2022: a pivotal year

By Artchil B. Fernandez

Every generation has a crossroad, a conjunctural moment. 2022, it appears, is a pivotal year for the present generation of Filipinos.

At the turn of the 19^th century, a generation answered a crucial question: remain a colony of Spain or forge a new nation? Bonifacio, Rizal, and their compatriots made a firm choice – independence and freedom. In the middle of the 20^th century, that freedom was taken away by the Japanese and a generation of Filipinos once answered the call for its defense.

In 1972, a president declared martial law and destroyed democracy. A generation of Filipinos forsook the comforts of life and fought the homegrown dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, Sr. Their heroic effort bore fruit and the dictator and his family were overthrown in a peaceful revolt in 1986.

Now it’s the turn of the present generation of Filipinos to have their rendezvous with history. How the present generation answers the call of the times will determine the future of the nation. 2022 is an election year but the coming electoral exercise is not an ordinary one. The decision of the current crop of Filipinos in the 2022 election will determine the fate of the country – either it moves forward or backward.

The Philippines today faces an existential crisis, the most serious one in thirty-six years. It is not only liberal democracy that is under grave threat but at stake is the kind of nation the Philippines will be in the 21^st century. Will the Philippines become a nation of the lie or a country that lives in truth? Will fiction win over fact? Will deception triumph over honesty? Will falsehood rule or uprightness slay it? Will the corrupt and the morally bankrupt dominate the political landscape in generations to come or they will be banished forever from the political scene?

The above questions will be answered in 2022. These are the questions this generation of Filipinos will wrestle with in the next three months.

A cartel of dynastic families with a notorious record of robbing the national treasury, accused of orchestrating the most horrendous corruption in the annals of Philippine history have banded together. For the first time, they set aside their petty rivalries and narrow interest for survival and protection from justice and the law. They formed the Axis of Evil to become a formidable political force in the 2022 election.

The dark forces in Philippine politics converged to secure their posterity in 2022. The Marcos-Arroyo-Duterte (MAD) + Estrada (E) as the cartel is now known is set to rule the nation for generations to come unless their seemingly unstoppable ascendancy is foiled. They have rallied around the candidacy of the son of the most infamous among them to be the bearer of their dark and nefarious agenda.

Two former presidents with tainted and duplicitous record in public service joined together to support the son of the dictator whose record in plundering the national coffer remains unmatched. Erap Estrada was convicted of plunder and only escaped punishment when Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (GMA) granted him unconditional pardon. Big corruption scandals erupted during GMA’s rule which made her the most unpopular president ever. Corruption cases against GMA however were dropped when Du30 became president enabling her to evade accountability.

In the top ten most corrupt presidents in the world, the Philippines is the only country with two presidents on the list. Ranked second after Indonesia’s Suharto is Ferdinand Marcos Sr. while Estrada is number ten. The tenth most corrupt president in the world is now endorsing the son of the second most corrupt president along with GMA, another former president with a string of corruption cases.

These corrupt leaders have learned the lessons of the past. After Estrada was ousted in 2001 for corruption, he was put on trial and was found guilty of plunder. GMA also faced corruption cases after she left office and only Du30’s election saved her from them. Du30 is leaving office soon and he will surely face numerous cases among them on corruption as indicated by the Pharmally scandal among others.

Only by electing someone from their ranks can these corrupt leaders secure protection and evade accountability. GMA is still not safe from accountability and Estrada’s record as Manila mayor can yield new cases. Du30, among them, needs protection the most both from local and international courts.

If the MAD+E alliance wins, they will only not shield themselves from being held responsible for their terrible misdeeds, but they will also normalize corruption. Justice will be equated with revenge and accountability will be branded as persecution. Public officials can feast on people’s money openly and public funds become private accounts of corrupt officials.  It will be another Golden Age of corruption, sleaze, and vice.

2022 is another turning point in the history of the country. Past generations of Filipinos responded to the clarion call for lofty ideals like freedom, justice, good governance, truth, honesty, integrity and similar noble principles. Today, high moral values are under siege from fake news, misinformation, lies, and outright deception.

How will the current generation respond to the challenge of the times? Will they answer the epochal call? Like the previous generations will they embrace the righteous cause or for the first time turn their back and allow the dark forces to win?

The Philippines is once again at the intersection of history in 2022. The choice for Filipinos is simple: move forward by walking in the path of truth, fact, honesty, and integrity or return to the dark past where lies, falsehoods, fiction, and deception reign supreme.