These here our different times... Interesting times. It is not 1972; martial law is not about to be declared. It is not 1985 when the dictator called the bluff of a US TV news anchor and called a snap election. As much as we would like to compare GMA to Makoy - the comparisons just do not hold! I grew up in a very political family. Our house in Zamora was the point of communication for messages from Madrid. I woke up in the middle of the night, in 1982, I was 6 years old, with heavily armed military men ransacking my room. They took my father away. We had no idea where he was for 48 hours. Fortunately for us, you just don’t make a prominent stockbroker disappear.
Our family made the sacrifices and we fought to restore freedom and democracy. I love Ninoy for being the catalyst that led to the dismantling of the dictatorship. I love Cory for continuing the legacy and actually doing the hard work during the very tenuous and fragile transition back to true democracy!
It is funny how we Filipinos are such a nostalgic bunch. We even invoke the fight against tyranny as the same fight we should be fighting now. It is not the same fight! The fight is still on but now we have a different foe. We have freedom and democracy now, far from perfect, we have it nonetheless.
I now know that my children will not wake up in the middle of the night with goons in the house. We can now speak out and criticize the hell out of our government.
The fight now is about economic management, environmental protection and sustainability, the eradication of poverty, job creation, education (quality education) for the majority, health care, food, and security. The fight is to bring our country from the depths and lift it into the orbit of emerging economies. This is the fight!
I respect Noynoy Aquino for being the son of Ninoy and Cory. That must be some kind of blood running through his veins! But the fight is not the same - the next President will inherit a country with a huge deficit, a huge infrastructure and technology gap and high unemployment. We need a president who can tackle these problems, and take us to first world status. We don’t just need revolutionary zeal. What we need is revolutionary zeal mixed in with a lot of entrepreneurial spirit.



Let our emotions subside and base our decisions on objectivity and fact. Who is best equipped to lead our nation with the unique set of problems that it will have in 2010? Not 1972. Not 1985.
My apologies to the old guard looking back to the glory days...I’s rather have my eye to the future. Not just People Power but People Empowerment.