THE INQUIRER WILL FIGHT ON!
FOR TWO DAYS, we have received word that the Inquirer offices will be raided, following the “revolt” staged by Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile and Acting AFP Chief of Staff Fidel V. Ramos against President Marcos.
The “raid”, hopefully, is just one of the precautionary measures being adopted by a regime made paranoid by the widespread opposition of almost all sectors of the Filipino people.
As veterans of the mindless wave of arrests made by the Marcos regime in 1972 following the declaration of Martial Law, it is clear to us that when the regime is confronted with a situation it cannot solve with bribery or intimidation, the solution it usually falls back on is arrest of all dissenters.
There is no point in belaboring the obvious fact that the Inquirer in its short span of existence has taken every effort to present fair, balanced and honest reporting. The fact that it is the biggest newspaper in town, widely patronized and supported by all sectors, is the best testimonial of that.
It is perhaps something to be deplored that in any political upheaval such as the country is going through, it is usually the independent press that is first to be attacked and closed down.
It must be said, however, that it is only a government which has lost the moral authority to govern by the complete disaffection of its people that must resort to force of arms to have its orders followed.
The Marcos administration can order this newspaper closed and ‘the people behind it imprisoned.
But what Marcos cannot do is imprison the spirit of freedom and the cry for justice which it shares in common with the Filipino people.
And wherever there is one living Filipino, there reposes truth, freedom and justice and the spirit of the Inquirer lives on.
LUIS D. BELTRAN, JR.
Editor-in-Chief
