"Get on with the business at hand"

This was surprisingly painful to watch (you can watch the rest on youtube). The name "Marcos" hits me straight in the solar plexus. My brother's father was a crony, so our family experienced what it was like to be in the periphery of that brand of power. My children carry the Lopez name and I know what the Marcos family did to their family. As with all families injured by that regime, their lives were forever altered.

I tried to watch this with a certain amount of openness and objectivity. I see Irene Marcos from time to time, walking around, and I ask myself what it must be like to be in her shoes. I try not to lay the sins of the father on the children, and yet I carry so many questions: Do they really believe their parents innocent? Have they participated, through their silence, in the crimes? Do they not question the source of their wealth? Do they burn to make restitution for charges against them, for the sake of their children and those yet unborn, but already fated to carry their name? Are they angry, defiant, in denial? What?

What about the torture, murders, lives torn apart, billions stolen and never recovered, plunging the country into misery, from which we have yet to recover? How can anyone living here today talk about healing this nation when all we do is gloss over the past? That's not healing.

President Noynoy Aquino said it himself, "There can be no reconciliation without justice." There can only be justice and healing if there is truth. This applies to every pain and trauma in life. We can only heal when we can see the truth and find our place in it. When we see the whole picture, we can make sense of it and define how to move within it. Only then can we "move on" and "heal" and "unite". Until then, there is no real resolution. How can anyone find peace in the face of darkness? We need to be able to see to make sense of things. You cannot keep travelling on a road strewn with debris. You have to create a path, the more well-lit it is, the better able you are to move. That's the way of humanity. Anything less diminishes it.

Let's stop this nonsense about "moving on" and "uniting" and "healing", as if we could just step into it with glee. Everyone wants that, but there is a process that must be followed. We have to take the steps that will bring us there authentically. There must be a plan that supports truth and justice. Once that road is paved and lit, everyone would gladly walk it.

Until then, the first and only step is the truth. All of it.