WHAT happened yesterday at Commonwealth Avenue in Quezon City showed that the Marcoses have not changed a bit and are still basically the same. They like to go for the dramatic or even for an overkill just to stress a point even if it violates basic human decency and reveals nothing but their callousness and insensitivity.
The huge traffic jam created by their callous supporters, who occupied the entire 10-lane “killer highway” on the one side, reminds me of what the Marcoses did during the political campaign of the 1986 “snap” presidential elections that pitted dictator Ferdinand Marcos against Cory Aquino, widow of the martyr Ninoy Aquino Jr.
We took the early morning flight of the PAL plane to go to San Jose City in Occidental Mindoro. I was employed in a Japanese news agency; it was job to cover either candidates on any given day of the political campaign. It was normal for me to swing from part of the country to another to cover their campaign sorties in different parts of the country.
On that day sometime in January, 1986, I was assigned to cover the KBL rally in San Jose City, Occidental Mindoro. It took place in the morning and lasted until noontime. I was in a group of journalists happily taking our lunch in a restaurant there when somebody from the KBL campaign team told us that we could not possibly go back to Manila on the same day because Imelda Marcos diverted the PAL plane for her use. There was no further explanation on the diversion.
What compounded the injury was that we were told that the next flight would be three days after the political event. In brief, we had to stay for three more days to go back to Manila. This was unacceptable because we did not want to get marooned in Mindoro doing nothing. Moreover, ours was a paid trip. We booked officially our flight to go to San Jose City and return trip on the same day. The diversion was a violation of our contracted flight. But the KBL people would not care of any contractual obligation.
We talked to the people there, who told that if we wanted to go back to Manila on the same day, we could take the late afternoon flight in Mamburao, the capital town of Occidental Mindoro. Going there was a problem, they told us because San Jose City is about 80 kilometers away from Mamburao. To make the long story short, our group composed of the late Mark Finemann of the Philadelphia Inquirer, JP Fenix of the nascent Phil. Daily Inquirer, Cecil Morella of Agence France Press and me, decided to take the matter on our hands. We hirer a jeepney for a special trip to Mamburao. We all shared the cost.
We caught the late afternoon and returned to Manila but the experience was worth recalling. During those days, the road between San Jose City and Mamburao was not well developed. It was dirt road, plain and simple. The road was hardly passable and dusty too. Because it was special trip, we reached our destination.
Imelda Marcos did not care if the diversion of the PAL plane to its return flight to Manila would have terrible consequences. Since it was the era of Marcos dictatorship, the conjugal couple could just do what pleased them. Never mind the people.
Yesterday, we saw how unmindful, insensitive, and callous were the Marcoses to the people. The 12.5-kilometer Commonwealth Avenue is the major thoroughfare that serves millions of people in Quezon City, North Caloocan, and even the southern part of Bulacan. They use that stretch to go to their places of work in the Makati City, Manila, or elsewhere and return home.
The horrendous traffic jam caused by the insensitive and callous followers of that mediocre son of the infamous dictator was something very revolting because it reminded us of their unmindful ways and abuses of the Marcoses. They have not changed a bit. They are all irresponsible, callous, and insensitive after all those years they are out of power.
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