Here are their favorite refrain in their vicious ad hominem attacks: "Marcos 20 years dictatorship", "Marcos 14 years martial law", and so on and so forth, in their unqualified generalization of how Marcos supposedly committed murders, tortures, plunders, corruption and human-rights violations, among other crimes.


Marcos ran the country for 20 years, declared martial law on September 22, 1972, and lifted it nine years later, on January 1, 1981. So, how could this be 14 years or more as his critics repeatedly remonstrated.


Marcos died on September 28, 1989, and not a single case of the crimes attributed to him was filed against him in a court of law. On record, the Supreme Court in President Corazon C. Aquino's presidency turned down his petition to allow him to come home and confront his accusers. Strangely, even his remains were denied entry for security reason.


To many who suffered detention or injuries largely for engaging in subversive acts inordinately described the martial law period as the most brutal in Philippine history. To memorialize their contention, they organized in September 1999 the Conference on the Legacies of the Marcos Dictatorship, with American impetus (from the Legacies of Authoritarianism Project started by the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1998). 


The apparent aim of this project was to portray President Marcos, from the perspective of the victims of martial law, as a dictator whose example must never again be followed. However, leafing through the conference report that came out in book form, what was found were a litany of allegations but a serious shortage of evidence. 


The report evoked a feeling that individuals who hated Marcos for a certain reason, the American participants included, were making him a convenient scapegoat at a time when he could no longer defend himself.


For a long time, this version of Philippine history where Marcos and his family were villains and his political opponents were heroes is the only and jealously guarded interpretation of the Marcos era. 


To digress from their version of history invites a warning against historical revisionism. Their self-styled historians and misguided journalists desperately wanted the people to swallow only their version hook, line and sinker.


Filipinos who have experienced the martial law period up close would swear that life was better then than now. They remembered lawless anarchy to which democracy was reduced from the late-1960s onward until the declaration of martial law. 


Describing the period, American historian Lewis Gleeck Jr. agreed with US Embassy political counselor Francis Underhill that "the Philippines needs a strong man to get the country organized and moving again." 


He noted: 

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"Significant evidence of the strength of the authoritarian tradition was that the introduction of martial law was accepted with relief by most of the public, and that it proved overwhelmingly popular in the beginning. Filipinos were fed up with the chaos produced by "surplundering" congressmen, corrupted media, venalities in the bureaucracy and crime in the streets. An approving majority applauded his abolition of Congress and even the muzzling of the press."

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The political scientist and writer Alexander Magno added: 

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"In the first 500 days after martial law was imposed, Marcos reported that his government disbanded 150 private armies with a total strength of 25,000. Over 550,000 registered firearms were confiscated, along with 1.5 million rounds of ammunition."

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One welcome by-product of the social disarmament was the dramatic drop in crime. In the first year of martial rule, the crime index dropped 505 points overall. Murder cases went down by 73 percent. Homicide was reduced by 65 percent and robbery by 51 percent.


Notwithstanding his having saved the Republic from fragmentation by separatists and from a takeover by communists, Marcos continued to be demonized in history as a thieving tyrant. 


Vilification was thorough and most of Marcos's successors needed to distance themselves away from his examples, or from any association with him. The most visible, perhaps, among them was President Aquino who claimed to be the "exact opposite" of Marcos. 


Unable to reconcile with a leftist Cabinet, inexperienced in politics and statecraft, she ruled with a weak hand and was criticized for lacking political will and for simply drifting with the flow until the end of her term. 


Sources: 

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They don't even know how to count by Cecilio T. Arillo, November 30, 2016 (<a href="https://goo.gl/z34Zc3" class="news_link source-visit-count" target="_blank" title="Source">Business Mirror</a>)
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</ol>



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Anti-Marcos groups don't even know simple arithmetic