“A year after Marcos left in disgrace for Hawaii,” de Leon writes, “a very close fried of mine who was vehemently anti-Marcos told me a story. He heard that Marcos wanted to root out the very basic reason why our country could not progress since we got our independence from the Americans. Marcos believed that the only way we could even dream of progress is to completely cut our umbilical cord that tied us to the American power elite: the White House, Congress and the Pentagon.”

The Laurel-Langley agreement has made the Filipinos soft and too comfortable. He saw the end of the agreement in 1974 as an opportunity for the Philippines to stand on its own. De Leon continues:

“...Taking a page from Machiavelli, he believed that the end justified the means, so he resorted to a scheme where funds could be reserved for the country’s use to tide us over while we cut the umbilical cord with the Americans. Billions of dollars were siphoned to offshore accounts to act as a financial buffer for our economy that he was certain would suffer from the effects of the parity bill expiration.

“My friend never knew the exact details, whether Marcos put his grand plans into effect, and if this was a rationalization for the wave of pillage and corruption that wallowed, but now we all know what happened…

“Here we are now, 20 years later. What do we have?

“What is happening to us?” de Leon’s answer:

I think the answer goes back to what Marcos tried but failed to do: to jumpstart our democratic system on the road to maturity? We have to admit that our political system is still immature. Totoy pa tayo, and you just have to look at the clowns we have in Congress and Malacañang to make this conclusion….

“In contrast, the other countries of the world have been experimenting with democracy for hundreds of years and have gone through a lot of trials: civil wars with millions of people killed. Several Presidents and King assassinated while in office, and government scandals galore that were exposed, tried and hushed up, perfect fodder for bestsellers and box-office jobs.”

But he has a most gripping story about the genesis of Martial Law:

“The work we did for Marcos was purely professional. We were marketing consultants, and the last time we did some work for him was a few months after the senatorial election of 1971.

“Early that year, Bobby Benedicto asked us for a strategy to unify the Nacionalista Party’s fragmented election campaign. We proposed a strategy to Marcos and the other senatorial candidates that would have guaranteed a solid showing with the message that Marcos and the party were to control. The message was simple: if the people do not vote for the party, the communist would take over.

“After the elections, I saw the political opposition gaining in strength by using communism as a weapon to incite social unrest with the ultimate objective of toppling down the Presidency. I knew the philosophical roots of communism, and that everywhere in the world, communists took advantage of political unrest to grab power at all cost. They had the ability to use native idealists to suit their own sends, but once they are in power, communists ruthlessly unleash their evils without regard for human rights. At first, this frightened me, then I got mad.

“At that time... our team of Chuchie, Tony, George and me was being tapped by Bobby Benedicto to set up a private mass communication arm for Marcos. As the Marcos advisers panicked with the increasing social unrest fuelled by the media, Bobby asked us to meet in Malacañang.”

Since de Leon couldn’t attend, he sent a memo to the President instead.

“I analyzed the media as power to influence public opinion. With Lopez and The Manila Times controlling at least 80 percent of that massive media power. The only way to neutralize this, I suggested, was to help the media to act more responsibly: close it down, and for Marcos to come out on nationwide TV and radio explaining the real dangers facing the country.

“On the third page, I typed the first paragraph of the speech he would give denouncing the irresponsible media and the oligarchy and pointing out the dangers of communism, which was a very serious worldwide threat at the time.

“I based the speech on the book Today’s Revolution Democracy, which I had just finished reading.

“The speech began, Mga kababayan, ang problema ng bayan ay komunismo...
“By September, Martial Law was declared, and then when Marcos gave his first televised speech, the words eerily sounded familiar...”

This article was taken from the Manila Times: http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2007/sept/16/yehey/opinion/20070916opi5.html