THE MOST offensive insult ever to be hurled at the face of the People Power Revolution came from Ilocos Norte Gov. Ferdinand Marcos Jr., and he unleashed it amid the celebration of the 13th anniversary of the overthrow of the incomparably corrupt and repressive Marcos regime.

Marcos Jr. said his family has nothing to apologize for because his father's regime had done nothing wrong. And to rub salt on the wound, he heaped insult on the victims of human rights abuses who are claiming compensation by saying, "They don't want an apology, they want money."

He is terribly wrong. The victims want both an apology and money, and both cannot adequately compensate for the human rights abuses committed against more than 10,000 people who were either tortured by security forces, imprisoned without warrants, executed or who disappeared without a trace.

The Marcoses have always been unrepentant, but Marcos Jr. scaled the peak of arrogance with his statement. It demonstrated how obnoxious the members of the Marcos family have become after they returned to this country from long years of exile when they feared for their lives. Marcos Jr., who has never been known for intellectual brilliance, put in his two cents' worth by saying that Edsa was a "power grab" and not a revolution. Citing textbook gibberish which he apparently did not understand, Marcos Jr. said, "A revolution is a change in social order."

The Filipino people don't need lectures on social science from Marcos Jr. That job is better left to more authoritative persons. The Marcos family is mistaken if they believe that people have forgotten the abuses under which the people bridled during 14 years of pillage of the national wealth and political murders. The Marcos family might have developed amnesia from years of intoxication with power and consumption of wealth looted from the national treasury. But the people's memory of at least the craven flight of the Marcos family and their cronies are still vivid.

The Marcos family needs to be reminded about a few things. The rule of Ferdinand Marcos ended 13 years ago and it was ended by the people in an uprising. No other Filipino government from the time of Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo has ever been overthrown by the sovereign people. Whether or not Edsa was a social revolution, the main highlight of that revolution was that Filipinos from all social classes closed ranks to overthrow the dictatorship. Whether or not change followed Edsa pales in significance in the face of the people's successful effort to get rid of Marcos. And if the poor remain poor after Edsa, part of the reason is that too much wealth has been concentrated in the hands of the Marcoses.

The Marcos family is fortunate that they were able to flee the seething wrath of the public. If they had stayed in Malacañang when the people stormed it, every member of the Marcos family, including Marcos Jr., could have been torn into pieces. The people's fury was such that they vented their rage on portraits of Marcos and ransacked the Palace. It is not inconceivable that the Marcos family would have suffered a fate as ignominious as that of Benito Mussolini who was hanged by his feet by partisans and Nicolas Ceausescu of Romania who was swiftly tried and executed after his repressive regime was overthrown by a people's rebellion in December 1989

Insufferable arrogance

THE MARCOSES were able to return to the country mainly because of the restoration of democracy, which the Marcos regime had crushed. By a paradoxical twist of history, it is the democratic process that the Marcoses have manipulated to regain entry into the country and to keep their loot. It is this democratic ambience from which they are now affronting Filipinos with their insufferable arrogance.

During their time, the Marcoses believed that they owned the country and that they were born to rule and to abuse. This mentality has not deserted them. Now that they have enjoyed the munificence of democracy, the Marcoses have again regained the arrogance and the cynicism that were the hallmarks of the dictatorship. Their behavior is abominable and out of place in a democracy. They have not come to terms with the fact that they lost power and were thrown out. Now they are talking like they were the winners at Edsa.

If the arrogance and insolence of the Marcoses have done anything during this year's anniversary of the revolution, it is to rekindle on the part of the people the urge to go back to the streets and do what they were denied on Feb. 25, 1986, when the Marcoses fled with the help of the United States government.