To Remember is to Learn
When in November 2007 a tank pummeled down the gilded glass doors of the Manila Peninsula Hotel at the main business district of Makati City in Manila, Philippines, heads began to shake. The country had been experiencing a re-emergence, a resurgence of some sorts, economically. Filipinos had begun to cling to threads, albeit thin, of hope – that the country may finally be shaking the vestiges of its zest for change and choose one unbending path as a nation.
But then another madman decided he wanted to hold the reins of the country. The government had to show that it was in control, hence, the tank. It took all of six hours before he was crushed, but in his wake came threats of another martial rule marked by the imposition of a curfew and the suppression of press freedom. Filipinos waited with bated breath for a crash.
After all, thus was the fate of the Philippine economy – it stumbles at the onslaught of both the familiar and the unfamiliar, teeters at the brink of a dark night.
And the Philippines was just starting to get it right.