The Conjugal Dictatorship of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos in Isabela. One of the long-range plans of Marcos is to suffer or tolerate within certain limits the anti-Marcos political activities of the "old society" politicians, while countering their every move with his own controlled propaganda machine. His gambit is to outlive most of them, or hasten the demise of most of them. He knows that the upcoming generation may no longer have any memories about constitutional democracy, but only a forced liking for his constitutional authoritarianism. And, in order to swing the youth to his side, Marcos has ordered the organization of secret training camps for youth corps in the Visayas and Mindanao, and parts of Northern Luzon. He has not dared organize this in the more sophisticated areas of the Tagalog regions of Central and Southern Luzon. The training camps, operating under the guise of National Youth Service, will turn out what would be the New Society equivalent of Hitler's youth corps. It is not only the youth that Marcos' various ruses of survival will work on. Every aspect of life in the Philippines will be subjected to continuing barrage of oppression, coupled with propaganda, in order to insure Marcos' perpetualion in power.
Chapter XVII Whither Marcos? It will be a very long time before there can be a final perspective on the martial regime in the Philippines, and indeed on Ferdinand E. Marcos. Surely, that perspective has been greatly accelerated by the behavior of Ferdinand himself, his extravagant and jet-setting wife, Imelda, his in-laws and cronies, and select rapacious armed forces officers. In spite of the evidently tightening noose of circumstances pointing to an adverse historical verdict on his regime, Marcos will seek to maneuver around in the vain hope that history would deal with him kindly. To be sure. his misdeeds are many. The Office of the President of any country is one of the most vulnerably public positions in the world. Society is so contrived that it is virtually impossible to combine power, position and privacy - or even celebrity and privacy. Those willing to court fame, or assume leadership, are by those very terms forced to relinquish seclusion. What one takes in the way of glory or influence, one must pay for in constant exposure to public scrutiny. No one in the ambit of fame is exempt from the inexorable equation. Hardly anyone disputed the wisdom of the imposition of martial law, since they did not hold the martial guns anyway, and it was held out as temporary, to be lifted just as soon as rebellion is ended and certain reforms are effected. But what started out as a reform movement has grown into an ill-disguised plot to perpetuate Dictator Marcos and his ilk in power, backed by their rapacity Primitivo Mijares
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