The Real Worth of Free Money
What is it that makes people believe they'd get a share of the Marcos wealth?
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(SPOT.ph) The plot of redistributing Marcosās riches to Filipinos has many faces. On the one hand, decades of policymakingāfrom the formation of the Philippine Commission on Good Government to calls for international interventionāhave made little progress in recovering the ill-gotten wealth of a conjugal dictatorshipās decades of plunder.
And still, there are the thousands of human rights victims under the Marcos dictatorship who have yet to get their due from the Marcoses: the torture and killing remaining unaccounted for decades after their suffering. On the other hand, Marcosās most loyal devotees often spin narratives of how the late dictatorās wealth came to be: Yamashitaās treasure, businesses, gold reserves. There seemed to be a grand plan for Marcos and his kin to one day spread the wealth to the Filipino
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It is from here that the weekendās social media firestorm began.
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The thousands who gathered at the University of the Philippines Los BaƱos campus on September 23 were there under the guise of an all-too-familiar narrative: that they would get their long-awaited share of the Marcos wealth. The UPLB PerspectiveĀ reports that the gathering was a āgeneral assemblyā for members of the One Social Family Credit Cooperative, formerly known as Bullion Buyer Ltd.: an organization that purports to be a beneficiary of the Marcos wealth, tasked to distribute the money to its members.
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The approach was simple: each family registered to the organization was to receive P1 million from the Marcos wealth. Half of that would go to the cooperative as a share, and half would be distributed to the families over the better part of five years. The catch was that one should be registered to the organization, attend a membership seminar, and own a signed copy of Life and Achievements of Ferdinand E. Marcos as proof of membership.
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It was a scene straight from the most extreme examples of prosperity evangelism and/or pyramiding schemes: only instead of a seed of faith sown for the promise of riches, one only needed to plant a seed of fealty for a chance at wealth.
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Of course, this isnāt the first time that people were duped into believing that their key to economic redemption is to be found in pro-Marcos pamphlets. Every now and then, ācommunity meetingsā will be held in small venues with the same story to tell: the Marcos wealth is here, and for a few pesos and a membership form, you too can be part of the wealth distribution that the scammers have the temerity to call āMarcosās blessings.ā But, as the UPLB Perspective reports, many of those who gathered at the UPLB campus
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And itās hard to contest that: Marcosās most fervent loyalists arenāt found in urban centers, but in far-flung rural areas with an aging Marcos-built road, a Marcos-built school, and continue to feedĀ onĀ the scraps that the Marcoses threw their way back when they were in power. Decades of regime changeāand the development programs that came with itāhave done little to alleviate the crushing poverty that comes with much of rural life in the Philippines. Even disastrous programs and dangerous projects like Masagana 99 and Biyayang Dagat are looked upon wistfully by some.
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And it shows in the composition of the people who attended the One Social Family Credit Cooperative (
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Some of us are quick to dismiss the setting as yet another example of the
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Yet itās never plain old gullibility or naĆÆveté that drives many of the elderly rural poor to take their chances at Marcosās wealth. More than anything, itās a silent cry for help: if there seems to be desperation and despair to be found in thousands of people, mostly the vulnerable elderly, to gather at a place to receive the promise of āblessingsā from charismatic
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The bigger task ahead is far greater: fighting the pains of historical revisionismāand deodorizing the Marcoses, at thatāis something that comes with long-term, forward-looking programs that alleviate poverty and bring real development to the poorest places in the country. For them to know, at least, that the rest of the country is watching for their welfare beyond election season, and that the true wealth that comes with long-term development and poverty alleviation programs lies beyond the hoard of gold the Marcoses seem to be sitting on.
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Besides, if they really wanted to fulfill Ferdinandās will, they should have given it away in the first place. Or admitted to its existence. But they never have: and a cycle of deception continues to fuel the fires of scams that prey