Sy, Jasper Laurence L.

Kaspil2 C31
11516224

KASPIL2 Final Exam

Write a critical essay on the ways colonialism; neo-colonialism, foreign intervention,

authoritarianism and people power have affected the Philippines. Use factual examples to support
your assertions.

To start things off, I am proud to say that I am an Ilocano, my hometown is in Laoag City
in the Ilocos province, the so called “Solid North.” During my middle school to upper school
years, I transferred to Ateneo De Manila to continue my studies and finally I am in the De La
Salle for my Mechanical Engineering degree. In short, I just wanted to say that I have been to
both sides of the Marcos issue, the pro-Marcos and the anti-Marcos.

Whenever I am in my province, people will not stop raving about Marcos regime, porque
he did this or he did that, in short the people in my province loves the Marcoses to their death that
if Ferdinand Marcos was still alive today, I feel that they would still vote him. On the other hand,
I have also been exposed to the anti-Marcos, the side where in people said they were frightened,
people said they lost their loved ones, their freedom, the side where in they despise the Marcoses.

To be quite honest, the Ilocano spirit in me says that Marcos was a very good president;
his projects in our hometown have stood the times and are still used up until now. The Marcoses
treat the Ilocano people as their family, maybe this one of the reason why we are called the “Solid
North,” cause we are strong together. In fact according to my dad who at that time resided in the
Ilocos region, the Marcos regime was one of the best years because he felt the peace in our
province. According to him, people were disciplined and they knew that doing wrong things have
consequences thus they had to think of their actions more before doing it.

On the other hand my Jesuit and La Sallian education tells me otherwise, may it be the
facts shared to me by my previous professors in the form of readings, videos or such. Even
though I am an Ilocano, I like to be open-minded and accept the reality. And the reality is that in
some sense, the Marcos messed up the country with his Martial Law. The Philippine Statistics
Authority released data, which states that the Martial Law period, is not the golden age of the
Philippine economy. In fact, this period saw the highest inflation rate.

On January 1981, through Proclamation no. 2045, Martial Law was lifted but did this not
mean the end of the human right abuse. In 1986, through the people power revolution, Marcos
was ousted. The People power campaign was partly due to the regime’s violence and the electoral
fraud that occurred. What I learned from this is that the Filipino people are always united.

Right now, the past is the past and we cannot do anything to change it. The past will now
be a part of our history, which will be passed on to the future generation for them to know about
the factual reality. This Kaspil2 class helped me realize that the past in fact has greatly affected
our economy and how the politics run in our country. But what I am grateful about is how it
affected the mentality of the Filipinos. Because of these events, we learned lessons both from the
good and the bad, which will hopefully make us stronger as we stride forward, with one goal in
mind: Peace, Unity and Love for country.