This tweet of mine has aroused a good deal of hostility from NatDem forces on Twitter, who attack me for "humanizing Marcos." 🧵
https://twitter.com/josephscalice/status/1495067713189953542
Marcos was brutal dictator. He presided over an apparatus of repression. He shut down the press, arrested 60,000 people on political grounds in the first five years of his dictatorship, was responsible for nearly 4,000 deaths. 1/
Attacking him for singing an Ilocano love song to a woman with whom he was having an affair erodes the democratic sensibilities of the public. It aims to focus public ire not on repression and dictatorship but on a sex scandal. 2/
Political sex scandals -- the whipping up of mass anger over the private actions of consenting adults -- are the tools of reactionaries and the far-right. The NatDems backing this are functioning as the Ken Starrs of Philippine politics. 3/
The Pamulinawen scandal attempts to win over religious conservatives to the anti-Marcos camp because he had an affair, and to erode Marcos support among militarists because it exposes him as vulnerable and undermines his machismo. These are reactionary aims. 4/
Marcos was not a monster. Neither is Duterte. Depicting them as demonic forces, as pure evil, appeals to mass superstition, not democratic sensibilities. They are humans who became the head of the repressive apparatus of the state. We confront social not personal problems. 5/ 
A left-wing response to the imminent threat of dictatorship requires explaining its social roots in global capitalism and mass social inequality. The forces attempting use Pamulinawen to attack Marcos are attempting to fend off dictatorship by throwing mud. 6/end
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