I
The sun blazed upon Manila Bay as the city hummed with anticipation. Ferdinand Marcos had won the presidency, promising not only discipline but a vision of progress. Posters with his face still clung to walls; radios still echoed with campaign speeches. In the air lingered the promise of a new dawn.
Rafael, now older, walked the streets of Escolta, noticing construction banners stretched across old ruins that had yet to be replaced since the war. Trucks rattled by, carrying cement bags with "Philippine Government Project" stamped boldly in red.
A group of students gathered near a café, debating animatedly.
"Marcos is different," one boy said, fists clenched. "He will bring us highways, schools, and dignity. Finally, a leader who looks like he knows what he's doing."
Another student scoffed. "Or he just knows how to wear his barong well. Image, nothing more."
Rafael smiled faintly. He had heard this tune before. Leaders with words sharper than bolos, promises louder than church bells. But he also saw the ambition in Marcos' eyes — the ambition of a man who wanted not just to govern, but to etch his name in stone.
II
Malacañang Palace glowed with renewed life. Imelda Marcos, radiant in her terno, welcomed guests with practiced grace. Diplomats from America, Japan, and Europe toasted in the gilded halls. Outside, reporters scribbled furiously as Marcos unveiled his "ambitious program for national reconstruction."
"We will not only rebuild," Marcos declared. "We will surpass. Roads shall connect every province, bridges will span rivers that once divided us, and hospitals shall serve the poorest barrios. The Philippines shall rise as a showcase of democracy in Asia!"
Thunderous applause filled the hall. Cameras flashed.
At the back, Rafael leaned against a column, observing. He whispered to Alejandro's son — now a fiery journalist.
"Listen to him. He speaks as though progress can be commanded like soldiers on parade."
The young man smirked. "Maybe that's what this country needs. Someone who commands, not someone who pleads."
III
And so construction began.
By day, Manila's skyline rattled with cranes. Highways were carved across the heart of Luzon, promising to tie the archipelago into a single body. Dams rose from valleys, promising electricity and irrigation.
Rafael visited one such site in Ilocos, where sweat-soaked laborers hacked through rock under the gaze of military engineers. Posters of Marcos' stern face fluttered on poles.
A foreman saluted Rafael, recognizing him from the old war days. "Kapitan, the President is serious this time. Look at this road. It will carry rice from our fields to the city. My sons will travel to school without crossing rivers barefoot."
Rafael nodded, though his eyes caught the soldiers standing nearby with rifles, ensuring the laborers did not falter. Progress was rising, yes — but so too was discipline enforced at gunpoint.
IV
In Manila, Imelda began her own rise. She launched cultural programs, funded concerts, and whispered of a grand Cultural Center that would place the Philippines on the world's artistic map.
At a dinner, she spoke warmly to Rafael. "Our people need beauty as much as bread, don't you think? After all the wars, after all the suffering, let them dream again."
Rafael studied her carefully. "Dreams are good, Señora. But they do not feed empty stomachs."
Imelda smiled serenely, unshaken. "They will. One cannot eat bread forever without hope of song. My husband builds the body. I will build the soul."
V
The newspapers cheered. "Golden Age of Infrastructure!" "Highways of Progress!" "Bridges to the Future!"
Rafael sat in his modest home, flipping through the headlines. Alejandro's son stormed in, carrying drafts of his own articles.
"Look at this, Tito," he said angrily. "Billions poured into these projects, yet farmers in the countryside still beg for seed and fertilizer. Is this progress, or is this just a stage set?"
Rafael sighed. "Perhaps both. The Republic always builds two things — hope for the people, and illusion for the world. It is hard to tell which will last longer."
VI
One evening, a rally filled Plaza Miranda. Marcos himself spoke before a sea of faces, his voice crisp, carried by loudspeakers.
"We are building a nation," he proclaimed. "But I need every Filipino to share the burden. Work hard. Be disciplined. Sacrifice, and the future will be yours."
The crowd roared. Firecrackers burst.
Rafael, standing at the fringes, overheard two farmers whisper.
"Do you believe him?" one asked.
"I believe the roads," the other answered. "At least the roads are real."
VII
Yet shadows lingered. Corruption crept into the cracks — contracts awarded to friends, funds disappearing into pockets. And while concrete poured into highways, hunger poured into the fields.
Rafael recorded it all in his journal:
"A republic dazzled by steel and stone, yet blinded to its children who sleep hungry. If roads are veins, then where is the heart? Marcos builds a body for the Philippines, but will he remember the soul?"
VIII
By the end of Marcos's first term, Manila gleamed with the confidence of progress. Diplomats praised the Philippines as a model for Asia. Foreign investors arrived, wooed by roads and bridges.
But in the barrios, where Rafael often returned, the song was different. Hunger had not vanished. Tenants still bent to landlords, debts chained them as before.
On one trip back to Pampanga, Mang Pedro's surviving kin told Rafael:
"They built a highway, Kapitan. But what good is a highway if we have no rice to sell, no money to ride the buses?"
Rafael had no answer. He only looked at the distant road, bright and empty under the sun, stretching toward Manila like a promise not yet kept.
IX
That night, Rafael wrote again, foreseeing what lay ahead:
"Marcos has built his image in stone and steel. The people cheer for now, dazzled by bridges and speeches. But when hunger returns — and it always returns — will they remember the highways, or the empty bowls at their tables? The first term is a triumph of image. The second may reveal the truth behind it."
X
In the late evenings, Rafael would walk past Manila's government buildings and see the lights in Malacañang glowing well into the night. Rumors circulated — of meetings behind closed doors, of generals called in at strange hours, of dossiers stacked high on the President's desk.
Whispers in cafés grew louder:
"Marcos will not let go after one term."
"He dreams of greatness, not service."
"Discipline, he says — but what does discipline mean when spoken by soldiers?"
One night, at a gathering of old comrades, Rafael heard an army captain say in hushed tones:
"The President has been asking for reports of student groups. He wants to know their leaders by name, their slogans, their plans. He says it is for 'national security.'"
Rafael frowned. "Security against what?"
The captain hesitated. "Against the people themselves, perhaps."
The words settled like cold ash.
XI
At a student forum in Diliman, Rafael stood quietly at the back as fiery speeches shook the hall. Young men and women condemned corruption, demanded land reform, and warned of creeping authoritarianism.
"Today it is roads and bridges," one girl shouted. "Tomorrow it will be chains and curfews!"
Applause thundered. Yet Rafael also saw fear in their faces. They knew they were being watched.
Outside, he overheard a policeman mutter to his partner:
"These kids think they can topple a President? One order, and this whole university will be silent."
XII
Rafael returned to Pampanga again, walking the muddy paths of barrios. There, the peasants did not speak of politics but of hunger. And yet even they had begun to sense the shift in the wind.
"Kapitan," an old woman whispered as they shared boiled corn, "they say the President talks like a general now. My son in Manila tells me soldiers walk into their classrooms. If that is true, what comes next?"
Rafael clasped her hand. "Perhaps nothing. Perhaps everything."
He had no comfort to give.
XIII
Meanwhile, Imelda expanded her influence, traveling abroad, dazzling foreign leaders with her charm. Newspapers praised her as "the Rose of the East." But Rafael heard another description whispered in taverns: "The Iron Butterfly."
She spoke of discipline and unity, of silencing the "noisy few" who hindered progress. Her speeches, gilded in grace, carried undertones of warning. Rafael recognized them as preludes to something heavier, something already rehearsed.
XIV
In his journal, Rafael wrote with trembling hands:
"The President speaks of building a New Society. But every stone of this new society rests upon silence — silence of the farmers, silence of the workers, silence of the students. The roads are straight, but they lead toward a narrowing path. And I fear that at the end of this path, the Republic may find itself bound, not freed."
XV
As the first term closed, celebration filled the capital — new roads inaugurated, foreign investors signing contracts, banners praising Marcos' discipline fluttering from lampposts. But beneath the applause, Rafael heard the deeper sound: the quiet tightening of the rope.
One night, he confided to Alejandro's son, now a bold reporter.
"You write of corruption and hunger, hijo. But prepare also to write of silence. For the silence that is coming will be heavier than any headline you have ever written."
The young man stared at him, unsettled.
"Do you mean… dictatorship?"
Rafael said nothing, but his eyes spoke the answer.