Aquino warns vs going back to the ‘dark days’

President Aquino deliver his speech during the launching of the Angat afterbay Regulatory dam (Bustos Dam) Rehibalitation project in Brgy Tibagan, Bustos Bulacan. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO/JOAN BONDOC

President Aquino on Wednesday expressed confidence about going around the country with a little over two months left in office to tell people that new graduates now have a future much better than before as he warned against making the wrong choices in the May elections that could bring back the “dark days” of martial law.

The President said it would be this generation’s biggest “mistake and shortcoming” if the “dark days” of the past would happen again and torment the new generation.

“I can go around the whole Philippines … and say that new graduates like you have a future that is undeniably better than the one we had when we first took office,” President Aquino said in Filipino.

The President spoke at the 68th commencement exercises of the Manuel L. Quezon University that is now run by San Jose Builders which is owned by his longtime friend, Jose Rizalino “Jerry” Acuzar.

The university also conferred on Mr. Aquino a doctorate degree in public administration, a first, the President himself noted.

The President told the new graduates that his father, opposition leader Sen. Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr., was never able to attend any of his graduation—from grade school to college—because of martial law.

He himself was unable to join his own commencement exercises at the Ateneo de Manila University because five days before graduation day, he had to fly to Boston to join his family who was given an exit visa by the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos who allowed the elder Aquino to undergo a heart bypass in the United States.

The President said he and his contemporaries were lucky if they reached 30 years old, noting that most activists who fought the dictatorship who were killed or had gone missing were below 30 years old.

While he did not mention it, Mr. Aquino made an obvious reference to the vice presidential bid of Sen. Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr., the only son of the late strongman.

Marcos is now the front-runner in poll surveys, followed closely by Sen. Francis Escudero and Rep. Leni Robredo.