If you’ve been quite active on social media lately, you would have likely read about the heated debate regarding the burial of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani. One of the most common lines used by Marcos loyalists is that the dictator was the “best president” the Philippines has ever had.
In fact, President Rodrigo Duterte once said during his presidential campaign last February that Marcos was the best president ever, save for his being a dictator.
“On hindsight, kung balikan ko ang panahon, noon at ngayon, kung hindi lang siya tumagal ng pagka-presidente, kung hindi lang siya naging diktador na matagal, pinaka the best na president na dumaan, Marcos,” Duterte said.
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But political scientist and De La Salle University assistant professor Richard Heydarian laid down five main facts that should break his loyalists’ idea of just how Marcos was the “best president” the Filipinos ever had.
- Currency: From 4 pesos per dollar to 20 pesos per dollar.
- National Debt: From $360 million to $28.3 BILLION (We are still paying this)
- Average GDP (per capita) growth: less than 1%.
*Comparison: Double-digit in Singapore, South Korea & Taiwan. In three decades, albeit more recent period but similar level of development, China experienced 26-fold GDP per capita expansion.
- National security: Longest insurgencies in Asia, both Communist and Moro (We are still fighting these).
- National industries: After 21 years in power — none, zilch, nada, zero!
Heydarian also noted how contemporary dictators from other Asian countries at least had allowed some national industries to grow, where Marcos utterly failed.
“Under contemporary dictator, Park Chung-hee, South Korea made Samsung, Hyundai and LG into global brands. Under KMT, Taiwan became industrialised nation, while under LKY Singapore became a global logistics hub. Even Malaysia, and to a lesser degree Indonesia and Thailand, managed to build an industrial base and national champions like Proton,” he said.
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And his five fun facts did not even cover the billions of Philippine money and human rights violations.
“Let’s not even go into alleged billions of ill-gotten wealth ($10 billion) and massive human rights violations,” Heydarian added.
He also provided his sources in his Facebook post, which has gone viral since it was posted on November 30. As of writing, it has been shared over 2,000 times and reacted to over 3,900 times.
Sources: (gmanetwork.com, facebook.com)
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