The 42nd anniversary of martial law, which President Ferdinand Marcos proclaimed on Sept. 21, 1972 and lifted on January 17, 1981, came and went last Sunday without any unusual public demonstrations, except for some of the barbed remarks about “Marcos and his evil regime.” These were completely expected, given the sustained effort to proclaim B. S. Aquino 3rd’s imagined virtues against the “sins” of Marcos and Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, his immediate predecessor.

It was not until two days ago that President B. S. Aquino 3rd told a gathering of Filipinos in Boston that he had wanted to exact vengeance on Marcos for the assassination of his father, the late former Senator Benigno Aquino Jr., upon his return to Manila from his three-year medical furlough in Boston on Aug. 21, 1983.