Imelda exploits Gloria’s situation for cheap points

Imelda Marcos calls Gloria Arroyo’s continued hospital arrest “cruel, unjust and inhuman.” Look who’s talking.
Mrs. Marcos adds that when President Aquino’s father, Ninoy, was the one incarcerated during martial law, her husband Ferdinand approved a trip to the United States so Ninoy could seek medical attention for his ailing heart.
So why doesn’t the current president allow former President Arroyo to be treated abroad by specialists? queries the former first lady.
Arroyo needn’t go abroad for treatment. First, there must be capable Filipino doctors who can do the job as well as, if not better than, foreign doctors.
And, if Arroyo insists on having foreign doctors, which is her right, then they can be flown in to see her. Indeed that would even be more economical than flying her out with an entourage. A couple of specialists would be cheaper to bring in. Why hasn’t that been done?
The many activists who died during martial law must be turning in their lonely graves over Imelda Marcos’ new-found bleeding heart. Where was it during martial law when many people were persecuted, jailed and even murdered?
Equally galling it must be for the many Filipinos here and abroad who, while alive today, were given hell by Marcos’ operatives for the “crime” of expressing dissent over the existing iron-fist rule then. How many careers and lives were snuffed out because of the excesses and unbridled exercise of power by the Marcoses?
The Philippines had never seen such excess until the martial law days of the Marcoses. Let’s hope we and future generations of Filipinos will not experience such abuse of power and merciless persecution of people who were just exercising their rights.
So for Imelda Marcos to express sympathy and sadness over what she calls “inhuman” treatment of a former official accused of a non-bailable crime is pure hypocrisy and crass exploitation of the public’s emotions.
Incidentally, the word “inhuman” has been bandied about in public commentary lately. While the dictionary is ambivalent about the definition of “inhuman” and “inhumane,” the more appropriate term to be used in the context of Mrs. Marcos’ observation is “inhumane” because “inhuman” is used more to describe non-human (or alien) qualities rather than the emotions or motivations related to how people are treated.
There’s a huge difference between the respective situations of Ninoy Aquino in the 1970s and 80s and of Gloria Arroyo today.
The senior Aquino was convicted by what almost everybody will agree today as a “kangaroo court,” one that consisted of Marcos yes-men who obeyed the bidding of the then strongman. In short, it was a bogus conviction after a bogus trial in a bogus court.
That’s one. Two, the Marcoses feared at the time that if Ninoy died on their watch, it would be like shooting themselves in the head because they would be risking the people’s wrath, which at that point was simmering and ready to boil over.
Ferdinand and Imelda couldn’t risk such the possibility that, if news broke out that Ninoy was dead, there would be a tremendous and life-threatening (for them) upheaval in the streets. That wasn’t hard to suppose, that the people would rise up over the death, no matter the cause, of one, if not the only, thorn in the side of the Marcoses at the time.
The massive outpouring of emotions and bodies at the funeral march of Ninoy in 1983 would buttress the point that the people revered him and would have taken to the streets, possibly to an end at that point of the Marcos regime.
The case of Arroyo, on the other hand, is different. A legitimate court has ordered her detained, mercifully in a hospital in recognition of her illness. This court cannot be said to be of the same nature and composition as Ninoy Aquino’s military trial court.
And the clearest justification of all for Arroyo’s detention is that not a pip has been heard from the public protesting her incarceration. It would stand to reason that because of the restored freedoms of the people, people would be freer today than during martial law to express disagreement over Arroyo’s detention if they are so inclined.
But no such protest. As Joseph Estrada has repeatedly remarked: “Kawawa naman si Gloria kasi walang naawa sa kanya.” Very concise but very telling.
It’s safe to conclude that Imelda was just playing for the gallery. Is there anybody buying it?
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