Election season is nearly upon us and the question that’s on nearly everyone’s lips is which candidate they’re going to vote for. In a one-on-one with former President Fidel V. Ramos that he granted to promote the documentary People Power: 30 Years On, which will have an encore airing tonight at 10 p.m. on the Discovery Channel, we asked him which candidate he’d like to endorse, along with what he’d like young people to remember about Martial Law and the 1986 People Power Revolution.
Many people are worried about the generation born after Martial Law because they have no recognition of it. Should this be a genuine cause for concern?
Maybe for some, but the parents of these millennials should themselves be better informed. Maybe the best way to do this is for them to educate themselves so they can impart the lessons and the history of it to their own children. This is what I have attempted to do with my own grandchildren who are in that age group.
They must try at least to understand what the 1986 People Power Revolution was all about. Let us not ask the public school system to do that main job. They have that job. But the principal persons responsible should be the parents.
Some people say that with the rampant corruption in the government, along our reluctance to follow rules and laws, that a dictatorship is needed, hence the popularity of Duterte’s candidacy. Do you agree?
No. I do not think the majority of Filipinos, and I’m not counting just the families of the victims of the dictatorship, but the majority—and that includes me and you—do not want the hard times of a dictatorship to return. No, there are better ways for the Filipino people to go. And we experienced some of these times in the recent past.
Of course, there are all kinds of opinions about the 1986 People Power Revolution, but I suggest that you take it from the ones that were really there, who still write about it to learn what is the truth of the matter. The problems [today] were not created by the 1986 People Power Revolution—it was in the implementation by the successors of certain laws, reformed policies, and innovations that must be blamed for the failures that exist up to now.
If there is anything you could change about the way our government is run, what would it be?
I do not understand up to now why even if there have been so many attempts, including by me, to amend the Philippine Constitution of 1987, why that has not happened at all. Not in a single instance. And yet, the world is changing every day. And there are so many new aggravations that require adjustment in our foreign relations. But most of all, it is the conditions of the Philippine national society that have changed very much. And therefore, require amendments to the Philippine constitution.
The problem is that, as I’ve mentioned earlier, is we keep hanging on to this government of ours that has not worked for us. It is the dynasties, the aristocrats, the elites, the haves who make corruption so much more prevalent. But if you had a professional, honest bureaucracy that is headed by a leader who serves not himself or his family, but the people in general, then we will get rid of many of the current illnesses of Philippine society.
Last question: Who are you voting for?
Ask me [again] two weeks before election, but I have one request: Please do not vote for me. I might win.
Photos by Paolo Tabuena