmongering about the parliamentary system. However, with today's Internet, one can already see that the Philippines never had a parliamentary form of government. As the late Benigno Simeon "Ninoy" A. Aquino Jr. said in his speech in Los Angeles last 1981, "We had a parliamentary government without a parliament." The speech can now be heard on YouTube. In fact, it was also revealed by the late Salvador "Doy" Laurel that Marcos was never formally installed as either president or prime minister. As Ninoy said, we should have it by the ballot and not by the bullet. There were no legitimate or meaningful elections. How can that be a legitimate parliamentary, to begin with? Cesar Virata (who's now in his 90s) wasn't even considered by LKY as a leader at all! LKY called Virata to be a non-starter and a non-leader. Virata was an executive assistant, not the one leading the Filipino people! In a parliamentary government, the president's role is but a national symbol of unity. 

Even more, I realized that martial law is something that is not necessarily evil either. Martial law can be declared but only in a state of real emergency, and when there's approval by the legislative. It's not something that can just be declared on a whim, within the framework of the 1987 Constitution of the Philippines. If Ramos declared martial law because of some national crisis, why not? That's as long as the martial law declared is within humane limits. The problem with Marcos was that it was an abuse of authority rather than martial law itself. 

Basically, it's been some time since I had a shocker. Some things you grew up believing aren't necessarily true. For example, just because you believe in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy doesn't make them real. The same happened when I realized that both Hubert Jeffry P. Webb and Francisco Juan "Paco" G. Larrañaga were both innocent of the gruesome crimes they were accused of. The same goes for that gossip that Ramos wanted to become a tyrant when he proposed for charter change.