The burgeoning alliance between President Donald Trump and Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte appears destined to become the 21st century version of the Ronald Reagan-Ferdinand Marcos alliance.
That union in the 1980s allowed the Marcos dictatorship to last 14 years, despite Marcos’ notoriety for murdering over 3,000 people as well as jailing 70,000 and torturing 34,000 of his political rivals and other innocent people. Reagan stood by his Filipino ally to the bitter end, even granting Marcos asylum in Hawaii when it became clear that “people power” would soon topple the unsustainable dictatorship. According to Reagan, granting a haven to Marcos and 90 of his family members and close associates was “in the best interests” of U.S.-Filipino relations. Those interests included a network of some of the largest U.S. military bases in the world at the time.
Such die-hard support for a brutal dictator was immoral back then.
Knowing the legacy of trauma that the Marcos dictatorship inflicted on the Filipino people and the country as a whole makes supporting the admittedly fascist upstart dictator Duterte completely unjustifiable today.
When Reagan took power in 1980, Marcos had already been ruling the Philippines under martial law for eight years, with the full support of former Presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald R. Ford and Jimmy Carter. Reagan’s support for an additional six years meant Marcos and his military could rack up more human rights abuses with impunity.
Source: Hhuffingtonpost
Friday, February 23, 2018
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