i

i

About the book “Salvation and Damnation”

Originally, Larry Henares planned a 24-volume series of his Make My Day

columns and broadcasts. This was scheduled to be finished by the time Henares

reached his 80th birthday, in time for his resignation from the human race. This

would make this 24th book, “Salvation and Damnation” the last of the series.

But this may not yet be the end. Larry Henares has reached the ripe old of

81 years, going on 82, but the old ticker is ticking still, despite a life-long bout with

high blood pressure and diabetes. Thanks to his doctors, Lynn Rivera, cardiologist,

and May Sison, endocrinologist, and the care of yayas Angelique Castillo and

Miriam Zaragoza, as well as his secretary Flory Suaverdez (who stayed with him for

the last 46 years), Larry Henares finds himself very much in the pink of health, with

a consistent blood pressure of 120/80, blood sugar of 104 mg/dl, and an active love

life – as though he is still a teen-ager. On the eve of his annual executive check-up,

he hopes that no cancer cells will have invaded his body, and that he can still

continue his writings and broadcasts up to the age of 87, at which age, according to

the Bureau of Census and Statistics, he should be kicking the bucket and pushing up

daisies from six feet under.

In this 24th book, there is a hilarious foreword by his son-in-law Eric Angeles

that has assumed the shape of a classic among “introductions of guest speakers,” in

the Rotary circuit. Henares has not lost his touch. He can still make you laugh

(about fried eggs, about Salud in an elevator, about Shorty whose brains are too

close to his asshole, about Bruja, the bride of Frankenstein, about Small Dick and

Needle Dick). He can make you cry with the angels, with his pieces on the sweetest

sound, the lost wallet, the Miracle of the Song. And he can make you think and act

and be angry.

Three times he becomes really serious in this book, (1) when he talks of a

Revolution, a historical necessity he may not be around to witness; (2) when he

writes about the Constitution which is being changed to fit the ambitions of evil

men; and (3) when he fulminates against Milk Companies and how The Unholy

Trinity, God the Father, God the Daughter and God the Holy Skeleton, won the war

to protect Filipino infants from these baby-killers. Read on.

ii

ii

BOOK 24: SALVATION AND DAMNATION

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword by Enrico Angeles, son-in-law:

What do you talk about with Larry?…………………..... v

PERSONALITIES………………………………………………………………. 001

Are you an egg segmenter or an egg beater?...................................................... 001

Salud and the blacks, Ryan the genius ………………………………….……… 003

Stories like Mary Ann Macatol's never end…………………………….……… 005

1. Britain’s 200,000-strong Filipino community…………………………..….. 007

2. ‘Filipino culture is centered around food, family and God’………………. 008

3. Filipinos are Magnificently Sexist…………………………………….…….. 010

Ching, Jovy Salonga was never this petty…………………………………..….. 011

Steve Salonga owns no Benz, no mansion…………………………………..…… 013

Beyond the blue horizon, joy unbounded……………………………………….. 016

Great men leave so-so descendants……………………………………………... 018

Joe Lingad, the planting of a seed………………………………………….……. 020

Funny thing on the way to White House………………………………………… 023

Birthday Centennial of Tomas Maramba y Garcia…………………………… 025

Et tu, Bruja, Bride of Frankenstein…………………………………………….. 028

Shorty has brains too close to his ass…………………………………………… 030

In God We Trust, but not Bernas………………………………………….…….. 032

Haunted by Holy Ghost and Sr. Edelwina……………………………………… 034

Joker re His Septic Majesty, King Fecal…………………………………….…. 037

Eagles gather, good time for all……………………………………………….…. 039

Pin weds: Not yet, give us our moment……………………………………….…. 041

Why it sucks to be a Dick Romulo or a Dick Gordon………………………… 044

The Best of the Year Awards……………………………………………………. 045

Duck, dog, snake, beaver, it's Platypus!............................................................... 047

Platypus had a Japanese grand-uncle………………………………………..….. 049

iii

iii

THE SWEETEST SOUND, STORIES, SIGHT AND SIGHS………………… 052

The Sweetest Sound In All the World………………………………………….. 052

The Wallet, from the Internet……………………………………………….….. 052

Love makes miracles!............................................................................................ 057

K-K-K-Katy, wonderful Katy…………………………………… ………………. 059

Kulas wanted to be guest of Jojo Binay……………………………………...….. 062

Dangerous Life: EDSA in a Hall of Mirrors………………………… ………….. 064

Days of Anger, Year of Fear, by Rosanna L. Henares………………………… 066

THE ECONOMY AND THE NATION…………………………………….…..` 076

I. Nationalism the greatest historic force at work………………………..…. 076

II. The CIA needs Nationalists to contain China……………………………… 077

III. Nationalist Revolution: The Nationalist Agenda………………………..…. 079

Supply side horse-shit for the birds!...................................................................... 080

Ateneo Survey is a media blitz phoney………………………………………..… 082

We got rhythm, Winnie and I!................................................................................ 085

Chinese have no grammar, so why do we?............................................................ 087

Jose Rizal and Flips of little faith………………………………………….…… 089

Snafus: info only as good as sources……………………………………………. 092

CIA doesn't go to church to pray………………………………………………... 094

Are we Filipinos really poor?.................................................................................. 096

Opus Dei, Jesuits: now the dogs of war……………………………………….… 098

Law of 20, hope for economic miracle………………………………………..…. 101

When CRC sets up a military junta....................................................................... 103

14 countries suspended debt payments!................................................................. 105

Taking a leak at the CIA and CRC……………………………………………… 107

THE MILK WARS……………………………………………… ……………… 110

Why it is imperative to keep away from Nestlé…………………………….….. 110

Wyeth Philippines, guilty of illegal, unethical and immoral behavior ……… 119

iv

iv

The Most Moving Scene Ever Written, By Elvira Henares Esguerra……….. 124

I. The Milk Wars: the Background…………………………………………… 127

II. The First Confrontation…………………………………………………..… . 129

III. Dealing with the Bureaucracy………………………………………………. 130

IV. The Opening Salvo………………………………………………………...… 132

V. “Legal Parameters” before the Bureau of Food and Drugs……..………… 134

VI. Short-lived success before the Senate Committee on Health…………..… 135

VII. Running Interference in the Anti Poverty Commission………………..… 137

VIII. Unqualified Success in the Presidential Cabinet Meeting……………..… 139

IX. Dinner at Eight with the President………………………………………... 140

X. A Day of Wonder at the Malacañang Palace……………………………… 142

XI. Back to BFAD, the Final Solution………………………………………… 144

XII. The Milk W ars: The war is never really finished……………………...… 146

CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS……………………………………..….. 148

I. Charter Change: Presidential or Parliamentary?........................................... 148

II. Charter Change: No differences between political parties……………...…. 149

III. Charter Change: Decisive majority can be demolished here………..…… 151

IV. Charter Change: Political parties should be like religions……………..… 152

V. Charter Change: We cannot survive prolonged political chaos………..…. 154

VI. Charter Change: We need to create a New Filipino…………………..….. 155

I. Dancing the Cha-Cha with Tony Oppen………………………………...…. 157

II. Dancing the Cha-Cha, where Ramos and Oppen differ………………...… 159

III. Dancing the Cha-Cha, decentralizing to the local level……………..…..… 161

IV. Dancing the Cha-Cha, no residency requirements………………………… 162

V. Dancing the Cha-Cha, a new kind of leader……………………………..…. 164

END OF BOOK…………………………………………………………………... 166

v

v

Foreword by Enrico V. Angeles, son-in-law

WHAT DO YOU TALK ABOUT WITH LARRY HENARES?

Introducing the Guest Speaker, Rotary Club of Makati, February xx, 2005

This was the dilemma I faced over a dozen years ago when my then-girlfriend,

now my Ann Rosanna asked me to meet with her father.

I asked Rosanna… What do you think we can talk about?… Do we talk about

Economics?

I’m not sure that’s a good idea, she said– he has a doctoral degree in Econ., was

an economic adviser to Presidents Magsaysay and Garcia and Chairman of the National

Economic Council, a cabinet position under Pres. Diosdado Macapagal all before he

was 40 years old…

Maybe we can talk about business… I asked, I have a master’s degree in business,

maybe we can talk about business—

Hmm then again maybe not. He also has a master’s degree in business, in fact

it’s a Business and Engineering degree from the Sloan School of Management at the MIT

in Boston.

And what did you say, upon his return to the Philippines… he was made a dean of

two graduate schools at what age? The ripe old age of 25?

Ok maybe we can talk politics… I offered…

Rosanna says…ahmm… Did I tell you he has served a total of 5 Philippine

presidents dating back to President Magsaysay and is still President Arroyo’s appointee

as Presidential Consultant on National Affairs?

Ok, no politics… I conceded

I know we can talk about movies, that’s nice and light, we’ll talk about movies!

What? He is a movie buff, and in fact made a documentary in 1957 that won the

FAMAS Award for best documentary?…

Ok, let’s drop the movie idea.

We’ll just talk current events… you can’t go wrong with the news.

Well, maybe not. At that time he was only the most read columnist in the highest

circulated daily in the country. In fact, he is the first columnist I can recall where the

Inquirer, during his exposes, would start his column on the front page before continuing

vi

vi

it at the editorial page.

How about literature?…

Better not, she says… He is a certified bookworm, and had he grown up in this

current generation would have been called a nerd. He was reading Chesterton, Dickens

and Hemingway since he was10 years old and to this day can still recite whole verses of

Shakespeare. He is the most well-read person I know, and even now when he laments

that his eyes get too tired to read a book, he has the audio version sent in from Amazon.

Ahh… How about technology I then asked. I’m a younger guy, maybe he has not

kept up with technology?

Well, I just want to warn you that computers are his current passion and in fact

he just embarked on a grand project to put every photo, every long playing record, every

audio tape he owns, and every book he has written into digital format… all by himself!

Ok Rosanna I GIVE UP I said, you tell me what I can talk about with your father.

Well Rosanna said, I’ll let you in on a secret… He loves toilet humor…

What? What do you mean?

You know… the lowest, crassiest, most unintellectual foul humor you can

imagine…

Is that all, I said, I can do that! So after cramming in every Gary Lising book I

can find and watching a whole week’s worth of Eat Bulaga, I was ready to meet Larry

Henares.

I remember it vividly… It was 1992 and it was a few weeks before the hotly

contested elections. It was at his house and I had to fight my way through a living room

full of politicians -- senators, congressmen, and wanna bes, as they were scrambling for

every last minute media mileage Larry Henares could give them in his TV and radio

shows, and in his Inquirer column.

At last, it was just him and me in his office and we didn’t waste time… let the

filth begin! We got really low and dirty… regaling each other with humor only Tito, Vic,

and Joey would love. At the end of our bull caca session, we were in tears from so much

laughter and he… was on his knees… begging me to marry his daughter!

Dear friends, fellow Rotarians, let us welcome a true Renaissance man, my

favorite father-in-law, Mr. Larry “Make My Day” Henares

1

PERSONALITIES Are you an egg segmenter or an egg beater?

A friend of mine, who looks somewhat like loverboy Boy Saycon, was once

asked by one of his innumerable girlfriends, to buy her a brassiere for her boobs. Going

to Rustan, Pastor Boy Saycon, who is neither a pastor, nor a boy, nor a psycho, asked the

salesgirl for a brassiere, explaining with embarrassment, that it was not for himself but

for a lady friend. The sales girl asked. “What size? 24, 26, 28? A, B, or C?” Having

been schooled in Letran College, Boy Saycon is hardly expected to count beyond his ten

fingers, or to know his ABCs, so he answered as he always does when he is asked by his

grade school teacher, “I do not know, Ma’am.” Well, can you give me an idea of the

size? Are they as big as watermelons? “Hmmm, uh… no.” As big as suhas? “Hmmm,

no… not really.” As big as oranges? “Hmmm….no.” Don’t tell me her boobs are only

as big as eggs? “Hmm, yes, fried. As big as fried eggs!”

I tell that story because I am leading up to something quite profound, the art and

science of eating fried eggs. Fried eggs come in only one shape, in two concentric

circles, the outer white of the egg, and the inner yellow yolk where all the cholesterol is

concentrated. All my life, I have known only two kinds of fried egg eaters – the egg

segmenter and the egg beater. Me, I am of the first kind, I divide the egg into segments

like I would a piece of pie or a piece of cake. Then I proceed to eat each segment with

my rice and tapa. Not so my wife Cecilia, she is an egg beater, which means she mangles

the egg with knife and fork, and mixes both the white and the yellow into her rice before

eating it. I was alarmed, I consulted a psychiatrist, “Is there something wrong with my

wife?” I asked. He answered, “Well, it seems to me that she has homicidal tendencies. If

2

I were you, I will stay loyal and faithful to your marriage vows, you can never tell what

she will do to your eggs when you are asleep.”

Did I say there are two kinds of fried egg eaters? – the egg segmenter and the egg

beater. Well, the other night I was in Pancake House eating a waffle to nurse my

diabetes, when I noticed a nice old lady at another table being served with a nice fried

egg. I watched with anticipation, expecting her to segment her egg as I would. But she

did not pick up a knife and fork, like ordinary people do, she picked up a spoon, oh God

no, she scooped out the yolk center of the egg, and plopped it into her mouth. My God,

the nice old lady is an encounter of the third kind, an egg torturer – reminding me of what

Marcos goons used to do to their victims, during martial law. They sharpened the edges

of the spoon and scooped out the eyes before putting a bullet into the brain. Who is she?

Her name is Marie Ilagan, and I would advise her husband Jose Eriberto to stick to his

marriage vows, otherwise he may be attacked with a spoon by Marie in the middle of the

night. You think I am kidding? My wife Cecilia is the nicest person on earth and I love

her dearly. But I am scared of her; that is why I am a henpecked husband. One day we

were eating mangoes. You know what they say, the meat is sweetest when it is closest to

the bone, so we always look forward to eating the middle part of the mango closest to the

seed. Now there are two kinds of mango seed eaters – the inserter and the stabber. Me, I

am the first kind. I insert the thin butt of the seed in-between the prongs of a fork, and

chew on the meat. Not so my wife Cecilia. She gets a sharp knife and stabs the seed on

the chest, and that’s how she holds the seed when she eats it. My God, Cecilia, that’s

abortion, that’s killing the foetus before it is born. That’s a mortal sin, you will go to hell

for that! Without batting an eyelash she answers, speak for yourself, you orchiectomist!

Orchiectomist, what’s that? I saw you cut flowers in the garden. Do you realize that

flowers are the sexual organs of the plant? You are an orchiectomist, you castrated the

plant before it can even enjoy sex. Well, that’s Cecilia and I, we are happily married -

one an abortionist and the other a castrator, in love more than ever, even if she has

already resigned from the human race. And we do expect to meet again in heaven.

I love you, Cecilia.

July 19, 2005, DWBR-fm

3

Salud and the blacks, Ryan the genius

THERE is a story circulating around the United States about a young Filipina

matron whom we shall call Ms. Salud Trinidad. Perhaps she does not want to be

identified because of what happened to her when she was staying in an expensive hotel in

New York where muggings, armed robbery and murders are much more frequent than in

Manila.

One day Salud entered the hotel elevator, and she noticed in consternation that she

was alone with four black gentlemen. One of them turned to her and said, “Hit the floor,

lady!”

“What?” Salud screamed with her voice stifled into an inaudible whisper.

“I said: Hit the floor, lady,” the black man said irritably.

Let’s put it this way, folks. You are a helpless young lady all alone in an elevator

with four mean-looking blacks, telling you to hit the floor -- what the hell would you do,

huh? You hit the floor like you were hit by heavyweight champ Mike Tyson, right?

* * *

And that was what Salud did. She flung herself on the elevator floor, face down,

and started to recite Our Father, expecting a chorus of angel voices to welcome her at the

gates of heaven.

What she heard instead was hysterical laughter from the four blacks, one of them

helping her to her feet, profusely apologizing, “Lady, what I meant for you to do is to

push the elevator button to whatever floor you want to go.”

Sarah got up red-faced, too embarrassed to say a word, while the four blacks were

simply convulsed with laughter. She could still hear them laughing as they left the

elevator, and she went back to her room to cry.

A week later, she went down to settle her bill, and the clerk told her with a

knowing wink that it has already been settled. “What? I don’t know anybody who would

pay my bill!” she exclaimed as she was handed a sealed envelop.

The note said: “Lady, that was the best laugh I had for years.” It was signed

Lionel Richie, one of the hottest stars in show biz, who sang for Pepsi’s TV commercials,

like Michael Jackson, Tina Turner and Gino Padilla.

* * *

4

Geez, I feel like climbing up and shouting from the housetops. We Filipinos must

be a race of geniuses. When I started this column, I challenged my readers with a

complicated crossword puzzle, “Mystery of Dog's Mead.” This puzzle had been in

circulation in an American computer magazine for two months with no one submitting

the correct answer. On the morning my column came out, before noon fourteen entries

were submitted at Inquirer’s office, and four of them were correct.

Since then I have met many young Filipino geniuses, mostly students harassed by

the military, and some of them like Lean Alejandro shot by Filipino CIA agents for being

nationalistic. A nation at war with the best of its youth has no future. What a great race

we could be without a colonial mentality!

We have two world-class pianists, Cecile Licad and Rowena Arrieta. We have

the two Clemente sisters, Teresita, champion speed reader with a phenomenal 80,000

words per minute (10,000 wpm is already genius level), and Lilia who in her thirties

became the greatest money manager in Wall Street, with $2 billion portfolio.

We have Jose Rizal and Claro M. Recto. We have Emilio Aguinaldo who in his

twenties, took on two great colonial powers, Spain and the United States, fighting them

one after another, beating one and being betrayed by the other -- who accomplished the

First Nationalist Revolution and the First Republic in all of Asia -- and to whom we owe

our flag, our anthem, and our democracy.

* * *

I feel like shouting from the housetops because I received word that my grandson

Ryan, baptized Hilarion Henares IV, is a duly certified genius.

His school principal Joseph Blazek, of St. John Fisher School, Portland, Oregon,

reports that Ryan who is only five years old and in first grade, in the first nine week

period (first quarter), mastered his first grade spelling book, and completed with over 97

percent percentile the year’s reading test for Grade One; then he passed Second Grade

reading at the average of 97 percent.

At the first quarter, he also passed the First Grade Math with over 95 percent

score, and a Second Grade test at 97 percent.

Ryan is being tutored by Principal Bazek who suggests that Ryan be tested with

the Third Grade Class this spring. The principal hopes that Ryan, “a delightful person” at

5

five, will pass Third Grade level at the end of the school year this June.

Great balls of fire, this grandson of mine, son of my son Ronnie and former wife

Merce, will pass THREE grades in one year, at five years of age, and will be Fourth

Grade at the start of his second year of schooling!

Ryan is a real chip of the old block.

February 16, 1989

Stories like Mary Ann Macatol’s never end

SHE was a 15-year-old girl who helped her father sell cigarets on the boulevard

near Bayside Club. On the night of March 6, 1982, she and her 14-year-old boyfriend

Alfredo Roa went biking by the Cultural Center, and were resting when they were

accosted by two security guards, one policeman, and a civilian. That night Mary Ann

Macatol was raped, and thereby hangs our tale.

The security guards were Nenelio Aquino and Wilfredo Maribbay. The

policeman was Corporal Jose Castillo and civilian is still unknown and is called John

Doe. When they came upon Alfredo and Mary Ann, Aquino and Maribbay grabbed

Alfredo, boxed him in the nape and back, then hauled him to the guardhouse, leaving

Mary Ann alone with Castillo and John Doe.

The latter asked her if she had any money, and she countered by asking them

why, with many other couples strolling in the park, she and her boyfriend were singled

out. Castillo left Mary Ann and John Doe alone.

* * *

John Doe led the girl to the far end of the Philcite, and told her that if she

followed his instructions, she and Alfredo will be released. “Don't cry,” he said, “gusto

ko lang magpa-masturbate sa iyo.” Then he took out his penis and forced her to hold it.

When it got hard, she was frightened, let go and stood up.

John Doe tried to put his hand inside her T-shirt, she broke off and ran away, but

was caught by Castillo who held her hands, while he conferred in whispers with John

Doe. John Doe left, and Castillo led Mary Ann back to the same place at the far end of

Philcite some 14 meters from the guardhouse where her boyfriend Alfredo was being

held.

6

Castillo asked Mary Ann whether she had any “sexual experience,” and she

answered No. Whereupon, he opened the zipper of her pants, moved her panties down

and forced her to her knees. She begged him to desist since she was a virgin. He pointed

his flashlight at her vagina, and she noticed with fright that he had a gun tucked on his

waist.

* * *

While Mary Ann begged him to consider her as a daughter, Castillo removed his

pants, pointed the gun at Mary Ann, embraced her, and forced his penis into her vagina.

Mary Ann felt pain, screamed, pushed him away, and ran off hysterically crying.

Alfredo Roa from the guardhouse, came to her and asked what happened. Mary

Ann was in hysterics, and Castillo who probably didn’t even enjoy the rape, told them to

go home.

They met another security guard who brought them to the police detachment at

the Cultural Center. Mary Ann explained what happened. Two policemen, Manuel

General and Normandy Castillo, went with the couple back to the guardhouse. Aquino

drew a gun and was hit on the head; he and Maribbay were brought to the headquarters.

Jose Castillo was later identified by the young couple in a police line-up.

The three -- Castillo, Aquino and Maribbay -- were charged with the crime of

rape in the Regional Trial Court. The case was brought to now Rep. Raul Roco and his

partner Lorna Kapunan by June Villanueva, a newsperson who took an interest in the

case. Raul and Lorna acted as private prosecutors, and were paid by Mary Ann’s father

one pack of Salem cigarets for Lorna every hearing which is once a month.

* * *

Six years later, on June 22, 1988, Aquino and Maribbay were acquitted, but

Castillo was found guilty, sentenced to life imprisonment and ordered to pay Mary Ann

Macatol P10,000 and costs.

While the case was pending trial, the boyfriend Alfredo Roa broke off with Mary

Ann who also had to quit school because of the stigma of the scandal.

Mary Ann’s uncle persuaded her to go to Japan with a “cultural group” that

performed in the night clubs of Japan. A wealthy Japanese took an interest in her, and

after a brief courtship, they got married in Manila, with Raul Roco as ninong and Lorna

7

Kapunan as ninang. Then the couple settled in Japan, Mary Ann went back to school,

and they had a baby boy.

We should end this tale with “And they lived happily ever after”'

But time has no beginning, no end, only a perpetual unfolding. At 21, Mary Ann

is now a sophisticated young lady, separated from her husband who turned out to be a

Yakuza involved in drugs and serving a sentence in jail.

After a visit here last year, she went back to Japan to continue her schooling,

leaving her child with her parents, and supporting her brothers and sisters.

Her father still sells cigarets near the Bayside, because according to him, it is the

only occupation he knows. Lorna Kapunan now has to buy her cigarets, and finance her

own eventual bout with lung cancer.

In more ways than one, such stories never end -- they just go on and on -- and are

repeated again and again.

January 24, 1989

1. Britain’s 200,000-strong Filipino community

Often we Filipinos see ourselves through the eyes of visiting foreigners who look

upon us as a subspecies of the human race, especially through the eyes of red-necks and

white thrash Americans of low IQ, or through the eyes of libidinous Australians who

come to prey on our children and our women as substitutes for the sheep they bugger in

the outback.

Seldom do we ever get a chance to see ourselves through the eyes of foreigner as

immigrants in their own native country, as quaint aliens who take care of their children

and the sick and the dying.

Here is the account of a Britisher who attended a Filipino beauty contest in

London, as an escort to his Filipina housekeeper/nanny who was participating as a

contestant. And here we quote the words of Boris Johnson:

When our housekeeper appeared on stage in her hot pink strapless number, I

failed at first to recognise her, surrounded as she was by ten other Filipina mums, each

shimmering in every shade from fuchsia to Germolene and provoking explosions of

enthusiasm from the crowd of 500. A moment ago they had been the most decorous

8

audience you could desire: the men as spruce as wedding-cake figurines, the women with

their black tresses ironed to Barbie neatness, the kids with ties and spectacles.

Now they were up and roaring like the brokers of some rocketing Nikkei, and

waggling their fingers to show the number of their preferred contestant. “Luz! Luz!” we

added to the din, and tried to work it out. Was that Luz, the no. 6, the one with the

cleavage? Or was she no. 5, with the smile? Surely she wasn’t no. 11, the one with the

legs. No: wait — that was her, with her hair up. No. 8!

“We want 8,” we screamed, and waved at good old Luz, a woman who has been

exposed to the full horror of the Johnson family washing and yet contrived to look little

short of a million dollars. If you want to know what I was doing there, Luz was one of 11

finalists for the title of Mrs, Philippines 2005, and to say it was a three-line whip was an

understatement. The last round of the pageant required Luz to be twirled by an “escort”.

Luz’s husband was thousands of miles away. I had been fingered by higher powers to fill

in, and after (I am ashamed to say) some initial protest, I had put on black tie and was

sitting with my family and grappling with my feelings. It was all so... what was it? “It’s

so sexist,” said the 12-year-old daughter, and she was right. For years Luz had been

immersed in our culture. Now we were immersed in hers. It was pretty weird.

The Apumangan Kapampangan Association — representing most Filipinos in

London — had spent £5,400 hiring Kensington and Chelsea Town Hall, and the red

brick of the chamber had been draped in white satin, with a heavy accent on sprays of

plastic carnations. But there was no irony about this beauty pageant, no post-modern

British self-mockery. This was a celebration of motherhood, as the Philippines consul-

general, Mario de Leon, made clear in his exordium. “a good mother is one who helps

children from birth until they become adults, looking after the husband, making sure the

husband is well attended....” “Sexist!” said my 12-year-old. “...You are examples of

fortitude and sacrifice,” he told the women. “This is your moment. This is your night!”

2. “Filipino culture is centered around food, family and God”

The show began, with eight line-dancing Filipina housewives wearing jeans and

rhinestones and thrusting pelvically to the “Chattanooga Choo-Choo.” . As the audience

cheered I stared at the table laden with 17 silver plated cups and seven paste tiaras,

9

arranged in ascending order of tackiness. It was going to be a long evening. So I decided

to pump my neighbor about Britain’s 200,000-strong Filipino community. I could

scarcely have found a more useful informant than Esther Cheong, the leading importer of

Filipino foods into Britain. Most Filipinos speak such excellent English that we forget

how foreign their country is, with its volcanoes and jungles and 70 languages, a place so

remote than when 300 die in a ferry-boat disaster it makes a down-page brief in the

London broadsheets. Mrs Cheong helps them remember the flavors of home, supplying

them with sauces such as caldereta, africada and adobo, a garlicky thing they have with

chicken. “A lot of their foods are comfort foods. They come over here, and the weather

is not what they think. They are lonely, and they want something to give them comfort.

Here...” She reached into her bag and produced what looked like a tube of Pringles. But

no. They were authentic home-grown Filipino Pringles, called “Jack and Jill Spuds”, and

flavored with sour cream and chives. Mrs Cheong passed them down the line to my

children, who ate them in embarrassing quantities. “The Filipinos can tell the difference.

It makes them proud to eat a Filipino Pringle.”

“About two thirds of my customers are nurses,” she said, and I reflected that in so

far as the National Health System functions at all, it is thanks to tens of thousands of

Filipina nurses; and that when our time comes to snuff it on the NHS, our respiration

suppressed by morphine, it is increasingly likely that a Filipina will lovingly and

prayerfully administer the final dose. Provided, that is, that they do not object on

principle. To judge by this pageant, the Filipino community is not just nominally

Catholic, but properly devout. The whole event had been organized in aid of Our Lady of

Lourdes Parish, Angeles City, and the program kicked off with a letter from the Very

.Reverend Monsignor Antonio T. del Rosario, concluding with the words, “To all of us

sailing with the power of Christ, welcome to the Bark of Peter amid turbulent waters!

Happy Gathering!” As Esther Cheong put it, “Filipino culture is centered around food,

family and God.” No wonder they face such scorn from the race relations industry: for

their self-help, faith and refusal to become victims. Carmila, one of Esther’s neighbors

chipped in: “We say that if you come here and make your home here, then you adopt the

rules of this country. It’s a pity the Muslims can’t do the same.” I agree; but then the

ethic of the Filipinos is not just different from that of other minorities, but quite alien to

10

the rest of modern Britain.

Filipino culture is like a motorway pile-up in which the Hollywood juggernaut has

jumped the central reservation and gone slap into the supertanker of Spanish Roman

Catholicism. On the one hand they are addicted to sentimental American pop, like the

man now on stage, who was howling “I will always lup yoooo” with an expression of

supernatural horror. On the other hand their attitudes are so Catholic-conservative that if

they appeared in the manifesto of a Tory Conservative leadership contender, he would be

denounced as a loony.

3. Filipinos are Magnificently Sexist

We were now coming to the crucial Q&A session, and we Luz-backers had our

hearts in our mouths. We felt she was doing brilliantly, but there was no question that

some of the others were resorting to low tactics. “Some years there have been fights,”

said Carmila, “and there have been times when the judges have been bribed.” I saw no

evidence of foul play, but we all felt that no. 11 should have been penalized for the

tininess of her skirt, while no. 6 was showing an immodest amount of midriff. We were

relying on Luz to show her class in the viva, which was mainly — as you may have

guessed -- about being a mother. “What is a mother?” asked the compere, a nice portly

man in Barong Tagalog, the national dress. Mother no. 4 hit that smartly back over the

net. “A mother is a child and a friend and her job is to gip lup to the bebe.” Great

applause.

“What is your best physical asset?” the compere asked mother no. 5. Mother no.

5 had no doubt. “My best physical asset ees my arse.” And how! I said, and nudged my

12-year-old. “She said her best physical assets were her eyes,” said my daughter,

bleakly. But now mum 5 was leaving the stage to generous acclaim, and mother no. 6

tottered on. “Oho,” said the compere, pulling out the next piece of paper. “Here is

controversial question! What would you say to Mr Tony Blair?” Around the room there

was an intake of breath, as the mother reflected. “I would ask him, when are you going

to divorce Cherie and marry a Filipina woman!?” The crowd was much moved by this,

as you can imagine, and so was I. The Muslim community says he is a mass murderer.

The blacks say that he is failing their youth. The Irish, the Jews, they all have their

11

gripes. And what is the worst that the Filipino community can throw at the Prime

Minister? That he has failed to square himself away with a nice Filipina bride.

Now it was Luz’s turn. We held our breath. “What is your position on abortion?”

asked the compere. Cripes, I wheezed. “I disagree with abortion because every life is a

gift from God,” said Luz, and I have to say that her point went over big.

Then it was mother no. 11, she of the long legs and the smoldering glances.

“How should a Filipina woman balance a job and a career?” asked the compere. Mother

no. 11 played her ace. “A typical Filipina will always be domesticated whether she is in

a job or career.” “Bravo!” they cried, and for that answer she was rewarded with second

place, and though I did my best as Luz’s escort, she had to be content with a sash for

being Miss Courageous.

We left feeling we had seen something both strange and endearing. Oh, and I’ll

tell you another way in which the Filipinos refuse to conform to the ways of modern

Britain. Not only did they sing their own jaunty Tagalog anthem, many of them

mouthing the words with their hands on their hearts, but they began with the British

national anthem, and stood to attention for both verses, including the bit about frustrating

their knavish tricks. Where can you find that kind of respect for British tradition and

symbol? The British Legion? The WI? If you tried to play it at the Tory conservative

party conference, you’d be hounded from the stage by a band of yammering

“modernizers.”

So this is what we are, as seen by a British writer who admires and just loves

Filipinos.

October 24-26, 2005, DWBR-fm

Ching, Jovy Salonga was never this petty

JOVY SALONGA, mein freund (mine froynd, my friend), if you want to be

president in 1992, you should go slow making enemies of the de las Alas clan. By God,

they are profuse baby-making machines. The old man Antonio de las Alas of Batangas,

who was senator, congressman, speaker pro-tempore, Minister of Finance, and 1972

ConCon delegate -- had 12 children with his first wife Natividad Lontok, then re-married

at the age of 82 to a maiden of 23, Nicetas Grueso, and sired two more sons before he

12

passed away at the age of 94. That’s more than you can do, Jovy. He has 52

grandchildren, and goodness knows how many great-grandchildren who might have

voted for you in 1992.

Ching de las Alas Montinola, the girl you fired unfairly, has nine children of her

own, including twin girls, and two (Chiqui and Neni) who appear in Close-Up TV ads;

Sergie Junior who is the head of the EDP (computer) department at Malacañang; and

daughter Bernie, married to the son of Ernie Aboitiz, Cebu tycoon.

* * *

As for political and financial clout, well, stuff this in your pipe and smoke it: her

eldest sister Lily is married to Senator and ConCommissioner Ambrosio Padilla, with an

output of 10 children; brother Tony Jr.; sister Neni, first wife of Ramon Cojuangco of

PLDT, now deceased, killed during the Liberation; twin sisters, Deli who is married to a

gentleman farmer Patricio Villegas, and Lina, widow of Vicente Ilustre of the Central

Bank; sister Tessie married to pilot Eddie Fernando; brother Bing, a contractor-

consultant; sister Ming, married to Don Kendall of Massachusetts; and kid sister Menchu,

married to Raul Concepcion, twin brother of Trade & Industry Sec. Joe the Immaculate

Concepcion. And Ching herself is married to Serge Montinola, prominent businessman.

Think of how much campaign contributions and solid votes they would have given you!

Not that it matters to you, Jovy, it is the principle involved, right? Ching

Montinola, deputy chief of the Information Division of the Senate, according to the

affidavit of your comadre, Filomena B. Yang, was heard to have “remarked out loud that

Steve Salonga has a mansion in Corinthian Gardens, as well as a two-story story garage

for his cars in Alabang. She said this with the aplomb and conviction of one who knew,

or thought she knew what she was talking about.''

* * *

So without asking anyone else who witnessed the incident, you had her boss Felix

Bautista ask Ching to resign or face an investigation. Opting for an investigation, she

was told bluntly that even if she never said those things about Steve, she should resign

anyway for not having defended him. She knew she was no longer wanted, so she left.

She did not resign, Jovy, she just left.

Jovy, I defended Steve from unfair and unjust rumor-mongering, and you never

13

even thanked me for it. Why should you? It is Steve’s life and he is old enough to fight

his own battles. I did not get any thanks from him either.

I wrote in my column of July 7, 1987: “For the record, Steve Salonga still lives

where he always lived -- in a chicken farm, L&J Farm, Sumulong Highway, Barrio

Mambugan, Antipolo, Rizal. Anyone of you buggers who can stand the smell of chicken

shit, can go there any time to check this out. He drives not a new Mercedes Benz, but a

5-year old 1982 Toyota Corona silver green four door sedan.” Of course that was more

than a year ago, and things may have changed a little since then.

* * *

Who really said those nasty things about Steve, Jovy? Imagine one round table

for ten during a party at Congressman Albertito Lopez’s mansion at Forbes, on August 4,

1988. Ching Montinola sat there, eating pancit. From her right around the table

counterclockwise were: Filomema Yang, your comadre; Emma Calanog, sister of Ernie

Maceda; Alma Calleja, also sister of Ernie; Cita Ramos, widow of Ambassador Narciso

Ramos, and stepmother of Senator Letty and Secretary Eddie Ramos; Gigi Mati, wife of

Eddie, congressman of Negros Occidental; Mila Sumulong, wife of Komong, the

National Uncle; Lourdes Mastura, wife of Mike, congressman from Cotabato; Ningning

Jurado and her husband, Emile; Congresswoman Baby Puyat Reyes, who sat to the left of

Ching Montinola.

You knew everyone there, so why didn’t you get any collaborative testimony

from them? Why didn’t you give credence to Emile Jurado, his wife, and others who

swear that someone else, “the wife of a Mindano congressman,” said it?

Although the chismis about Steve is only kwentong kutsero, as you termed it, why

dignify it with your angry dismissal of an old friend?

You have never been this petty before, Jovy.

November 13, 1988, Philippijne Daily Inquirer

Steve Salonga owns no Benz, no mansion

I FINALLY met Filomena Yang who started the ruckus between Senate President

Jovy Salonga and his deputy information officer Ching Montinola.

14

Mina Yang is the widow of Yang Sepeng, exec. sec. of the Chinese Chamber of

Commerce for 44 years, member of the Cosmopolitan Church, center of resistance

against the Jap occupation and Marcos martial law.

This was the parish of Rev. Samuel W. Stagg, Jungle Philosopher of the pre-war

Philippines Free Press, who once challenged Ateneo’s Father Henry Irwin to a debate.

His wife Mary Boyd Stagg was beheaded by the Japanese, even as its parishioners

supported Magsaysay’s guerrilla forces.

Under Rev. Cirilo Rigos, this church was the only place where I, a Catholic, made

speeches cursing Marcos. General Fidel Ramos was member of that church, was mad at

Pearl Doromal and myself for being subversive but never reported us, though he quit

attending services.

* * *

Mina Yang reported that Ching Montinola said Steve Salonga owns a two-car

garage in Ayala Alabang and a mansion in Corinthian Gardens. Ching denies this,

corroborated by Emil Jurado and his wife.

It does not really matter who said it, because Steve to my knowledge owns no

property in Ayala Alabang, as certified by Frank Roa, Ayala executive in charge of the

village. The house in Corinthian Gardens belongs to his first cousin Benjamin Salonga,

wealthy owner of Milani Shoes.

Steve lives in Barrio Mambugan, Sumulong Highway, Antipolo, chicken farm

converted into an orchid and animal farm -- 4.5 hectares overlooking Manila with two

German shepherd dogs, seven Brahman cows, four pigs, eight goats, several cats, two

sons, two daughters, and only one wife, Girlie. And a three-bedroom bungalow that

never gets finished, and all kinds of fruit trees. No more chicken shit.

Steve owns a 1981 Mitsubishi L-300 Van (beige), and a 1979 white Galant. His

father Jovy is no longer practicing law, so Steve is on his own, with law partners Enrique

Andres, former partner of Jovy; brother-in-law Roberto Hernandez, former associate of

Bito & Misa; and Diosdado Allado, classmate in UP.

* * *

Jovy Salonga wrote to clarify points I raised in my article on Ching Montinola:

15

“Ching Montinola was never a regular employee of the Senate -- she was a

contractual employee. Her contract ended last Sept. 30, 1988. In spite of the fact that

there was this affidavit of Mrs. Filomena Yang dated Aug. l5, 1988 which Ching denied

vehemently on Aug. 17, I renewed her contract last Oct. 1.”

Ching says the old contract was given to her two weeks before it ended, with a

month-to-month renewal at the option of the Senate, a veritable sword of Damocles; the

renewal came two weeks later, after Salonga accepted her resignation with regrets.

“Instead of thanking me for renewing her contract, she waged a vicious

propaganda war in the media against me until she found her position to be untenable and

decided to quit last Oct. 12.”

In fairness to Ching, she never asked me to write in her behalf.

* * *

“Enclosed is a copy of my self-explanatory letter to her dated Oct. 14, 1988,

accepting her own decision to leave her job. However, she refuses to receive this letter

sent to her through various means, including personal delivery and by registered mail.

Obviously, she only wants to read and hear her own version of the facts, through her own

press releases.”

Ching never gave out press releases. Emil wrote his column to set the facts

straight when he could not contact Salonga to explain his version of the truth.

“Senator Tañada, the head of the 3-man investigating committee, felt it might be

better not to go through any inquiry. But contrary to what Ching would like to believe, I

have not asked anyone to force her to resign.”

Ching says Felix Bautista told her if she were to resign, Salonga would be willing

to forget the incident.

“You asserted that Ching ‘was told bluntly that if she never said those things

about Steve (my son), she should resign anyway for not having defended him.’ Who did?

I have never told her she should have defended my son -- I do not require this of our

employees. Others may have made their own suggestions to her -- she should not impute

them to me.”

Ching says IPY chief Carmen Arceño said it.

16

“You said Steve never thanked you for your column of July 7, 1987, refuting the

ugly rumor-mongers. I checked with Steve and he says he did, through your close friend,

Mrs. Pearl Gamboa Doromal.”

Pearl forgot to convey even Jovy’s thanks.

“Up to this date, I have not said one word against Ching. As she wished, I have

left her alone in peace.”

December 2, 1988

Beyond the blue horizon, joy unbounded

MY cousin Emily “Billie” H. Maramba wrote, telling me that my Unca Tong,

who volunteered to be a Messenger of God, had died.

``You won't believe the interest and response generated by your articles (Unca

Tong, sunlit uplands of our lives, 3 July 88; Ninoy, Chino, Messengers of God, 3 Oct.

88). Tatay himself was very happy and took his role seriously. He prayed for the sender

of every letter he got and left specific instructions on how the letters were to be put inside

his coffin, in a lightweight box so he wouldn’t have a hard time bringing them.

“Enclosed are the names of those persons who wrote Tatay as Messenger of God.

There were many others who requested anonymity and still others who just ‘dropped’

their letters into his coffin like a mailbox.

“To you, Kuya, for thinking of the most novel ways of reaching out to Tatay with

a sense of humor so characteristic of the Marambas, our family will be forever grateful.”

Aside from the many who requested anonymity and those who directly dropped

their letters into Unca Tong’s coffin, the following sent their messages to the Lord

through Unca Tong: Elena L. Ting, Victoria B. Unat, Sagrario Manza vda. de Lim,

Angelina G., Kara Ann Evasco, Rene R. Darlucio, Luz M. Gong, Lilia C. Castillo,

Lorenzo L. Mariano, Allan A. Avila, Philip Andrew O. Roque, Lolit Lim, Boy and Yen

Sia.

Rest assured that above our heads and beyond the blue horizon, my Unca Tong

who has committed your letters to memory, is now delivering your messages, bilins and

pasalubongs to the Lord and your dear ones in heaven, with love and joy unbounded.

* * *

17

Wrote Adrian Cristobal, one of my favorite columnists, “Exposes of graft are

always welcome. One merely asks: In this obsession for sin, who is paying attention to

goodness?”

Who is indeed? Anna Marie Araneta Santos spends her resources taking care of

abandoned little babies, making sure they are adopted by loving and caring people. No

less than President Cory Aquino congratulated her, and encouraged her to continue in her

errand of mercy.

Who pays attention to her goodness? The minions of Social Welfare Secretary

Mita Pardo de Tavera do. These dungheaps are constantly badgering her, because in their

view, government bureaucrats are the only ones authorized to give children out for

adoption, especially with a free trip abroad to deliver the babies to the adoptive parents.

A word of advice to Mita: sic your bloodhounds on those adoption agencies who

exploit and abuse our children; and leave alone those who in their own private capacities

and with their own funds, try to fulfill a Christian apostolate to care for the poor and the

hopeless.

There are too few people like Anna Marie left in this world, and there are too

much cruelty and neglect for even governments to cope with. So Mita, lay off, will you?

Let Ana Marie do whatever good she can do on this earth.

* * *

I really believe that the Female is the better sex. Look at the lower animals, the

male of the species has only one thing in his mind: fornication with the greatest number

of females, sexual dominance of the coop, the pride, the herd. Now look at the female of

the species, there is nothing in her mind but feeding her mate, and above all, the care and

protection of her young.

In church the nuns do better. While Bishop Ted Bacani lashes out against divorce

and abortion (“The trouble with you, Bishop,” said Sister Christine, “is that you have

never been raped!”), and supports US military bases in utter disregard of nuclear

annihilation -- his sisters in Christ quietly care for the poor and the hungry among us, the

friendless, the cheated and the beaten.

Sister Mariani of Task Force Detainees, Sister Christine Tan among the urban

poor, Sister Mary John Manansan, Sister Soledad Perpiñan and Sister Aurora Zambrano

18

with cause-oriented groups -- who pays attention to their goodness?

The military does, especially Shorty whose brains are too close to his ass.

According to Shorty, these angels of mercy are the minions of the devil, dupes of the

Communists, because they give preferential option to the poor, because they give aid and

comfort to victims of military abuse, to students who put up placards against US bases,

American monopoly and IMF excremental conditionalities.

Thank the Lord for Adam’s rib. No greater recognition of female superiority than

this:

When a man finally reaches the summit of position and power, when he becomes

a priest or Supreme Court justice, a king or a Pope, the first thing he does is to wear a

woman’s robe, the symbol of ultimate dignity.

December 9, 1988, Philippine Daily Inquirer

Great men leave so-so descendants

NAPOLEON Bonaparte, Emperor of the French, had Josephine of France,

Desiree later queen of Sweden, Marie Louise of Austria, and Marie Walewaska of Poland

to give him children, but the only one he recognized was Napoleon II who died as a youth

of 21.

Abraham Lincoln had four sons: Robert (once a Cabinet official), Edward,

William, and his favorite Thomas (Tad), of whom we read little. George Washington

married the widow Martha who gave him two stepchildren, Patsy and John Custis.

Jesus Christ was a celibate. But Buddha, Confucius and Mohammed were

prodigious baby-makers, whose descendants claim special privileges today.

Gen. Antonio Luna, during the Revolution of 1898, had a girlfriend, Ysidra

Cojuangco, the grandaunt of President Cory, who founded the family fortune (from the

wealth of the First Republic entrusted to her by Luna just before he was assassinated in

Cabanatuan, they say). The scuttlebutt was that Ysidra, a spinster, gave birth to a child of

Luna, but the family denies this, claiming it was fathered by a Chinese boyfriend.

His brother Juan Luna, the famous painter who killed his wife and mother-in-law,

left a son Andres who married an American stripteaser and died childless.

* * *

19

Jose Rizal wrote in a codex (unpublished manuscript) about Lakandula, the great

nobleman of Tondo, whose descendants were reduced to being sacristans or altar boys to

the Spanish friars. Lakandula and his descendants were exempted from forced labor and

taxes for their services to the Spanish crown. To frustrate any false claimants to this

privilege, the Spanish government kept meticulous records tracing the descendants of

Lakandula. Who are his descendants today? Diosdado Macapagal and the Puyats of

Pampanga!

Jose Rizal did not leave a descendant. His only son, borne by Josephine Bracken,

was born dead and carefully buried by Rizal in an undisclosed place. Our national hero

was the only one in his family to bear the name Rizal. The rest retained the old family

name, Mercado. Mayor Taciano Rizal and Leoncio Lopez Rizal, descendants of Rizal’s

siblings, should have been called Mercado.

Apolinario Mabini the Sublime Paralytic was not even married. Andres Bonifacio

the Great Proletariat did not have any descendants except the fictional character played

by Anthony Quinn in the John Wayne movie “Bataan,” his widow Gregoria remarried

and became the mother of Juan Nakpil, famous architect.

* * *

Commonwealth President Manuel L. Quezon had three children: Baby who was

assassinated with her mother; Nonong Junior who adopted a son, and daughter Nini who

had two husbands and many children.

Claro Recto, Jose P. Laurel and Sergio Osmeña have many descendants familiar

to us though none of them have come up so far to the stature of their fathers. But give

them time. Osmeña has grandchildren Senator Sonny, Governor Lito, and Mayor

Tommy. Laurel has sons Vice President Doy and Senator Teroy. Recto has one not

worth mentioning.

General Miguel Malvar, the last to surrender to the Americans during the

Philippine American War has two noted grandchildren who are also nationalists, Jose and

Edilberto Villegas; and one alopecic misogamic gynander who is pro-American.

General Emilio Aguinaldo, the first President of the Republic has one worthy

descendant, Justice of the Supreme Court Ameurfina Melencio Herrera, plus a

grandnephew, Prime Minister Cesar Virata who supported the IMF’s policy to keep the

20

nation agricultural.

* * *

Secretary Anding Roces was the man most responsible for giving due honor to

General Aguinaldo whom he places on par with Rizal and Bonifacio; Roces was the

driving force behind the changing of the Independence Day from the American mandated

July 4th, to June 12th the day the republic was proclaimed by Aguinaldo.

On the day the change was official, Anding went to Kawit to see the General.

Ushered into the General’s bedroom where the old man in his 90s was already half blind

and deaf, no longer in full possession of his faculties, Anding announced the momentous

news.

Leaning over, Anding heard the General's hardly audible voice: “Yes, Yes. May

importante pang sasabihin ko sa iyo. Ang akin apo na bagsak sa examination, puede mo

ba siyang tulongan maging teacher?” Anding almost fell off his chair, as the General

continued, “Isa pa. Gusto kung mag diskorso sa Luneta. Ibanggit ko yong pension ko na

inalis ni Quezon noon kami nagkalaban sa halalan ng 1935.”

Anding shakes his head and laughs, “No wonder we lost the revolution,” and

added seriously, “The tragedy of Aguinaldo was that he lived too long.”

December 22, 1988, Philippine Daily Inquirer

Joe Lingad, the planting of a seed

WE cannot let December pass without pausing to remember a dear friend and

fellow member of Macapagal’s Cabinet, Jose Lingad -- amateur boxer, loverboy, lawyer,

guerilla leader, Governor, BIR Commissioner, Customs Commissioner, Secretary of

Labor, Congressman.

He had the cherubic baby face that Joker Arroyo has, and like Joker he was

always ready to do battle for his friends. He liked me, and when I quarreled with Fenny

Hechanova and Armand Fabella because of their pro-American views, Joe Lingad would

say, with finger pointed at them and then across his throat as with a knife, “Say the word,

Larry, and... Maliwalu!”

He was referring to the Maliwalu Massacre in the Holy Week of 1951. In revenge

for the murder of Captain Nonong Serrano by Huks reputed to be from Maliwalu, nine

21

farmers were executed by men and relatives of Serrano. Lingad was governor of

Pampanga and Serrano was his man. So in the closely contested elections of 1951,

Lingad was blamed for the massacre, and lost his re-election bid.

* * *

In 1947 Lingad was elected Pampanga governor at age 33, and became Vice

President of the League of Governors. While governor, Lingad clashed with Col.

Napoleon Valeriano of the infamous Nenita Unit, known for its abuse of Human Rights

under CIA’s Ed Lansdale, and was able to have the Skull Unit transferred.

In late 1950, Col. Ed Lansdale was a frequent caller at the Pampanga capitol, for

Joe was being groomed by the CIA to be their prime Huk Fighter.

If it were not for the Maliwalu Massacre, if he won the election of 1951, Lingad

might have been appointed Secretary of National Defense instead of Magsaysay. And he

might have continued on to be our President.

Lingad did the next best thing, he became President-maker. As the political

kingpin of Pampanga in 1949, he plucked Diosdado Macapagal from the Foreign Office

and ran him as his candidate for Congressman in the 1st District of Pampanga.

Macapagal won and subsequently became President. Macapagal appointed the

incorruptible Lingad as his graft buster, BIR Commissioner, Customs Commissioner, and

Secretary of Labor.

* * *

Lingad was born on November 24, l914 in Lubao, Pampanga. Among his more

famous on his mother’s side are his cousins: Salak Brothers of Arayat, Huk Commanders

Fonting and Pelaez.

He took up law in UP and Philippine Law School, passed the bar in 1938, and

joined the Law office of Assemblyman Eligio Lagman. At 24 he was elected Councilor

of Lubao, with the most number of votes.

He was a veteran of Bataan and the Death March, led the guerillas, and after the

war upon orders of President Roxas, led the Civilian Guards to fight the Huks.

In 1969, Lingad won as Congressman, garnering 90 percent of the votes in

Maliwalu, because he was found to be blameless for the massacre, the perpetrators

having been convicted and jailed.

22

In Congress, Lingad the rightist became left-of-center. He wanted to abolish

BSDU vigilantes. to abolish irrigation fees being paid by farmers. He got Congressional

leaders to dialogue with Huk Commanders Sumulong and Pedro Taruc. He supported

Jose E. Suarez for delegate to the Constitutional Convention. He was a revelation and the

people of Pampanga liked what they saw.

* * *

On September 21, 1972 under Martial Law, Lingad was arrested, and jailed for

three months.

Lingad retired to his fishponds, put up a rice mill and a poultry, and went broke.

His house in Manila was foreclosed, his Lubao residence and fishponds were heavily

mortgaged. Then he received Ninoy’s letter asking him to run for governor in the

January 1980 elections.

He ran for Governorship of Pampanga with nationalist Jose “SengSeng” Suarez as

his running mate. The two Joses were cheated by Marcos, and Joe Lingad

characteristically fought back, and was about to be accorded a Special Election, when he

was assassinated.

I remember Jose Lingad this month because on December 16, 1980, eight years

ago, at 8 AM on MacArthur Highway in San Fernando, in front of several horrified

witnesses as he was buying cigarets, he was gunned down by a military goon, PC

Sergeant Roberto Tabanero, who later died in a mysterious car accident and was silenced

forever.

Joe was the first of the political opponents of Marcos to be murdered by the

military, as Ninoy, Javier, Climaco were the last. On his funeral, Chino Roces said:

“Grieve not. We gather here today not to bury a man but to celebrate an event --

the planting of a seed -- the seed of freedom and liberation.”

Today no songs are sung in praise of Joe Lingad, the seed that bore fruit and gave

us shade. How easily we forget!

December 26, 1988, Philippine Daily Inquirer

23

Funny thing happened on the way to White House

WE are glad Mr. George Bush was elected President of the United States. The

Americans deserve him, and God thinks so too; He gave Bush a black man and seven

dwarfs as opponents, and assured the final victory of this former CIA spy, “an

unreflective man lacking much depth and ideological conviction,” a wimp who relishes

covert actions and never objected to arms deals with Iran, who dislikes press leaks and

snoopers, and sees “private charity” as the solution for poverty and homelessness -- in

what amounts to the Third Term of Ronald Wilson Reagan.

In a way, Reagan was a great president. He may have trouble getting his facts

straight and remembering things, but he made the presidency a stage show where sound

bites and body language counted more than command of facts, where one liners delivered

in ambush interviews, accompanied by the tilt of the head and cupped ear, became tools

to infuse his office with a sense of drama.

“Make my day,” he said with a smile and a shrug.

* * *

Reagan invaded tiny Grenada, with 88,000 population, less than Pasay, and made

it look like the winning of World War III; he constantly bullied Nicaragua with its 3

million people, less than half that of Metro Manila, while making the USA look like the

beleaguered defender of democracy; he transgressed the law in the Iran-Contra Scam, but

in the eyes of Americans, he was Gary Cooper in High Noon, tough in facing down the

enemy. In the end he signed a disarmament treaty with the Russians, and made America

believe once more in itself.

In a gilded age of personal wealth and public neglect, when the USA once banker

to the world became its leading borrower ($1 trillion by 1992 and heavily mortgaged to

the bankers in Tokyo, Frankfurt and Riyadh), with a $200 billion budgetary deficit

resulting a $2.6 trillion national debt with annual interest of $160 billion, a full 38 percent

of federal tax revenues -- Reagan was Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,

full of purity of purpose and unshaken principles.

In a time of decline in industrial wealth, moral fiber and imperial sway, Reagan

brought an “aw-shucks” majesty to the presidency that transcended the details of

governing. There are countless better actors around, but no one can play the presidency

24

like Ronald Reagan.''

* * *

Against Reagan’s candidate George Bush, the Democrats pushed Jesse Jackson

and the Seven Dwarfs: Senators Gary Hart, Joseph Biden, Albert Gore, Paul Simon;

Congressman Richard Gephardt; Governors Mike Dukakis and Bruce Babbitt -- all

competing in rough-and-tumble primaries that left none with enough strength to mount a

credible challenge to Bush in the elections.

The best was a non-candidate Mario Cuomo, who looked like a Mafia goon and

hemmed and hawed “all tease and tingle, but no orgasm.”

The second best was Gary Hart, New Age prophet, potentially another Jack

Kennedy with the same predilection for Camelot and a pretty face. Way ahead at 31

points lead over his nearest rival, his libido simply blew him away.

Rumors of marital cheating plagued him for years, and warned again and again

that his candidacy cannot survive a sex scandal, he persisted.

On the good ship Monkey Business, in scarlet trunks, he cradled Donna Rice on

his lap while the camera clicked. An airport limousine driver told everyone that he took

Gary Hart to a girlfriend’s house, and to convince doubters, he produced the woman’s

name and address.

* * *

In April he flew back to Denver to meet Donna Rice, and stayed with her in his

apartment, drove out for a picnic to Mt. Vernon, George Washington’s house, without

noticing he was being trailed by a photographer from Miami Herald. While out for a

walk, Gary and Donna were photographed.

As he withdrew from the race, a woman friend of his wife Lee, shouted, “Lee,

you’ve just got to cut his thing off. When you see him, just BAM! cut it off!”

Bruce Babbitt was the next casualty. He was a dog on TV, with bulbous eyes,

bobbing Adam’s apple and uncontrollable eyebrows. Joseph Biden was the third, an

unmitigated plagiarist cribbing lines from Bobby Kennedy, Humbert Humphrey, and

British politician Neil Kinnock.

Gephardt bloodied Paul Simon in the crucial Iowa caucus. Al Gore in turn

bloodied Gephardt on Super Tuesday, the South's multi-state primary. All three did not

25

survive.

Jesse Jackson persisted to the end, bringing inspiration and charisma into the

campaign. But he was a black man in a racist society, so Michael Dukakis won the honor

of losing to George Bush.

But Bush rules a divided nation as Democrats won decisively in both houses of

Congress.

November 26, 1988, Philippine Daily Inquirer

On the Birthday Centennial of Tomas Maramba y Garcia (1905 to 1972)

We congratulate the Carabao Family of the Maramba and Perez Clan, on the

occasion of the 100th anniversary of their progenitor, Tomas Maramba y Garcia.

Before anything, I must explain why his family is called the Carabao Family,

Familia ya Duweg, as expressed in our Pangasinense dialect. It is not because they are

considered beasts of burden that they are called Carabaos – although they certainly bear

most of the burdens of the Maramba Clan.

The eldest Dr. Tomas Maramba Jr., known as childhood as Totos, was renamed

Chairman Mao-Tse-Toots, because he became the Chairman of the Maramba Family

Organization, for the longest time, and has yet to vacate the position. His brother

Manuel, called Miming, a Benedictine priest Dom Benildo, together with his sister

Cecile, a Benedictine nun, Sister Benilda, are also bearing the burden of the spiritual

welfare of the Maramba Clan. Miming is the priest we always call upon to hear our

confessions and officiate at mass in all our Clan gatherings. No, it is not because the

Tomas Maramba family are beasts of burden that its members are called Carabaos.

The Tomas Maramba Family is admittedly the most talented among the members

of the Maramba Clan. All of them play musical instruments well enough to be asked to

play in school concerts. Miming at the age of 17 got his degree from Julliard School of

Music and became famous as a Child Prodigy. Often they played together on the concert

stage, playing a piano, a violin, a French horn, with Cecile supplying the voice. If the

Maramba and Henares families are known for their musical libraries, and their familiarity

and appreciation for classical music – Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, among

others, but not including Elvis Presley thank God – it is because every single one of us

26

had been dragged kicking and screaming against our will to the concerts of the Tomas

Maramba Family. When we got used to it, we became fans of Stowkovsky, Nelson Eddy

and Mario Lanza, even more than Judy Garland. Today we thank them for the many

hours of pleasant listening they have given us, hours we shared with the general public,

which became a source of inordinate pride among members of the Maramba Clan. Me

myself, riding atop a carabao in our farm, I find myself singing None But the Lonely

Heart, or whistling snatches of Pavanne to a Dead Princess – on top of a carabao, mind

you. But that is not the reason Tomas Maramba’s family are called Carabaos.

As the eldest grandchild of the Maramba Clan, I had the privilege of renaming all

my uncles. Uncle Turong became Unca Tong; Uncle Canoy became Unca Anoy; and

Uncle Tomasin became Unca Pasin. Thus they were given new names by which they

were known the rest of their natural life.

Unca Pasin’s family is composed of scholars, brilliant scholars every one, of the

type that graduate with honors, one of them a valedictorian in La Salle, most of them of

the type that gets admitted to the best schools like Harvard and Julliard School of Music.

All of them without exception wear glasses almost from the moment they were born and

no doubt till the very last day they live on earth, because they are such voracious readers.

They are probably the brainiest in the whole Maramba Clan, with one exception, ME

with an IQ of 170. The difference between my cousins and myself is that I studied in

Ateneo, where Jesuits kept telling me I am God’s gift to Mankind. Four years of that

crap and I began to believe it myself, and I grew up to be mayabang, a loudmouth and a

braggart. On the other hand, my Maramba cousins of the carabao variety, went to De La

Salle University of the Christian Brothers, and feeling slightly inferior and highly

embarrassed about it, so they became humble to a fault, patient, hardworking, plodding

members of the human race, just like the Carabao. But that is not the reason they are

called the Carabao Family.

I have known Unca Pasin more than anyone in this room, with the possible

exception of Auntie Loleng, the only surviving sibling of our parents, since I am the

eldest of my generation. I was his favorite nephew, believe me. And almost every week

till the day he died, he came over to my house – on 521 Inocencio Street in Pasay, and

later on 1216 Acacia Street, Dasmariñas Village, Makati -- just to chat with me about the

27

affairs of the nation, since I was a cabinet member at one time and later a public figure

for a long period of time. I loved him and he loved me.

I knew him way back when his father and mother were still alive, and we resided

in Hacienda Nuning, in Manaoag, Pangasinan. Long before he was even married, my

cousin Fedi and I used to spy on him and catch him kissing the farm girls in the closet – a

pleasant avocation he shared with his brothers Unca Tong and Unca Anoy. Unca Tong

and Unca Anoy were aggressive lovers and practical jokers, and their favorite victim was

Unca Pasin. Unca Pasin was a shy lover and a parsimonious uncle, and he refused to

bribe Fedi and me to keep quiet about his peccadilloes, while his brothers were liberal

with blackmail money, so it was Unca Pasin we squealed on to our Lola, Bai Piao. Unca

Pasin, however is so admirably good-natured and forgiving, just like a carabao. But that

is not the reason he is called Duweg, and his family the Carabao Family.

My other Uncle, Unca Feling, whom we also call Ama, was known to the Family

as Igolot, or Igorot, and his family called the Igorot Family. But this was his fault, as a

child he was always running around naked as on the day he was born, without even a G-

string. He deserved the name Igorot. Unca Pasin was a Carabao for a different reason

Tonight I will reveal for the first time the secret of why Unca Pasin was called a

Carabao and his family the Carabao Family. Long long ago, before all of us here were

born, even including Auntie Loleng the youngest of the siblings, Tomas Maramba was

born, and baptized. His baptismal godfather was known as Ignaciong Duweg, i.e.,

Ignacio who is a Carabao. And that is why he is known as Carabao and his family the

Carabao Family. His son Ignacio was so named after his godfather Ignaciong Duweg.

My Unca Pasin was the kindest, most gentle, most humble member of the

Maramba Clan, bar none. And in his honor on his 100th birthday, we pay tribute to his

surviving family –

Dr. Tomas Maramba Jr., doctor of medicine, pathologist, once Undersecretary of

Health, and virtual head of the Maramba Clan as Chairman Mao-Tse-Toots.

Ignacio Maramba, once partner of Sycip Gorres & Velayo, banker executive of

the International Finance Corporation of the World Bank Complex, now retired.

Cecilia Maramba, Sister Benilda of St. Scholastica, teacher, missionary to China

and Africa.

28

Jappy Maramba who is not here, a Harvard MBA, practicing in the United States.

Manuel Maramba, Miming to the family, Dom Benildo to the world, a world class

pianist, composer and missionary –

Every single one of them a credit to the Maramba Clan and to the Filipino nation.

A Toast. Please raise your glasses. To the Carabao Family of Tomas Maramba:

May the golden sun crown your brow and flowers bloom at your feet. May good

fortune dog your heels and fair winds be ever at your back. And may you stay in heaven

for a long time before the devil finds out you have been gone.

January 21, 2006, Makati Sports Club

Et tu, Bruja, Bride of Frankenstein

IF Cory is really intent on the defense of our human rights, she should appoint

Sister Mary John Manansan or Sister Mariani Dimaranan to the Human Rights

Commission. Face it, you can’t entrust human rights to one who looks like Elsa

Lancaster with frazzled hair and split ends. God Almighty, the very sight of the Bride of

Frankenstein stops one dead in his tracks and is a violation of his human rights.

The Bride of Frankenstein thinks that acts of violence by the NPA are equivalent

to the acts of violence of the military. They are not.

Acts of violence by the NPA are acts of rebellion, sedition and crime, for which

they are pursued by the military with the full support of our government, the almighty US

Embassy and the CIA. The Bride need not concern herself with their apprehension and

punishment. Shorty with brain damaged by the propinquity of dung, and that ubiquitous

butler Kulas Platypus are in charge of that operation. That is what the LIC bloodbath

doctrine is all about.

* * *

It is state-sponsored violation of human rights that should concern the Bride of

Frankenstein. It should concern her because the ordinary citizen has no defense against

it. He has no defense because the very organizations that commit these violations are the

same ones called upon to investigate and prosecute the violators. The police, the army,

the vigilante groups can abuse human rights with impunity because they are the very ones

charged with defending it. These guys stick together and protect each other.

29

Think about it, O Haesslichkeit, we pay these law enforcement agencies to protect

us, and they treat us as enemies. We pay them to uphold the majesty of the law, and they

are the first to violate it. We entrust them with the defense of our rights and our freedom,

and they betray our trust. Those who do are traitors, no better than our military

oppressors during martial law, no better than Marcos and Adolf Hitler.

And you have not done anything at all to send any of them to jail or to the firing

squad.

* * *

Don’t give us that dung about being even-handed between the NPA and the

Armed Forces. The NPAs are being hunted down like dogs with helicopter gunships,

howitzers and napalm. Our renegade soldiers, policemen and vigilantes kill innocent

people with impunity, steal our cars and rob our banks, and they remain unpunished.

Don’t give us that dung that the military or police have nothing to do with the

assassination of Ninoy Aquino, Lean Alejandro, Lando Olalia; the ambuscade of Bernabe

Buscayno and Nemesio Prudente; the beheading of JunJun Bustamente’s fellow student;

the murder and disappearance of priests Father Romano and Father Tullio Favali; the

slaughter of the de los Santos Family in Himamaylan -- the thousands upon thousands

that are being salvaged El-Salvador-style by dungheaps on orders of the CIA.

O Haesslichkeit, oh Ugliness, how about the deliberate massacre of unarmed

peasants in Mendiola? Why don’t you crucify the identifiable officers of those who fired

into the crowd? They are ultimately responsible for that dastardly violation of human

rights.

* * *

When the Defense Undersecretary, known as Shorty, began to blow hot air from

his rear-end to the effect that BAYAN, KMU, Task Force Detainees, Gabriela, and every

cause oriented group opposed to American Imperialism and military abuse of human

rights, are Communists Fronts -- where were you, oh Bride of Frankenstein?

Why didn’t you tell the little asshole that he is way out of line? that he is a

McCarthyist bastard, and that in effect he is giving carte blanche to paid CIA assassins to

exterminate Sisters Mariani Dimaranan, Aurora Zambrano, Soledad Perpiñan, Mary John

30

Manansan, Rep. Nikki Coseteng, the venerable Lorenzo Tañada, Sen. Bobby Tañada,

Commissioner SengSeng Suarez and the admirable daughters of Pepe Diokno?

Oh Bride of Frankenstein, these are the people who marched alongside of us,

risking life and limb against Marcos and his military goons with their Armalites, tear gas,

water cannons, and pistols aimed at the back of the head.

O Haesslichkeit, these are the people who wrote the manifestos, sang songs of

defiance, knelt and prayed, waved flags, placed their bodies in the path of tanks, and

wrought the miracle that was EDSA.

To be deaf to their cries of pain, to keep silent while they are being maligned and

massacred by stooges of a foreign power, to betray them in favor of their fascist

imperialist tormentors, is to plunge the knife of Brutus into the heart of Julius Caesar who

cried out: “Et tu, Brute‚ then fall Caesar!”

Et tu, Bruja, then fall our nation!

Shorty has brains too close to his ass

“HE’s a little man, that’s his trouble,” said playwright Noel Coward, “Never trust

a man with short legs -- brains too near their bottoms.” He might have been speaking of

Shorty, undersecretary of National Defense, who drew from the bottomless pit of his

ignorance to cite “legal leftist groups are fronts for the banned Communist Party (CPP):

Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN), the feminist group Gabriela and the Kilusang

Mayo Uno (KMU).”

In the USA and elsewhere, the abomination called McCarthyism is already

consigned to the dustbin of history; here in the Philippines it still festers in the higher

councils of state, employing a satanic technique called “guilt by association.”

According to McCarthyists, anyone against American bases, American monopoly,

IMF conditionalities, the exploitation of the poor, and violations of human rights, is a

Communist or a Communist dupe. This ex-general who all his life had taken orders and

transmitted them without reasoning why, apparently has not used his brains in any way,

resulting in petrification of his grey cells.

31

It takes an awful lot of stupidity to assume as Shorty does, that Lorenzo Tañada,

Pepe Diokno, Sister Mary John Manansan and Sister Mariani Dimalanta, are Communist

fronts.

* * *

Ominous is the recent wave of disappearances of trade unionists, human rights

advocates, student leaders and leftists. The Task Force Detainees of the Philippines,

associated with the Nobel Prize winning Amnesty International, reported that 82 social

activists have disappeared nationwide during the first six months of this year.

BAYAN said 15 of its members disappeared this year in Metro Manila, among

them Lillian Mercado (PRO), Efren Bonagua (finance officer), Pearl Ester B. Abaya, last

seen at 4:30 pm Nov. 9 at the Task Force Detainees headquarters. A total of 70 BAYAN

members have been missing since Cory came into power.

The women’s organization Gabriela protested that “not only are women children

tortured, abducted or salvaged with impunity today, but projects initiated by women in

poor communities are being damaged, destroyed and discontinued on an alarming scale

by military elements, in the name of ‘anti-communism and national security.’”

Nobody has any doubt that only intelligence agents and paid assassins associated

with the CIA and military rightists have the means, the motive and the impunity to mount

such atrocities.

* * *

The Ateneo Social Weather Station survey that showed 76 percent of Filipinos

want American military bases in this country, is rather like a questionnaire among drug

addicts asking whether they would like to continue taking drugs. It’s bad enough that the

UP Doronila survey showed that 90 percent of Filipino children would rather be born in a

country other than their own; and the Hodel survey that showed 60 percent of all Filipino

adults would rather be American citizens than Filipino citizens.

What these surveys really mean is that we Filipinos are still afflicted with a

colonial mentality that stands in the way of nationhood. Indeed, how can a nation exist

without the loyalty of its own citizens? Is it possible to build a Filipino nation where

citizens’ loyalty and allegiance belong to the USA, country not their own??

32

One must remember that the Council of Trent, a technocracy devoted to the

interest of Americans, was born among certain Ateneans infected with pro-American

clerico-fascism. I had an occasion once to observe that the Ateneo Social Weather

Station can and does manipulate public opinion for a political purpose.

* * *

What is surprising is that Defense Sec. Fidel Ramos has an approval rating of 79

percent, more than President Cory’s 73 percent. This is interpreted by some to mean that

the CIA plans to foist upon us their Amboy as president and that the people are ready to

accept another military dictatorship that will violate our human rights in the name of pro-

American anti-Communism. If so, they may be surprised to find out Ramos can be a

strong force for democracy and reconciliation.

Ateneans have never close to the people’s pulse, with their elitist notions that do

not touch the lives of common people. That is the reason why no Atenean has ever been

president of this country.

Even their brightest and best such as Jose Rizal, Claro M. Recto, Leon Ma.

Guerrero, Father Horacio de la Costa and Alejandro Lichauco, do not have the common

touch, much less the Council of Trent, and the likes of Father Joaquin Bernas, Vicente

Jayme and Jobo Fernandez.

That is why the hidden agenda of Ateneo Social Weather Station may not even

come to fruition.

November 24, 1988

In God We Trust, but not Bernas

WE Ateneans love the Jesuits. Their classic liberal education gave us what the

Greeks call arete, a composite quality that has no equivalent word in English – “an all

around excellence, completeness, wholeness in one’s intellectual, physical, moral, and

spiritual development. It denotes the man who has all the graces and refinements of

cultured life, the man who can be eloquent in the forum, sensitive to a poem, clear and

sharp with a pen, capable in business, courageous in the battlefield, superior in athletics.

All this is more than a shallow versatility; it is the complete education of the whole man.”

33

More than that, the Jesuits encouraged us in all our endeavors, “You are good,

you are the best, go out there and conquer the world, we’re right behind you!” A few

years of that crap, and we Ateneans really believe it. You can almost smell an Atenean a

mile away -- the swagger, the smugness, the air of superiority -- talagang mayabang. If

you think I am mayabang, wait till you meet CB Governor Jobo Fernandez -- now there

is the quintessence of a pompous ass.

* * *

We Ateneans often disagree with and “devour each other” as Ambassador

Dingdong Teehankee says, but we look upon the Jesuit Fathers as family. We may

disagree with them or they with us, but never ever in public.

The one exception was Jesuit Father Michael McPhelin, who was rude, crude,

with the mind and manners of a hillybilly. He was a racist, an exchange professor who

was mobbed and thrown out of Cornell University for saying that the negroes were

biologically inferior to the whites. He attacked me for my nationalism in his writings and

in the classroom, and hid behind the skirts of Imelda. I hounded him in every public

forum till he suffered diarrhea at the sight of me.

One other exception I thought was Father Joaquin “Kinik” Bernas. In the Malaya

column of Ernesto Rodriguez where Father Kinik was quoted in two parts, in-between

appeared an obnoxious letter castigating me for my “bigoted Anti-American phobia.” I

assumed rather hastily that it was still a quotation from Father Kinik.

* * *

So I gave it to Father Kinik with both barrels in an open letter Kerima Pulotan

gleefully published in the front page of the Manila Evening Post (January 17, 1985),

ending with “Far too many misguided Filipinos with an incurable colonial complex

promote and protect American interests. Let the Americans fight their own battles. They

can do better than you. Ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam, nunquam Americanorum!” The last

part is an adaptation of the Jesuit motto: To the greater glory of God, never of the

Americans.

To my horror and embarrassment, my assumption was unfounded; Ernie

Rodriguez, not Kinik, wrote that piece. I apologized profusely, privately on the

telephone and publicly in print, and he graciously gave me absolution in Latin, no less.

34

Father Kinik Bernas is so nice to me I cannot help having an enormous guilt

complex over what I did to him. As a matter of fact, he has deep hypnotic eyes made

more hypnotic by a pair of thick eyeglasses that looked into your soul, and made you feel

monstrously guilty even about a minor venial sin. I have never met a priest who makes

me feel more guilty than Father Kinik Bernas.

* * *

That is probably why Father Kinik was called “Rasputin” of the Council of Trent

and Malacañang during the early days of the current regime. He was the father confessor

of the high and the mighty, and all he had to do was to look into their eyes and evoke in

their minds enormous guilt for some minor transgression like playing “solitaire.” Then

bingo, they are hooked by hypnotic suggestion.

There is a dark side to the Jesuits. It is found in the word “jesuitic” and its local

version switik which mean “sly, given to intrigue and equivocation.” Unlike monastic

orders, Jesuits joined the world as teachers, scientists and king-makers, political advisers

to the powers-that-be, their leader called the Black Pope. So great was their influence

that they were feared and hated, expelled from France, Spain, Naples and Portugal, and

eventually suppressed by Pope Clement XIV on July 21, 1773. It was not restored till 41

years later on August 7, 1814.

Father Kinik’s Ateneo survey is a jesuitic caper that mocks our sick minds, like a

survey about drugs among drug addicts, a gratuitous attempt to equate our people’s

colonial mentality with a God-given mandate to accept American Bases after 1992.

That is too much. Not even a priestly tonsure half the size of his head can shield

Father Kinik from the wrath of this column.

In God we trust, but not Kinik Bernas.

December 29, 1988

Haunted by Holy Ghost and Sr. Edelwina

MOST colleges have saints (St. Paul’s, St. Theresa) for their patrons, some have

the Blessed Virgin herself (Assumption), but alone by itself one college is blessed by the

Third Person of the Holy Trinity. Well, the Three being Co-Equal, one cannot get any

35

higher than that. It is the Holy Ghost College (HGC), now known as the College of the

Holy Spirit (CHS).

Indeed the Holy Spirit may have descended upon this school founded by German

sisters in 1913. After 75 years, it boasts of alumnae that woman for woman, excel in

beauty, brains, and sheer talent.

HGC has at least seven Misses Philippines: Pacita de los Reyes (Philips), also a

bar topnotcher; Monina Acuña; Clarita Tankiang (Sanchez); Bessie Ocampo

(Buencamino); Yvonne de los Reyes; Simonette de los Reyes; Charina Zaragoza.

* * *

Politicians abound: Carmen Planas, the first woman councilor; Adelina Santos

(Rodriguez), QC Mayor; Cong. Ma. Consuelo Puyat (Reyes); Cong. Tessie Aquino

(Oreta); ex Social Welfare Sec. Sylvia Paredes (Montes); political wives Pacita Lao

(Manglapus), Gloria Manlapaz (Angara), Rosie Osmeña (Valencia); and candidates Lulu

Ocampo (Teodoro), Vicky Pineda (Garchitorena), summa cum laude, a real beauty;

Charito Planas, who is contesting the election of Mayor Brigido Simon in Quezon City.

Journalists: Doris Trinidad, Women’s Magazine editor; Belinda Olivares

(Cunanan) and Chona Trinidad, columnists; Eugenia “Eggie” Duran (Apostol), Inquirer

publisher, who once wrote to her teacher in 1949 --

“Dash it all, Mother -- all I’m trying to tell you is it’s so hard to concentrate

because I’m in love -- deeply and inextricably -- and I can’t help telling you HE thinks

I’m a very well brought-up young lady. You had such a big hand in that and I can’t thank

you enough.”

* * *

Also National Artist dancer Leonor Orosa (Goquingco), god-daughter of my

mother. And TV personality-plus, the late Elvira Ledesma (Manahan).

I remember how we Ateneo students used to stand-by before the HGC watching

for the beautiful Elvira to come out and wait for her car. She used to hold court under the

trees and mimic her teachers, especially the dreaded Sr. Edelwina, while her classmates

were in stitches, and we panted with passion. Even then she had the infectious laugh she

made famous in her “Two for the Road” TV program.

36

Julia Iturralde remembers: “On the Silver Jubilee celebration of Sr. Edelwina,

Elvira Ledesma was chosen to be Queen of the flowers, seated on a throne at center stage.

“During rehearsal time, whenever Lillian Woodson and I would appear to dance

the poppy dance, the whole cast would be convulsed with laughter, and Elvira would

laugh the longest and loudest. Lillian was short and plump and I was tall and skinny, an

incongruous pair.

“Came the actual night. As Queen of Flowers, Elvira was loveliness enow. As

soon as Lilian and I appeared, I heard a titter, then the giggles and laughter rose to a

crescendo, and there was Elvira in a paroxysm of laughter. Lillian’s bloomers fell

down!”

* * *

Whole families send their daughters to the Holy Ghost.

All Ninoy Aquino’s sisters studied there: Mila Albert, Maur Lichauco, Lupita

Kashiwahara, Tessie Oreta, Ditas Valdez.

The beautiful and famous Lao sisters: Pacita, wife of Foreign Sec. Raul

Manglapus; Techie, widow of Col. Jimmy Velasquez, top Ayala executive; Nena, mother

of Tommy Manotoc, son-in-law of Marcos; Chita, wife of Geny Lopez of ABS-CBN.

The rich Ongsiako sisters: Imelda, wife of Ramon Cojuangco of the PLDT;

Carmencita, wife of ex CID commissioner Munding Reyes; Miriam O. Montelibano.

Duran sisters: Ella Nolasco, Eugenia Apostol, Florinda Pagsanghan, Aurora

Morales.

Coscuellela sisters: Sr. Doloresmaria (Julieta), Corazon, Gloria, Lourdes, Teresita,

Leticia, Josefina, Adelaida.

The sisters Achacoso, Amorsolo, Barnes, Beltran, Bona, Cabrera, Chan,

Clemente, Columna, David, Diaz, Diy, Gabriel, Leaño, de Leon, Lee, Mañosa, Mendiola,

Mendoza, Navarette, Paredes, Quiazon, Saavedra, Santayana, Soqueño, Tansinsin,

Ungson, Vasquez.

* * *

Not only the Holy Spirit, but also the ghosts of its great teachers -- like Miss

Isabel Hizon, Miss Consuelo Malacaman and above all Sr. Edelwina Hesse, said to be of

37

royal blood, School Directress from 1920 to 1947 -- haunt the august halls of the HGC at

Mendiola:

“You took my trusting hand and bade me rise / In vigil where light is born and

darkness dies / ...Then people watching from afar / Did think I was the light that led the

kings -- / But ‘tis time to say how the starlight in my eyes / Was the gleam I caught in

yours -- echoing the skies.”

October 16, 1988

Joker re His Septic Majesty, King Fecal

DURING Martial Law, Joker Arroyo and a group of MABINI and FLAG lawyers

including Pepe Diokno, Lorenzo Tañada, Bobby Tañada, and cousin Rene Saguisag,

stood on the ramparts of our freedom, like Horatio on the bridge, defending our human

rights against Marcos and his military goons, free of charge and getting smeared as

Communists to boot.

Today they are still being smeared in whispers as communists by the military-

clerico-fascist-oligarchic complex because they stand in the way of selfish and foreign

interests.

One day I asked Big Joke to be my lawyer in a libel case filed against me by two

pro-American jackasses. He gave me legal advice which I passed on to the lawyer of

Inquirer. A few days later, Joker wrote me a letter, telling me why he cannot be a lawyer

for the many friends who asked him for help.

* * *

Dear Larry, I am writing you so that you may better understand why I couldn't

accept the libel case filed against you. And I hope that if you publish this letter, many

people who approached me will also understand why I couldn’t accept their cases or

requests for help.

Recently, an androgynous foreign writer by the name of Jonathan Friedland,

wrote that Lucio Tan had “informally retained” me for “legal help.” In the practice of

law, there is no such thing in the nomenclature as an informal retainer for a lawyer, no

more than there are fees charged by an informal doctor, or an informal architect, or an

informal engineer.

38

A lawyer either accepts a case and be fully responsible for its conduct, or not at

all. Unlike Jonathan Friedland who believes in Hermaphroditus (half-man, half woman),

a lawyer cannot be half a lawyer, as a woman cannot be half pregnant.

When I asked President Aquino for the third time to relieve me as Executive

Secretary in February l987, I expressed my desire to return to my first love -- the practice

of law.

* * *

Seven months later in September l987 when I left government service, I wanted to

rebuild my practice which was practically ruined after having continually fought Mr.

Marcos in cases all handled free of charge throughout his 14 years of dictatorial

nightmare.

I was soon to discover it was not going to be that way. Big businessmen (the likes

of which you write about) whom I couldn’t accommodate while I was in office (consistent

with the President’s instructions on government rectitude), never forgave me for their

“lost opportunities.” They spread the canard that it is a crime for me to practice

because I still maintained close ties with Malacañang, which they knew was not true at

all.

Yet, some of these very same big businessmen were soon asking me to be their

lawyer. But if their patronage was not good when I was in Malacañang, how could it

become good simply by asking me to be their lawyer?

And strange as it may seem, the military, who fabricated the falsehood that I am

communist, soon started to believe their own propaganda about my still being strong with

the government. And some of the senior officers were trying to reach me to “informally

lawyer” for their promotions.

* * *

Since I left the government service, I have not accepted a single case, not yours

Larry, or Lucio Tan’s, or those of deserving human rights victims (and what? raise the

communist bogey again?).

In your case I proffered off-hand that the mantle of protection given to writers in

NY Times vs. Sullivan (l964) and Garrison vs. Louisiana (1964) on the lack of malice per

se in libel cases when it involves public officials, was extended to public figures in

39

Curtiss vs. Butts (1967) and Gertz vs. Welch (1974). Is that informal lawyering? No,

that is stock knowledge being passed on like a doctor passing on an aspirin to someone

who complains he has a headache.

Why have a pair of so-called journalists been writing that I still have the power

and influence in Malacañang I no longer have? As a pre-emptive strike? to neutralize

me just in case I dare join others in denouncing the raid on public assets at fire sale

prices by their friends in private business?

* * *

God deliver me from the abuses of these two -- one a Blabbering Blubbery

Baboon who wrote “factually” in all seriousness about what happened in the privacy of

the presidential bedroom and exposing himself as a Peeping Tom; and the other, His

Septic Majesty, King Fecal himself who has shifted his love and affectations from Mr.

Marcos to General Ramos.

But like men of goodwill in this season of peace, I say “Peace!”

Very sincerely, JOKER ARROYO.

What you really mean, Big Joke, is “May they rest in peace and in pieces.”

December 21, 1988

Eagles gather, good time for all

I looked around and saw none of my colleagues except Maurice Arcache, as usual

the society pundit, and knew that my wife and I were invited as old friends to the

wedding of Leah daughter of TingTing and Peping Cojuango, to the son of Cesar

Bautista. It was a glittering jewel-studded affair with the bride’s Tita Cory in attendance,

easily the Wedding of the Year 1988, as will be the coming nuptials of another of

TingTing’s daughters, slated next month to be the Wedding of the Year 1989.

There were 1,800 invitations handed out, mostly for couples, so the invitation list

must total at least 3,600 for the ceremony at the cavernous Manila Cathedral and the

reception a few meters away in the garden expanse of the old Fort Santiago.

A large tent was set up for the bridal entourage, while on the open lawn lined with

tentfuls of sumptious food, pleasantries were exchanged between politicians who hate

40

and envy each other, and kisses were exchanged by their beauteous wives looking

critically at each other’s dress and jewelry.

A few empty-headed pro-American matrons and their pro-American business-

minded husbands obsessed with undeserved profits, as well as empty-headed pro-

American bureaucrats hooked on junkets, as usual exchanged vignettes on their travels

and empty colonial existence.

Here and there, there were flashes of real camaraderie, brilliant conversations,

interplay of love, beauty and truth.

* * *

I always looked upon the Senate as a pride of lions, of lords of the political jungle,

23 Wise Men as Senator Erap Estrada once said, to which Speaker Ramon Mitra retorted,

“I know only 22 senators who can claim to be wise! Ha ha.”

Speaker pro-tempore Tony Cuenco was once awakened by his wife Nancy, telling

him, by God, there is a thief in the house. Tony sleepily answered, “Don’t be ridiculous,

there is no thief in the House, but there are plenty in the Senate.” Tony, I know of only

ONE senator who can lay claim to being a thief!

A few senators were at the wedding. I saw only Alberto Romulo, Neptali

Gonzales and Popsy the wife of Butz Aquino. All of them were subdued in the face of so

many LDP congressmen basking in glory after the reorganization of the House.

If the senators are lions, the congressmen are eagles. And what we saw primarily

in the Bautista-Cojuangco wedding is the Gathering of the Eagles led by Speaker

Monching Mitra himself.

* * *

There is Rep. Lorna Verano Yap, LP, resplendent in her gown, but without the

UZI with which she threatened to obliterate Rep. Oscar Orbos on television. How pretty

and terrifying she looked denouncing the LDP and the recent reorganization where she

lost the vice-chairmanship of the Foreign Affairs Committee to Joe de Venecia.

There is Rep. Vicente Rivera, LP, stripped of his chairmanship of Transportation

and Communication in favor of Rep. Mati, my kautod from Negros Occidental. Jun

Rivera, who used to pilot President Macapagal and once headed the CAA, also piloted

Ninoy and me when we ran for the Senate in 1967.

41

There is the National Uncle Komong Sumulong who recalls that I went

campaigning with him when he first ran for congress, and who apparently selected the

music for the wedding party. Only he could have chosen I'll See You Again, The Rosary,

All the Things You Are, and oh, those ballads recorded by tenor Richard Crooks so many

centuries ago. Weep, all ye bugs in the rug, only Komong and my late mother enjoy that

kind of music.

* * *

Mitra’s Young Eagles were in profusion: Renato Yap, Dondon and Amado

Bagatsing, Tim Adaza, Tony Aquino, Hermie Aquino, Rico Dayanghirang, Joe Zubiri,

Mike Romero -- jimminy krauts, they are already the barkada of my children!

And of course friends from way back, Ninoy’s aging gang of LP Young Turks:

Aping Yap who generously gave a one-peso budget to EEIB, Tony Cuenco, Peping

Cojuangco the host, Raul Roco, and Mitra himself.

High society was there: Ambassador Kulas Platypus himself and wonderful wife

Shiela, our favorite Chito Madrigal, Fedi and Peachy Maramba, Baby Arenas, Cesar

Buenaventura, Jack Rodriguez, Speedy Gonzalez, Esto and Maur Lichauco, Presy

Chiongbian, Mita Pardo de Tavera looking stunning, Sonny Belmonte and Betty Boop,

Johnny Remulla, Noel Soriano still scrounging for gold, Beth Day Romulo and a whiff of

Small Dick.

The bride was radiant just like TingTing her mother, a beauty with a doctorate’s

degree. The groom was handsome, as his sister Sabrina is beautiful. The bride's father,

the National Brother, and the groom’s papa Cesar were both happy and beaming with

understandable pride.

And a good time was had by all.

December 10, 1988

Pin weds: Not yet, give us our moment

Oh to be so in love that it would seem / No one has ever loved like this before / Or

ever will. Yet love was always there, / Joining man and woman, linking father and son,/

from one generation to another throughout the ages.

42

So we are not alone. Join us then, / Come to our wedding when we shall be one, /

One with each other, one with family and friends, / And one with all humanity.

Come share with us our wedding day.

-- Juno Henares Chuidian

JOSEPHINE “Pin” Cojuangco, daughter of Peping and TingTing, had a lovely

wedding last Wednesday, married to Jojo, only son of Jose Guingona and his wife

Marilou Tuason in San Agustin Church, more modest than the wedding of her elder sister

Liaa last December in the Manila Cathedral. Liaa’s reception was in the gardens of Fort

Santiago; Pin’s was in the elegant Fiesta Pavilion of Manila Hotel.

To Liaa’s was invited the political elite; to Pin's the society elite. To both were

invited old friends.

One sees the difference between the guests of Liaa and those of Pin. Every

politician is the cock in his chicken coop, and in Liaa’s wedding, congressmen and

governors strutted around like roosters preening in their own self-importance, talking to

all and never listening to anyone.

The society crowd is, well, sociable. They group themselves like hens in pow-

wow circles, chatting and cackling about themselves, about each other, and especially

about others not within hearing distance.

* * *

The bridal entourage had dresses designed in Filipino motif by Auggie Cordero.

The bride Ping dressed in crou with three shades of beige, in piña hand-

embroidered with cadena de amor and small butterfies, a headdress of silk flowers and

orange blossoms, a sabrina neckline, and a necklace of diamonds set like a chain of roses.

The mother of the bride, TingTing, dressed in a mix of European and Filipino

styles -- piña top all embroidered with cadena de amor, and a skirt of tiered silk gazar

(100 percent pure silk woven four-ply like a barong), with a dazzling diamond necklace.

The mother of the groom, Marilou, came in Maria-Clara inspired piña, hand-

embroidered in a Venetian lace design. Ninang Josine Elizalde also in Maria Clara, piña

mixed with Belgian lace. Ninang Ditas Lerma in piña and silk moire (which is a bit

heavier than silk taffeta).

43

The aunt of the bride, President Cory, was dressed in two-piece beige piña with

sequins and crystals, hand-embroidered with leaves of different sizes. No jewels, only

small diamond earrings.

* * *

We notice with admiration that President Cory with her daily appearances on TV,

unlike Imelda Marcos, is not above wearing her clothes many times. Said our maid

Ateng: “Yong parang pusia na may paiping na may blak sa neckline atsaka sa sleebs,

dalawang beses ko nakita. Yong may kwelyo na mahaba, at may extensyon na lina-laso,

at may obercot, tatlong beses na. Okay na okay si Cory.”

The Madrigal Swingers (?) were there, Vicky and Belec, Amanda and Tony, with

Cacho sisters Dely Castillejo, Mariles Romulo, and Marilou Soriano... Teroy Laurel

enjoying without Lorna, Monching and Cecile Mitra, bubbly Baby Puyat Reyes, Caling

Lobregat, lovely Baby Arenas... Boling Tuason Reyes, Ching and Serge Montinola, Uso

and Nena Villanueva, Bert and Tita Montinola, Chingbee and Bobby Cuenca, Larry and

Baby Lesaca.

Our kissing cousins: Vic and Lydia Sison, Berna de Leon, Tony and Cecile

Oppen, Ching de Leon Escaler, Nelly and Peps Bengson... Acting Makati Mayor

Conchitina Bernardo, Ambrosio and Lily Padilla, PL Lim, Evelyn and John Forbes, ever

young Imelda Cojuangco, Bambi Harper... Priscy and James Chiongbian, Sabrina and

Tito Panlilio, Christian Monsod trying to avoid my company, Shiela and Kulas Platt who

are always pleasant.

The evening was an elegant and dazzling affair for the higher forms of life in our

society.

* * *

Outside, the world is in ferment, with changes so swift, they boggle the mind and

unhinge our very perception of reality, and our sense of good and evil. But here for one

evening, the clock stopped to allow two children, their families and friends to celebrate

the time-honored sacrament of love and renewal of hope.

One is reminded of Ninotchka the Communist on assignment to Paris, as played

by Greta Garbo, in the midst of gaiety and laughter and love, crying out drunkenly,

inebriated as she was with the Rage to Live:

44

Comrades, Workers of the World... the revolution is perhaps already on the

march. God is dead, bombs will fall, and civilizations will crumble...

But not yet, please not yet. What is the hurry?

Give us our moment. Just one brief shining moment when women are beautiful,

and men are chivalrous, and the whole world falls madly in love!

January 23, 1989

Why it sucks to be a Dick Romulo or a Dick Gordon

I have two friends, and both of them are incorrigible Pro-Americans.

One of them is Dick Romulo, prominent lawyer, whom I call Small Dick. I called

him a coward with a “yellow streak on his back a mile wide,” because he never had the

courage of his convictions, enough to risk his neck in the Parliament of the Streets, for

which he sued me in court for libel. He lost, I won.

He became the perennial head of the powerful Makati Business Club, even if he is

no businessman, or head of a business establishment. He is a lawyer representing more

than 40 clients among foreign corporations, whose interest he serves even if it is palpably

against the interest of his country. Like the contract for an American company to develop

the Tiwi Hot Springs to produce electric power, the price of which was tied to the

American dollar, so that the project does not save us any dollars at all. He is a true son of

Carlos P. Romulo, the Quintessential American satrap.

The other one is Dick Gordon, cabinet member and Senator, who campaigned

long and hard to retain the American Bases in the Philippines. When the Americans were

thrown out, he was the one who profited most from their leaving, for he took over as the

Chairman of the Subic Bay Economic Development Zone. The most impressive sight I

had of him was at the Senate Hearing on the Bases, whispering sweet little nothings into

the ears of the fattest, ugliest American woman agent of the CIA. I used to call him

Needle Dick, but desisted after he publicly challenged me to a show of flags.

So, why does it suck to be a Dick?

1. He’s got a hole in the head.

2. He hangs around with a couple of nuts.

3. His closest neighbor is an asshole.

45

4. His best friend is a pussy.

5. At the moment of his greatest pleasure, he throws up.

6. And that is what pisses him off.

For that matter, he is a bit of monster. His head is disproportionate to his body, he never

gets a haircut, he shrinks under a cold shower, his master strangles him all the time, and

he gets scalped at an early age to make sure he stays clean and does not smell. And that

is the other reason he gets pissed off.

The Best of the Year Awards

LOOK at tomorrow’s issue of the Sunday Inquirer Magazine for my article on

New Year’s resolutions of famous Filipinos, complimentary to these Best of the Year

Awards.

Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev deserves to be the Man of the Year 1988, for

his glastnost and perestrioka initiatives, his unilateral withdrawal of Soviet troops and

armed might from Afghanistan and Eastern Europe. Thanks to him the world is on the

threshold of a new era, with a promise of peace and plenty.

The new Prime Minister Benathir Bhutto of Pakistan is our Woman of the Year,

for coming into power peacefully like Cory Aquino did, against all odds, one more

indication that the world is again ready for the Mother Principle that brought civilization,

tolerance and compassion for 10,000 years before the Christian era.

Book of the Year goes to Alejandro Lichauco’s “Nationalist Economics,” a

brilliant, easy-to-read exposition on its history, theory and practice, that is inspiring and

relevant to our times. Orders may be placed with the SPES Institute, 90-C 4th Street,

New Manila, QC, Tel. 722-4347.

Coffee Book of the Year goes to “The History of the Burgis” by Mariel N.

Francisco and Fe Maria C. Arriola, already a classic among the cognoscenti -- hilarious,

mock-serious, authoritative and fully illustrated history of the educated classes who led

the Philippine Revolution of 1898 and the Edsa Revolution of 1986.

* * *

Non Reelectionist Candidate of the Year: President Cory Aquino. Non

Presidential Candidate of the Year: General Fidel Ramos. Social Critic of the Year: Ka

46

Roger, spokesman for the Communist New People’s Army, who said “Wala kami ng

puwang dian. We have no role to play in Cory’s government.''

Booboo of the Year: Teddyman Benigno’s statement that “Cory has no grasp of

the intricacies of the Military Bases Agreement” -- which he subsequently denied he said,

only to be proven less than truthful by Malou Mangahas who taped his statement.

Fantastic Quote of the Year: Teddyman’s “The government is satisfied with its

own performance.” Ha ha, who else would be?

Pessimistic/Optimistic Quote of the Year: Fidel Ramos’ “With the cut in the

Defense budget, we may not eliminate insurgency in three years.” With the budget-cut

eliminating the fat and gangrene of the Army, we predict victory in one year.

Statistic of the Year: Three million jobs that Cory Administration will create in a

year -- we did not know Peping Cojuangco has that many relatives.

* * *

Word of the Year is “Orgasm,” used by Censor Manuel Morato to describe Sylvia

Mayuga’s need to see Temptation Of Christ; and used by Press Secretary Teddyman

Benigno to describe the need of Niñez Cacho Olivares to attack the presidency.

Lawyer of the Year: Education Secretary Lourdes Quisumbing for insisting it is

both legal and moral for her to receive commissions from insurance companies.

Bimbo (female wimp) of the Year: CID Commissioner Miriam Defensor Santiago

for threatening to resign if her Alien Legalization Project is not put into effect, which it

wasn’t, and which she didn’t.

Civic Service of the Year: Sulpicio Lines for having accomplished in one night

what the Population Control Commission was not able to do in two decades.

Love Team of the Year: Senator Erap Estrada and Congresswoman Anna

Dominique Coseteng in a movie about the American bases.

Most Publicized Public Servant: Senator Ernesto Maceda, who leaves Senate

meetings early so he will be the first to confront the reporters and TV cameramen; and

probably maintains the most elaborate and efficient pubic relations outfit in the country.

* * *

Three Magi of the Year: Security Adviser Noel Soriano for his gift of gold from

Fort Santiago; ex Food Administrator Emil Ong for his gift of myrrh; and Human Rights

47

Commissioner Mary Concepcion Bautista for her gift of Frankenstein’s frankincense.

Most Insecure Hotel of the Year: Manila Hotel for continuing the practice of

frisking the guests and infecting every other hotel with its fear and trepidations; also for

consciously not carrying the deadly daily Inquirer for its guest rooms.

Best-Dressed and Most Dressed-Down Cabinet Official: Tourism Secretary

Antonio “Speedy” Gonzalez.

Wimps of the Year: Finance Secretary Vicente “Ting” Jayme, PCCI President

Victor Lim, and Banker’s Association president Manuel Morales, for making sip-sip to

the IMF and foreign bankers, and warning against putting a cap on our debt servicing.

These are the same businessmen who run off to the USA at the first sign of trouble.

Collaborator of the Year: Adrian Cristobal who helped in these Awards.

December 31, 1988, Philippine Daily Inquirer

Duck, dog, snake, beaver, it's Platypus!

PLATYPUS (from a Greek word meaning Flatfoot, which in Americanese means

a policeman), of the order Monotremata, species Ornithorhynchus Anatinus, has a flat

fleshy duckbill, 5-toed webbed feet, lays egg, swims and dives like a duck; has dense

blackish brown fur and is a mammal with boobs to breastfeed its young, like a dog; spits

venom like a snake; and has a flat broadened tail and inhabits burrows near the water like

a beaver, which is a rodent and is related to the rat.

The platypus is a zoological oddity, an oviparous mammal that lays eggs three-

fourths of an inch long, a creature embarrassingly given to flatulence (platt-ulence?), and

known as Old Fart, duckbill, or duckmole in Australia where it lives.

Unbeknownst to US Ambassador Kulas, the platypus has been used as an

argument against Darwinian Evolution by the Baptist Fundamentalists on the grounds

that by the ordinary rules of Evolution, by the logic of Necessity, survival of the fittest

and Natural Selection, such a creature could NOT possibly exist. Only God, in a

generous gesture of divine humor, could have created the platypus as a heavenly joke.

It’s a duck, a dog, a snake, a rat, an eager beaver, an ill wind, a heavenly joke! –

it’s that Flatfoot cop on our beat, Kulas Platypus! All he needs is a monkey suit like that

of a penguin, and he would really look like a butler.

48

* * *

Kulas Platypus, aka Nicholas Platt, born March 10, 1936, and graduated from

Harvard and John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, speaks Chinese,

German, French and Japanese.

Kulas was political officer (1964-68) in the US Consulate in Hong Kong where he

became acquainted with the family of Sir Kenneth Fung (Fung Ping Fan), once member

of the HK Legislative Council. My wife's first cousin Nelly and her husband Kenneth

Fung Jr. are good friends of the Platts. Shiela Platt comes to dinner when Nelly is in

town.

His next foreign assignment in 1973 as chief of the political section in Beijing,

China, was cut short according to scuttlebutt when Kulas was involved in a car accident

that killed a Chinese child. He was given a lower position as deputy chief of the political

section in Tokyo from 1974 to 1977.

From 1982 to 1985, Kulas was US Ambassador to Zambia, formerly Northern

Rhodesia, where the government nationalized the two foreign copper mining companies,

foreign oil producers, privately held lands, all newspapers and essential industries. It was

not his fault.

* * *

On August 13, 1987, he became US Ambassador to the Philippines, and his tour

of duty ends in 1990. He is funnier looking, and more pleasant than his predecessor, the

stuff-shirt Steve Bosworth, who looks like Prince Valiant, as Kulas looks like Jeeves.

Kulas and his wife Shiela are both over six feet in height, and inspite of constant

interference in other nations’ affairs since 1959, Kulas managed to produce in his spare

time three wonderful sons: Adam 29; Oliver 27; and Kulas Junior, 23.

You may be surprised to find that Kulas who looks like a butler, is really an

American aristocrat, listed in the 1960 Social Register Locater, on page 749, as being in

the Social Register of Washington DC.

But Kulas Platypus is no Babbitt, a typical American hick like Bosworth whose

closest encounter with culture was in Fortune Ledesma’s Video Sonix rental shop. Like

me, Kulas is a regular patron of the excellent plays of Repertory.

49

Kulas Platypus is not all that bad. He is basically a humanist and a liberal with

some sympathy with the Third World. In 1982 he favored funding for the Arab PLO

through the UN; favored establishment of relations with Red China; and in Zambia

cooperated with the nationalistic African National Congress.

* * *

For that Kulas was almost refused confirmation by the US Senate, at the

instigation of Sen. Jesse Helms (Republican, North Carolina), arch-conservative.

He now heads the US diplomatic mission staffed by 400 Americans and 1,200

Filipinos, one of the largest in the world. The Consular section under Norbert Krieg

processes and approves the largest number of US-visa applicants in the world.

Kulas supervises 23 separate agencies -- including the State Dept., CIA, USIS,

USAID, Peace Corps, Veteran’s Administration, and the JUSMAG -- and maintains close

liaison with the Bases with its 16,600 servicemen, 21,800 dependents, and 43,300

Filipino employees.

The US Embassy complex in the Roxas Blvd. dates from 1935 when the

Commonwealth was inaugurated and the American proconsuls moved out of

Malacañang. The Philippines donated and filled in the land. The Chancery was finished

in 1951, and the stone-proof Annex was built in 1960.

We salute Kulas Platypus as a worthy protagonist.

January 31, 1989

Platypus had a Japanese grand-uncle

IN Edmond Rostand’s play, the villain Valvert was taunting our hero Cyrano de

Bergerac: “Dolt, bumpkin, fool, insolent puppy, jobbernowl!”

Cyrano pretending that Valvert was introducing himself, answered, “Glad to meet

you. And my name is Cyrano Savinien Hercule De Bergerac!”

Well I received a letter in Spanish from a Dennis who, I assume, introduced

himself with the kilometric Spanish name of “Bobo Tonto Estupido Comico Necio

Cretino Ignorante Atontado Zoquete Lerdo Alcornoque Bobalicon Idiota Imbecil

Majadero Mameluco Memo Obtuso Palurdo Papanatas Rustico Simplon Zompenco

Inepto Paleto Tocho Mentecato... en una palabra, Bobo de Coria.”

50

Mucho gusto de conocerle, Señor Dennis Bobo de Coria. Yo soy Hilarion Daniel

Guillermo Mateo Francisco Henares y Maramba, Hijo. That name is registered in my

baptismal certificate. The last word Hijo is the Spanish equivalent of the word Junior.

Many friends and enemies, not knowing that my name is already much too long,

keep adding something else after Hijo... like Hijo de la gran kikay, or something worse.

* * *

Don’t think that just because I disagree with American policy and US

Ambassador Kulas Platt, I do not like him. Far from it, I like and respect him, but I

resent Filipinos treating him like a Great White Father. I meet Kulas occasionally in

Repertory, parties or official functions. And we always exchange pleasantries.

Once I kidded him about being an Old China Hand -- with all the connotations of

being Taipan, Dug-out Dog and William Holden in a Many Splendored Love with Han

Suyin -- with his knowledge of Chinese, and assignments to China, Japan, and Hong

Kong.

I asked about his relationship to the Platt Amendment imposed on Cuba as part of

its Constitution on June 12, 1901 which leased naval stations to the USA and recognized

the right of the American government to intervene in Cuban affairs.

Though he is related to the guy somehow, he denied any direct descendancy. But

he did tell me an interesting story of being the great grandnephew of a Japanese samurai.

In 1864, the year Lincoln was assassinated, a Japanese samurai warrior by the

name of Nijima Jo, to escape his enemies, sneaked into a boat bound for the USA. The

boat was owned by Kulas Platt’s grandmother’s grandfather on his father’s side, whose

name is Alphius Hardy.

Alphius Hardy adopted Nijima Jo as a son (which makes him the great grand-

uncle of Kulas) and sent him to school in Andover, Amherst and Avion Theological

Seminary. After ten years in the USA, Nijima Jo went back to Japan and founded

Goshisha, the first Christian university in Japan. That makes Kulas’ progenitor,

Protestant’s answer to our Francis Xavier SJ.

* * *

51

On television with Juliette Yap, ex-Governor Tillah of Tawi-Tawi who is

Santanina Rasul’s brother spoke heatedly about the goverment discrimination against

Muslims. Not quite true.

There may be some prejudice against Muslims by the Armed Forces; Gringo was

said to have presented General Espino with a whole bayong full of dried Muslim ears; but

then the Armed Forces is prejudiced against all the people, especially those who love the

Philippines more than Mommie Dearest America.

But certainly not the civilian government. Two Muslim senators, more than their

proportionate share populationwise, sit in Congress. A Muslim justice sits in the

Supreme Court and two in the Court of Appeals, along with so many judges in the lower

courts, including Judge Omar Amin, brother of Misuari’s right hand man. The judiciary

is not unfair to Muslims.

Former Misuari lieutenants are in government: Governor Tapai Loong of Jolo,

good-looking Gerry Salapuddin of Basilan, and the governor of Tawi-Tawi too.

* * *

Rizal Alih is known to control the arrastre services and a whole row of barbecue

stands in Zamboanga City. Where did he get the capital on his salary as a policemen?

He is said to be the junior partner of a Blas Perez, the former owner who was killed in a

gangland rub-out. Rizal Alih took over after his death.

When General de Villa ordered the “overkill” operation against Alih, the revolt

had already turned into a mutiny. General Batalla was murdered. By Friday night, 60

additional people joined Alih.

Tausogs from Jolo were part of the PC detachment in the camp, and were friends

of Alih. General Bueno himself is half Tausog.

President Cory sent General Batalla to purge the town of undesirable elements.

Everyone knows about the four armed groups in Zamboanga: Alih’s, Alam’s, Aquel’s

and Bocaram’s. But no one dares talk about it. Batalla was able to break up crime

syndicates and gather evidence against them.

By the way, why did Generals Aguilar, Afabeto and Jimenez not attend Batalla’s

funeral?

January 27, 1989

52

THE SWEETEST SOUND, STORIES, SIGHT AND SIGHS

The Sweetest Sound In All the World

My God, how fast time flies! It seems only yesterday that I lost my wife Cecilia

in the lobby of Hotel Intercontinental in Paris. She suffered a sudden heart attack and

passed away cradled in my arms, on July 17, 1993, 12 years ago, a dozen years, and it

seems only yesterday.

I saw her for the first time during the Japanese Occupation, playing basketball in

Sta. Escolastica College where she studied together with Cory Aquino. She was only 14

years of age, and beautiful beyond compare, like Susan Magalona, a family friend of

hers, who was a few years older. I always thought Cecilia was much too beautiful for the

likes of me and was content just admiring her from afar, and envying those good-looking

mestizos who came to visit her in her house on Pennsylvania Street. I knew her sisters,

Helen and Luisa, and her cousins, but I did not know her then.

Then during the Liberation of Manila, while she was fleeing from the

bombardment in front of the Philippine Women’s University, with her family, and in the

company of Susan Magalona, Cecilia was shot in the leg by a sniper and was dumped

into an army truck to be brought to the UST Hospital. Her leg developed gangrene and

had to be amputated. By God, she was only 16 years of age. I finally met her on August

23, 1946 in the birthday party of her sister Luisa.

I went to Boston shortly after to study at MIT, and Cecilia followed to have a

series of operations on her leg in the Massachussetts General Hospital. There I visited

her, bringing a rose bud growing out of a flower pot, with a note that said, “Friendship is

a bud that withers in the coldness of indifference, but when nursed in the warmth of an

understanding heart, blossoms into a flower.” She liked that. My God she was only 16

and she looked like a Goddess on Mount Olympus. I stared at her beauty in awkward

silence. Then she asked, Do you like music, Larry? What is your favorite song?

Well, I stammered, my favorite song was composed by Jerome Kern and Oscar

53

Hammerstein, it is called All the Things You Are. Oh I know that song, Cecilia said, and

she sang: You are the promised kiss of springtime that makes the lonely winter seem long.

You are the breathless hush of evening that trembles on the brink of a lovely song. You

are the angel glow that lights the star. The dearest things I know are what you are.

Someday my happy arms will hold you. And someday I’ll know that moment divine when

all the things you are, are mine. Oh, how I wanted to tell Cecilia that those beautiful

words were meant for her from the bottom of my heart, my soul, my life. And what is

your favorite song, Cecilia? I asked.

Oh mine was composed by Richard Rodgers, both words and music by himself

without the help of Hammerstein. It is called The Sweetest Sound In All The World.

Favorite songs are those which reflect deeply one’s desires and aspirations. And I

often wondered what a beautiful girl like Cecilia, hardly 16 years of age, and having her

leg amputated during the war, never been kissed, never been embraced, never been made

love to, so innocent, so virginal, trembling at the brink of womanhood and blinking at the

stars of hope and great expectations. What thoughts, what prayers, what visions lie

within her breast? Then she sang her favorite song, and it came from the heart and

echoed and re-echoed in the aching void of her soul. It was the sweetest sound in all the

world: The sweetest song I’ve ever heard, is still inside my head. The kindest words I’ve

ever known, is waiting to be said. The most entrancing sight of all is yet for me to see.

And the greatest love in all the world, is somewhere waiting for me, is somewhere

waiting, waiting for me. It was precisely at that moment when I fell in love with her.

The sweetest song I’ve ever heard was the song Cecilia sang to me. The kindest

words I’ve ever known is when Cecilia said Yes when I asked her to marry me. The

most entrancing sight of all was when I saw her in her bridal gown walking down the

aisle towards me. And the greatest love in all the world was mine forever when she said I

do and married me.

And the greatest love in all the world is somewhere waiting for me, somewhere

waiting , waiting for me.

I am already 81 years of age. Wait for me, Cecilia, I’ll be with you soon.

July 18, 2005, DWBR-fm

54

The Wallet, from the Internet

As I walked home one freezing day, I stumbled on a wallet someone had lost in

the street. I picked it up and looked inside to find some identification so I could call the

owner. But the wallet contained only three dollars and a crumpled letter that looked as if

it had been in there for years.

The envelope was worn and the only thing that was legible on it was the return

address. I started to open the letter, hoping to find some clue. Then I saw the dateline--

1924.. The letter had been written almost sixty years ago.

It was written in a beautiful feminine handwriting on powder blue stationery with

a little flower in the left-hand corner. It was a “Dear John” letter that told the recipient,

whose name appeared to be Michael, that the writer could not see him any more because

her mother forbade it. Even so, she wrote that she would always love him.

It was signed, Hannah.

It was a beautiful letter, but there was no way except for the name Michael, that

the owner could be identified. Maybe if I called information, the operator could find a

phone listing for the address on the envelope.

“Operator,” I began, “this is an unusual request. I’m trying to find the owner of a

wallet that I found. Is there anyway you can tell me if there is a phone number for an

address that was on an envelope in the wallet?"

She suggested I speak with her supervisor, who hesitated for a moment then said,

“Well, there is a phone listing at that address, but I can’t give you the number.” She said,

as a courtesy, she would call that number, explain my story and would ask them if they

wanted her to connect me. I waited a few minutes and then she was back on the line. “I

have a party who will speak with you.”

I asked the woman on the other end of the line if she knew anyone by the name of

Hannah. She gasped, “Oh! We bought this house from a family who had a daughter

named Hannah. But that was 30 years ago!”

“Would you know where that family could be located now?” I asked.

I remember that Hannah had to place her mother in a nursing home some years

ago,” the woman said. “Maybe if you got in touch with them they might be able to track

down the daughter.”

55

She gave me the name of the nursing home and I called the number. They told

me the old lady had passed away some years ago but they did have a phone number for

where they thought the daughter might be living.

I thanked them and phoned. The woman who answered explained that Hannah

herself was now living in a nursing home.

This whole thing was stupid, I thought to myself. Why was I making such a big

deal over finding the owner of a wallet that had only three dollars and a letter that was

almost 60 years old?

Nevertheless, I called the nursing home in which Hannah was supposed to be

living and the man who answered the phone told me, “Yes, Hannah is staying with us.”

Even though it was already 10 p.m., I asked if I could come by to see her.

“Well,” he said hesitatingly, “if you want to take a chance, she might be in the day room

watching television.”

I thanked him and drove over to the nursing home. The night nurse and a guard

greeted me at the door. We went up to the third floor of the large building. In the day

room, the nurse introduced me to Hannah.

She was a sweet, silver-haired old timer with a warm smile and a twinkle in her

eye.

I told her about finding the wallet and showed her the letter. The second she saw

the powder blue envelope with that little flower on the left, she took a deep breath and

said, “Young man, this letter was the last contact I ever had with Michael.”

She looked away for a moment deep in thought and then said softly, “I loved him

very much. But I was only 16 at the time and my mother felt I was too young. Oh, he

was so handsome. He looked like Sean Connery, the actor.”

“Yes,” she continued. “Michael Goldstein was a wonderful person. If you should

find him, tell him I think of him often. And,” she hesitated for a moment, almost biting

her lip, “tell him I still love him. You know,” she said smiling as tears began to well up

in her eyes, “I never did marry. I guess no one ever matched up to Michael...”

I thanked Hannah and said good-bye. I took the elevator to the first floor and as I

stood by the door, the guard there asked, “Was the old lady able to help you?”

I told him she had given me a lead. “At least I have a last name. But I think I’ll

56

let it go for a while. I spent almost the whole day trying to find the owner of this wallet.”

I had taken out the wallet, which was a simple brown leather case with red lacing

on the side. When the guard saw it, he said, “Hey, wait a minute! That’s Mr. Goldstein’s

wallet. I’d know it anywhere with that right red lacing. He's always losing that wallet. I

must have found it in the halls at least three times.”

“Who’s Mr. Goldstein?” I asked as my hand began to shake.

“He’s one of the old timers on the 8th floor. That’s Mike Goldstein’s wallet for

sure. He must have lost it on one of his walks.”

I thanked the guard and quickly ran back to the nurse’s office. I told her what the

guard had said. We went back to the elevator and got on. I prayed that Mr. Goldstein

would be up.

On the eighth floor, the floor nurse said, “I think he’s still in the day room. He

likes to read at night. He’s a darling old man."

We went to the only room that had any lights on and there was a man reading a

book. The nurse went over to him and asked if he had lost his wallet. Mr. Goldstein

looked up with surprise, put his hand in his back pocket and said, “Oh, it is missing!”

“This kind gentleman found a wallet and we wondered if it could be yours?”

I handed Mr. Goldstein the wallet and the second he saw it, he smiled with relief

and said, “Yes, that’s it! It must have dropped out of my pocket this afternoon. I want to

give you a reward.”

“No, thank you,” I said. “But I have to tell you something. I read the letter in the

hope of finding out who owned the wallet.”

The smile on his face suddenly disappeared. “You read that letter?”

“Not only did I read it, I think I know where Hannah is.”

He suddenly grew pale. “Hannah? You know where she is? How is she? Is she

still as pretty as she was? Please, please tell me,” he begged.

“She’s fine... just as pretty as when you knew her.” I said softly.

The old man smiled with anticipation and asked, “Could you tell me where she is?

I want to call her tomorrow.” He grabbed my hand and said, “You know something,

mister, I was so in love with that girl that when that letter came, my life literally ended. I

never married. I guess I've always loved her.”

57

“Mr. Goldstein,” I said, “come with me.”

We took the elevator down to the third floor. The hallways were darkened and

only one or two little night-lights lit our way to the day room where Hannah was sitting

alone watching the television. The nurse walked over to her.

“Hannah,” she said softly, pointing to Michael, who was waiting with me in the

doorway. “Do you know this man?”

She adjusted her glasses, looked for a moment, but didn’t say a word. Michael

said softly, almost in a whisper, “Hannah, it’s Michael. Do you remember me?”

She gasped, “Michael! I don't believe it! Michael! It's you! My Michael!”

He walked slowly towards her and they embraced. The nurse and I left with tears

streaming down our faces.

“See,” I said. “See how the Good Lord works! If it’s meant to be, it will be.”

About three weeks later I got a call at my office from the nursing home. “Can

you break away on Sunday to attend a wedding? Michael and Hannah are going to tie the

knot!”

It was a beautiful wedding with all the people at the nursing home dressed up to

join in the celebration. Hannah wore a light beige dress and looked beautiful. Michael

wore a dark blue suit and stood tall. They made me their best man.

The hospital gave them their own room and if you ever wanted to see a 76-year-

old bride and a 79-year-old groom acting like two teenagers, you have to see this couple.

A perfect ending for a love affair that had lasted nearly 60 years.

If this inspirational message blesses you, pass it on... Many people will walk in

and out of your life, but only love will leave footprints in your heart. May God hold you

in the palm of His hand and Angels watch over you.

Love makes miracles!

After years of vainly trying in the late stage of their lives, my daughters Elvira

and Rosanna, finally got pregnant within months of each other. They prepared for the

birth of their babies, by playing classical music and singing Broadway songs through a

speaker system to their foetuses inside their wombs. Finally they were born by caesarian:

58

Larry Henares Esguerra on September 16, 2001, and Emmanuel Rodrigo Henares

Angeles on November 11, 2001, that is 11-11-01, that is why he is nicknamed Uno. I

mention this because I want to tell you the story of Karen with her girl of three, who was

just about to have a little brother. It is a beautiful story, adopted from the Internet.

When Karen found out about her pregnancy, she thought of her little girl Angeli

of 3 and prepared her for this new development in her young life. She found out it would

be a boy and day and night Angeli sang to her brother in her mother’s womb. She was

beginning to love that little boy even before she met him.

The pregnancy of Karen progressed normally. In time she went into labor and

soon every 5 minutes and then every 1 minute came the pains. But then complications

set in and Karen had hours of labor. Finally, after many hours, the little brother of Angeli

was born, but they had to rush him to the Intensive Care Unit at Makati Med. Time and

days went by and the baby was worse. The pediatricians talked to the parents -- they

heard the terrible words, “There is very little hope, prepare for the worst.”

Karen and her husband contacted the cemetery and made arrangements for a

plot for their little boy. In contrast, months before, the preparations were for life, and joy

with a little room full of sunshine! Angeli begged to see her brother “I want to sing to

him!” she kept on repeating. For two weeks the child stayed in Intensive Care and it

looked like he wouldn’t last till the end of the week. Angeli kept on insisting that she

wanted to sing to her new brother, but they explained that children are not admitted in the

Intensive Care Unit.

Suddenly Karen decided. She would bring Angeli to see her brother, permit or

not. If she didn’t see him now perhaps it would be too late later on. She dressed her in

bulky clothes, trying to make her look older, but the head nurse realized the intention of

the mother and got very mad and asked her to remove the child out of the Intensive Ward.

Karen’s temper snapped and she looked at the head nurse with the coldest eyes

and her mouth set in a straight line and said “She doesn’t leave until she sings to her little

brother.” She picked Angeli up and brought her to his crib. She looked at the little boy,

her brother, losing his battle for life. After a moment Angeli started to sing with all the

heart of a three year old, “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy

when skies are grey…” Instantly, the baby responded to the stimulation of his sister’s

59

voice. His pulse went to normal! “Keep on singing Angeli!” her mother asked with tears

in her eyes. Angeli kept on singing “You’ll never know dear how much I love you, please

don’t take my sunshine away.....”

At the same time that Angeli sang to her brother, the baby moved and his

breathing turned soft like a kitten when you caress him. “Keep on singing, love,” her

mother said and she continued doing what she had done for so many months while he

was still was in his mother’s womb. “You’ll never know dear how much I love you,

please don’t take my sunshine away,” she kept on singing. Her brother started to relax

and sleep, a sleep that was healing!

“Keep on singing Angeli!” now the voice was the nurse’s, who also had tears in

her eyes, she kept on saying for her not to stop. “You are my sunshine, my only

sunshine....”

Next day the boy was in perfect health! So much so that he came home that

same day!

The magazine Woman’s Day called it “The Miracle Song of a Sister.” The

doctors called it simply a Miracle! Karen called it “God’s Miracle of Love”

Truly Love makes miracles. It is the strongest and most powerful force on

earth.

September 19, 2005, DWBR-fm

K-K-K-Katy, wonderful Katy

“K-K-K-Katy, wonderful Katy, you’re the girl in all the world that we adore,” so

goes the song of old. And sure enough, amidst a standing ovation, she was there in the

Rizal Theater, the Katy de la Cruz of old, the pre-war Queen of Jazz, all of 82 years of

age, still singing, still belting, with all the gusto of yesteryears, such songs as “I Will Give

Anything but Love, Baby” and “A Fool am I.”

It was on the occasion of the musical play on the life and times of Katy de la

Cruz, “Katy,” produced by Celeste Legaspi and Girlie Rodis, in their continuing

apostolate to bring Original Pilipino Music to the nation. To do so, they got the services

of none but the best -- Ryan Cayabyab as composer and arranger, Jose Javier Reyes as

playwright and lyricist, Nestor U. Torre as director, Leo Rialp as production designer and

60

Rene Hinojales as choreographer.

And the cast was superb: Mitch Valdes as Katy, Marco Sison as her husband,

Bernardo Bernardo as her father, Celeste Legaspi as Olivia, and a bunch of characters

depicting her true-to-life friends: Hanna San, Patsy, Mary Walter, Bayani, Dolphy,

German Moreno and Gloria Romero.

It is now on its last week-end, tonight through Sunday night in the Rizal Theater.

You’ll hate yourself if you miss it.

* * *

From the beginning, one is captivated. Little Celeste San Jose as Batang Katy,

belting out Jazz songs (“Tupada,” cockfight) in the cockpit, and Pam Gamboa as

Dalagang Katy jazzing it up (“Pahiram ng Kanta,” Lend Me a Song) between reel

changes in the silent movie theaters, sets the tone for the entrance of Mitch Valdes as the

adult Katy (“Balut” and “Saging”) struggling for recognition on the Vodavil stage, and

falling in love with a piano player.

A tight well-written script that made three and a half hours pass like minutes, told

of a father defied, a husband neglected, a woman betrayed; and in one of Celeste

Legaspi’s most remarkable performances, an aging star eclipsed, withered, redeemed.

Throughout it all, it is Mitch Valdes who carries the play through pathos, bathos,

and the joyous celebration of life. I remember Mitch as a teenager playing the role of

Dulcinea in a La Salle production of “Man from La Mancha” -- with my son Atom as one

of those who raped her. I watched her break into the big time as a TV singer and

comedian with Elvira Manahan; I enjoyed her in “Cabaret” with my son Ronnie as her

leading man.

Today with her performance as Katy, she has grown into a sensitive and mature

actress, one of the very best on the Philippine stage.

* * *

The production numbers are simply superb. “Minsan Ang Minamahal ay Ako” (It

was I They Once Loved), sang by Celeste Legaspi as Olivia, the aging star eclipsed by

others, is heart-wrenching; then again a patriotic song sung by Celeste as one redeemed

by her fight against Japanese tyranny, “Luha sa Kinalimutang Lupa” (Tears of the

Forgotten Land) has the fervor of Bayan Ko.

61

The love songs of Mitch Valdes as Katy and Marco Sison as her husband Peping,

“Awit ko Para sa Iyo” (My Song for You) to mark the beginning of their love, and “Isa

na Namang Paalam” (Another Goodbye) to mark the end, are warm, tender and heart-

rending.

The music and lyrics are Original Pilipino Music by Ryan Cayabyab and Joey

Javier Reyes, capturing the spirit of the Filipino people. Listen to the English translation

of Tears of the Forgotten Land:

Of what use is the music of the wind

If we are deaf and without feeling,

Of what use is the light of heaven,

If we are submerged in a sea of blood?

O when... oh when will the tears

Dry up in our forgotten land?

O when... oh when do we realize

And fulfill our destined freedoms?

* * *

Who was the valedictorian in the high school class of Diosdado Macapagal:

Dadong or Mennen Tayag?

My compadre Dadong Macapagal in his biography recounts that after a late start,

he rose to the top of the class from the 2nd year up to the 4th month of the 4th year. In

the 5th and decisive month, unexplainably, a history instructor named Garcia depressed

his grade from the usual 95 down to 85 percent, while upping Mennen’s from the usual

85 to up 95 percent.

Since “cumulative grading” gives the last grade the same weight as the previous

average, this dropped Dadong in the Official Roll from first to fourth.

Dadong confronted Garcia, accused him of personal motives, saying, “On my

initiative, this school put up its first school paper, of which you became adviser. You did

me an injustice because as a poor boy, I am powerless and without influence. But time

will tell which of us deserved the highest grade.”

In the final grading, Dadong’s grades made him second to Mennen.

November 25, 1988, Philippine Daily Inquirer

62

Kulas wanted to be guest of Jojo Binay

IT’s Christmas, so we shall resume our membership in SPCA, Society for the

Prevention of Cruelty to Americans, and just tell a couple of stories by one of America's

most engaging writers, O. Henry, pseudonym of a jailbird named William Sydney Porter.

Walay tongtong ko. Walay sakey ya bakes. Say ngaran to... thus began my Lola as

I sat at her feet for an evening of story telling. Let me re-tell the stories of O. Henry in

the milieu of our own time and place, with a little change in names and places.

The first story is that of a bum named Kulas, the type you see on the streets of

Makati trying to cadge a few pesos with which to buy San Miguel Beer. Imagine this

ne’er-do-well, with his threadbare shirt and shoes, on the eve of Christmas, hungry,

lonely, without money or friends or family -- dreaming only of a nice warm jail provided

by Mayor Jojo Binay where he can eat and sleep in comfort.

So he made up his mind to go to jail, at least for one month of assured bed, board

and pleasant company.

* * *

First the epicurean route. Unnoticed he entered Mario’s, and ordered roast duck,

a bottle of Perignon and a cigar -- enough to raise the hackles of owner Mario Benitez.

Unfortunately, before Mario called the police, Fred and Nena Borromeo of Forbes Park

who happened to be in the restaurant, in a rare display of charity, paid Kulas’ bill and bid

him Merry Christmas.

Next Kulas took a rock, hurled through the window of Rustan’s Department

Store, and waited for his good fortune. Unfortunately the police did not believe that any

one who smashes windows does not run away, so they chased instead Rene Grande of

Dasmariñas Village, who was running to catch a cab, and who spent the night being

grilled by the police.

Desperate, Kulas approached a lady shopper who looked like MaryCon Bautista,

pinched her behind, winked at her, and waited for her to scream for the police. Instead,

she winked right back and said, “Hey, you want to play in my yard?”

* * *

At length Kulas walked down McKinley Road, muttering against the Makati

63

police who did not do their jobs. Then there drifted out to his ears the sweet voices of

Ditas Lichauco, Winnie Monsod, Amelita Guevarra and the choir of Forbes Church,

singing Silent Night, angel voices that brought memories of mothers, roses, friends,

ambitions and clean socks.

Kulas’ heart responded, a strong impulse moved him to battle with his desperate

fate. He would resurrect his youthful ambitions and conquer the evil that possessed him,

tomorrow he would get a job and make something of himself, he would...

Kulas felt a heavy hand on his shoulder, “Did you drop that lighted cigaret?”

“No, officer, I... “

“That’s arson and littering, come along,” said the policeman.

“One month in jail as guest of Mayor Binay,” said the judge in court the next

morning.

* * *

Next is the story of Alberto Ramos, who works hard as a clerk the whole year

round at P2,000 a month, just so he can save enough in one year for one great glorious

binge on Christmas eve. So there he was in the lobby of Hotel Intercon, dressed

impeccably in a Tesoro barong, and Manlapat trousers, when a girl in plain dress

obviously bought in Baclaran, walked by and slipped, spraining her foot. As he helped

her up, a sudden idea came into his head.

She was pretty in a refined way, her manner and speech marked her as a lady of

modest means, why not invite her to dinner, bask in her admiration and doubly enjoy his

brief season of elegant luxury?

She introduced herself as Miss Merita, and he brought her to the hotel’s Prince

Albert restaurant, with its excellent rump of beef and soft music, treating her with utmost

courtesy, with vague references to great wealth, a yacht, and familiarity to the Zobels,

Sorianos and Lucio Tan.

Back home that evening, Alberto mused, “She’s all right, she is pretty nice, even

if she is only a working girl. Perhaps if I told her the truth instead of that razzle dazzle…

I might have gotten to know her better. Oh well, too late, I’ll never see her again.”

* * *

Miss Merita walked to a Dasmariñas Village mansion where her sister greeted

64

her, “Merita, you must stop this habit of going out in our servant’s clothing to wander

around the Makati Commercial area. I know it’s safer that way, but it is so baduy!”

Later before bed, Merita said to her sister, dreamily, “I could love a man who is

gentle and kind to poor girls, but only if he had ambition, some work to do in the world.

I would not care how poor he was, if I could help him build his way up. But Sis, the kind

of man we always meet, the man who lives an idle life without purpose, I could not love a

man like that, even if he is kind and gentle to poor girls.”

December 24, 1988, Philippine Daily Inquirer

Dangerous Life: EDSA in a Hall of Mirrors

WE all lived through that glorious part of our history from the time of Ninoy

Aquino’s death to the flight of Marcos from our shores. We are all familiar with the

characters who acted out their roles on the national stage. So when an Australian movie

maker re-enacts the story on television, we react as if the movie was made within a Hall

of Mirrors, with the characters caricatured out of their normal shape.

We are not prepared to see Butz Aquino as big and fat as Louie Beltran, or genial

plump Cardinal Sin as a gaunt and humorless prelate, or tall big-boned Imelda as a thin

petite Meldita. We are pained to see Johnny Ponce Enrile as an emaciated Joonee

Gamboa, Cory with badly needed nose-job and sick look of Laurice Guillen, Ballsy and

Pinky much less pretty than they really are, Kris and Noynoy nowhere to be seen, and

Peping Cojuangco looking like a handsome matinee idol.

What takes the cake is EDSA full of dark skinned sharp nosed characters that look

like refugees from a Gandhi movie, chanting “Kooree, Kooree” like a prayer to the god

Kali.

* * *

Wait a minute, whoa, wet ma-init, we were privileged to see the uncut 6-hour

miniseries of “Dangerous Life,” before the Australian Embassy shows off a 2-hour

version before government officials and the diplomatic corps, even before it is shown on

television all over the world (on our TV in three 2-hour episodes starting December 3).

We were able to view it, courtesy of Lupita Kashiwahara, Ninoy’s kid sister, who

brought it from Frisco.

65

This is the controversial film that was being filmed by the Australians here, until

Defense Secretary Enrile and the government ordered the producers out of the country for

taking liberties with the truth. It was finished in Sri Lanka, and that is why the characters

in the climax of the story look like Mahatma Gandhi, Ramon Bagatsing, Philip Nasser,

and Bob Mirani wearing Haines Briefs.

If the Australians were more perceptive, their General Sotelo would have worn

baggy pants, their Ambassador Bosworth would have looked more like Prince Valiant

than Boris Karloff, and General Olivas not so much like a Japanese straggler from World

War II.

* * *

The funniest characterization was that of June Keithley who let out a frightful

scream when she saw herself in the movie: with nose shaped like a half-smoked cigar,

baggy eyes, wrinkled mummified skin, dyed brown hair frazzled and full of split-ends,

and what looked like ill-fitting false teeth.

Rita Gaddi or Tina Monson Palma would have made a more credible Imelda than

Tessie Tomas whom one expects to break up into a funny routine. And Betty Go-

Belmonte would have looked more like Cory than Laurice Guillen.

When the Australians started filming in the Philippines, they asked June “Ketli”

Keithley to play herself. Ketli read the script which showed her plotting the revolution

with General Tadiar (not true), and asked that the script be revised to conform with the

truth. The Aussies never called back Ketli for the role, and got instead some dykish

actress who looks like the Bride of Frankenstein.

My wife Cecilia and Isabel Wilson slept through the middle, but the last part

caught the excitement of the times. The Australians must have taken Filipino objections

to heart, because for all its imperfections and allowing for a few acts of poetic license, the

movie is a fairly accurate account of our EDSA revolution, complete with villainous

Americans supporting the dictator Marcos and strutting around like Big Brother to the

lowly Filipinos.

* * *

Marcos was played to perfection by Ruben Rustia, and discounting the

incongruity of their looks, Laurice Guillen as Cory and Tessie Tomas as Imelda were

66

good.

Most enjoyable was the seduction scene of an American wife by Tiger, a fictional

RAMboy who looks like Honasan and Red Kapunan. The husband hero, TV journalist

Tom O’Neill, was thoroughly cuckolded, torotot!

The worst scene was the swearing-in of Cory which was bare, anti-climactic and

made in Sri Lanka.

The best scenes were those of Marcos “disappointed” at being told to cut clean

and leave; of Imelda singing New York New York on the plane to Hawaii (Greggy

reportedly said: “Pare ko, heavy talaga, the old lady was doing Liza Minelli all the way

across the Pacific!); of Cory bursting out like the sun in the morning, “They’re gone!”

But the biggest heroine was our own Daily Inquirer whose headlines hugged

every important scene, and its publisher Eggie Apostol. In the roster of those to be

arrested by Marcos in Oplan Everlasting, lo and behold, like Abou Ben Adhem, Eggie’s

name led all the rest!

November 11, 1988, Philippine Daily Inquirer

Days of Anger, Year of Fear, by Rosanna L. Henares

1 MUSIC:THEME FADE UP, HOLD FOR 10 SECS,THEN FADE UNDER FOR

2 ANNCR: Today we would like to present, for your education and edification, the

3 story of Ninoy Aquino and the year of crisis that followed his death –

4 as told in the words and voices of those who participated in this most

5 dramatic year of contemporary history.

6 MUSIC:THEME FADE UP,HOLD FOR 3 SECS,THEN FADE UNDER FOR

7 ANNCR: Days of Anger...Year of Fear!

8 MUSIC:THEME FADE UP AND OUT FOR

9 SFX:BRIEF SILENCE

10 VOX POP: (TAPE REEL)

11 Ninoy: I made it, I made it. (sounds of movement)

12 Sounds: Pusila! Pusila!

13 gun shot (pause)

14 series of gunshots

67

15 Doy: May masama akong balita. Dumating na si Ninoy pero siya ay nabaril.

16 Hindi namin nasisiguro kung siya’y buhay pa.

17 Sounds (gentle silence)

18 : woman’s wailing

19 : crowd’s murmurs

20 : Funeral Hymn with crowd noises

21 Veritas : Millions of people are witnessing the late Senator’s funeral.

22 Everyone from every part of the Philippines converged...

23 crowd: Ninoy! Ninoy! Hindi ka nag-iisa, Ninoy!

24 News: Eleven died and fifty-six wounded in the demonstration held at Mendiola

25 bridge last night. The police said that subversive elements infiltrating the

26 student ranks instigated the violence that led to tragic consequences. Butz

27 Aquino, who led the students, claimed that agent provocateurs with

28 military bearing and crewcut started the violence.

29 Marcos: Today we face an economic crisis of huge proportions, triggered by the

30 Tragic Death of the late Senator Aquino. There was a sudden

31 hemorrhage of capital leaving the country while foreign bankers

32 suddenly stopped extending normal trade credits to our business sector.

33 As a result of this crisis, we regret to announce that foreign exchange

34 transactions are hereby suspended until...

35 Foreign news : Senator Benigno Aquino was shot at the airport tarmac on

36 August 21, 1983. Six million attended his funeral, the largest in

37 Philippine history – dwarfing even the funeral of the beloved

38 Pres. Ramon Magsaysay. A year later, after 2 devaluations of the

39 peso, and after the elections where the President’s party lost one

40 -third of its seats at the Batasan Pambansa, the opposition

41 proclaimed Ninoy Aquino as their national hero.

42 L. Perez : The Batasan can’t simply declare anyone a national hero just because

43 they feel like doing so. A national hero is proclaimed by all of the

44 people and not by the Batasan.

45 First Lady: Heroes are born... not made.

68

46 Soliven: To say that heroes are born and not made is to rob the hero of his

47 heroism. It is to say that he was predestined by time and marked by

48 fate to become a hero. No, what makes the Hero is the choice he

49 makes, the Free Will to choose sacrifice over surrender.

50 Doy: Ninoy has already been proclaimed by the Filipino people as their new

51 nationall hero. These were the millions upon millions who march in his

52 name and who look upon him as the symbol of their struggle against the

53 tyranny f Marcos.

54 First Lady: But what has Ninoy done to be a national hero? What has he

55 accomplished in his lifetime?

56 Henares: It is not what Ninoy accomplished that is important, but what he might

57 have accomplished had he lived -- and that, in the exercise of the

58 people’s imagination is a hundred million times what Marcos has ever

59 accomplished.

60 student : It’s funny, most of us who marched were only babies when Ninoy was

61 put in jail. Who was Ninoy? Who?

62 Doña Aurora : As a boy Ninoy loved being around people. When political

63 visitors would arrive and his father was in the bath, he would tell

64 Ninoy to attend to the callers. Don Benigno would always find

65 him engaged in an intelligent conversation with them.

66 Lichauco: When Ninoy was asked: Who’s eyes are those-- those are not your

67 Father’s, Ninoy would answer: The eyes are the eyes of Osmena, but

68 the brain is Quezon’s.

69 Doña Aurora: When we’d have parties (laughs), we’d find Ninoy out among the

70 parked cars, surrounded by drivers, talking with them. So any

71 assembly on the street, we could be sure Ninoy was there.

72 Henares: Ninoy's life has always been an exaggeration. While most of us

73 attended only one school, he attended 6. He studied in St. Joseph, La

74 Salle, Ateneo, San Beda, Letran and UP.

75 Doy: Ninoy was the contemporary of my kid brother, but he gravitated to the

76 older boys. He felt more at home with boys 3 to 4 years older than he is.

69

77 He was ahead of his years.

78 Butz: He grew old too soon. I wish he had enjoyed part of his youth. He was

79 never young.

80 Soliven : I first met Ninoy the day I fired him. He was a lanky, big-eared

81 Freshman with a crew-cut, barely sixteen. I was the editor of Ateneo’s

82 Guidon. His grammar was lousy, his spelling terrible and I told him he

83 better learn the difference between past, present and future tense. Then,

84 maybe he can come back. He never came back. Ninoy went on to join

85 the country’s biggest newspaper – the Manila Times.

86 Henares: Ninoy has always been in the center of historical events. At seventeen,

87 he was a full-fledged war correspondent in Korea. In Guatemala, he

88 witnessed the assassination of Pres. Castillo-Armas by a CIA agent.

89 During the Sabah controversy between Malaysia and the Philippines,

90 . Ninoy was there. I thought I was one of the first to enter Red China,

91 but when I got there, Ninoy was there knocking at the doors of North

92 Vietnam from Mainland China.

93 Doy: Ninoy went to the mountains and convinced the Communist Supremo, Luis

94 Taruc to surrender to the authorities.

95 Butz: He was the youngest mayor in our hometown in Concepcion, Tarlac.

96 Ninoy was the youngest governor and senator ever to be elected. Without

97 Martial Law, he might have been President.

98 Atom H .: When I was fifteen, Ninoy Aquino, the Senator of the Republic

99 appointed himself as my campaign manager when I ran for La Salle

100 Greenhills Student Council. He even printed leaflets endorsing me,

101 Atom Henares, for vice-president. He went to the extent of lending me

102 his helicopter. He was really serious!

103Marcos: I don’t think Aquino is as good as the media says he is. He was created

104 by the press. The truth is: this man has been charged with murder,

105 illegal possession of firearms and subversion. Can you accept this man

106 as a Presidential candidate?

107Ninoy: I can serve...if free.

70

108Foreign news: President Ferdinand Marcos proclaims Martial Law in the

109 Philippines. Four hundred supposed subversives were brought to

110 Camp Crame...

111Diokno: Martial Law was declared on Sept. 21, 1972. Ninoy was picked up by

112 the soldiers at about midnight. We saw each other at Camp Crame. We

113 didn’t know what was happening, we were all unsure of our fate. But

114 Ninoy kept his cool, even cheerful in the face of danger.

115Soliven: I shared a cubicle with Ninoy and I was never bored. Ninoy and I would

116 talk, read or exchange ideas. We argued ideologies, cracked jokes,

117 dreamed dreams. Ninoy had visions of the Filipino people rising up to

118 overthrow any tyranny. He had pinned his hope on the Filipino’s love of

119 freedom. He had faith in the Filipino.

120Cory: Ninoy would regale the prison soldiers with stories of the Korean war.

121 Max Soliven kept teasing him that the soldiers might get to like him too

122 much. Sure enough, after 3 weeks, all the guards had been replaced.

123 When Ninoy was leaving for Boston, one of the soldiers whispered to him

124 the now immortal line: “Ninoy, hindi ka nag-iisa”. After the MIA tragedy,

125 we found a cactus plant with a yellow ribbon in his Bonifacio cell.

126 Like all of us, it was waiting for Ninoy.

127Soc Rodrigo: The crucifix I gave him has kept him company during his days of

128 solitary confinement. I’m proud that I knew Ninoy well, he was a

129 good man.

130Diokno : Once, the soldiers blindfolded us and took us for a helicopter ride. We

131 Didn’t know where we were heading. In our new destination, Ninoy

132 occupied the room next to mine. To assure each other that we were still

133 alive, I would sing Bayang Magiliw and Ninoy would sing Bayan Ko.

134Soliven : I was released after seventy days, but Ninoy stayed behind in maximum

135 security for 7 years and 8 months. When he was allowed to go home

136 for Christmas leave, we hugged each other and he said: “Max, how right

137 you were. I thought I would be out in 6 months because the people

138 would demand my freedom...”

71

139Ninoy: Prison has been good for me. I have time think, to read, to formulate my

140 ideology, to find God. What is ambition? It’s nothing. I have put all

141 ambition away. All we must fight for is for our people to be happy and to

142 be free.

143Newscaster: Former Senator Benigno Aquino, Jr. left for the United States for a

144 needed triple bi-pass heart surgery. Aquino said that he will return

145 after the operation.

146First Lady : As Minister of Human Settlements, I had urged Ninoy Aquino to

147 leave for the United States because his life is in danger. We do not

148 have the sophisticated machinery needed for a heart operation here

149 in the Philippines.

150Marcos: Since Aquino is a prisoner here in the Philippines, we have allowed him

151 to go to the United States only with the promise of his coming back.

152Kris Aquino : It was in Boston where I really got to know my Dad. He would

153 line up for 2 hours to watch a movie with me. I would help him

154 care for his dogs. My father liked my guts because I take after him,

155 I like being with people. He was especially proud of me when I did

156 the LABAN campaign for him years ago.

157Cory: The family got closer in Boston, but Ninoy always yearned to come

158 home. He wanted to be back home, to fight, even if it would eventually

159 mean being alone in his Bonifacio cell.

160N.Olivares: I first met Ninoy in New York and it was then when he told me that

161 he was coming home. I told him he was insane, he was safe out there.

162 Back here he would either be in jail or face the firing squad. He

163 smiled and said something I would never forget: “My colleagues in

164 Harvard also think I'm afflicted with a touch of madness when I told

165 them I was bent on coming home. But I have to come home. I have

166 been away too long. It’s time to be home with our people and suffer

167 with them. And if you remember, when I left home, I promised to

168 return. I’ll be keeping that promise. But I’m coming home through

169 the front door, not the back door. You know, I never asked for

72

170 political asylum because I always knew my home is the Philippines.

171Doy: Ninoy said he is coming home.

172Eva Kalaw: We organized a congregation that would meet him at the airport.

173 Some buses coming from the provinces were stopped by soldiers at

174 certain checkpoints in Manila. Everyone was looking forward to

175 seeing Ninoy.

176First Lady : Ninoy told me of his plans to come home. I discouraged him for fear

177 of his life. Our intelligence told us of plans to assassinate him.

178 Marcos: Aquino should postpone coming home. It is not safe, there are many

179 plots to kill him. He should at least wait until we can provide

180 maximum security.

181Ninoy: Kamatayan lamang ang makapipigil sa akin.

182N.Olivares: I looked at his ashen face, the bullet wound and the blood all over

183 his shirt. That was the last time I saw Ninoy, but I shall remember

184 him as a man who loved his country and his people, more than his

185 life.

186Cardinal Sin : My friends, in our grief over the passing of Ninoy, let us not blind

187 ourselves to the fact that he came, not in the spirit of confrontation,

188 but in that of reconciliation. As we mourn his death, let us

189 remember that he left us a priceless legacy, the legacy of working,

190 with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our strength,

191 for revolution of love.

192Cory: I wish to thank all the Filipino men and women, young and old, who have

193 demonstrated to me, my children, to Ninoy’s mother and to his family, that

194 Ninoy did not die in vain. Ninoy who loved you, the Filipino people, is

195 now loved by you in return.

196Crowd: Ituloy ang laban ni Ninoy. Ituloy ang laban ni Ninoy!

197Marcos: The Batasan cannot make Aquino a national hero, the people are the

198 ones to decide that. The trouble with the opposition is they think two

199 million people can actually represent fifty-three million Filipinos.

200lawyer: A hero is made by the choice of the people shown through the act of

73

201 Congress and with the approval of the Highest Executive of the Land.

202businessman: Only time can decide if Ninoy will be a national hero. It is stupid

203 to fight for it now, it causes too much conflict.

204vendor : Mas marami pa tayong dapat ipaglaban. Mas importante ang kakainin

205 ng pamilya ko ngayong gabi, o kaya ang ibabayad kong buwis o kung

206 magkano ang kita ko bukas. Ihuli na natin ang paglaban para kay

207 Ninoy, kung magiging bayani siya o hindi. Makapaghihintay naman

208 ang patay, di ba? Ang gutom hindi.

209jeepney driver: Si Ninoy, mabuti siya. Namatay siya para sa atin. Siya ang

210 ating bagong bayani.

211taxi driver : Paano natin malalaman kung pareho lang sila ni Marcos. Kung

212 naging Presidente rin yan, sigurado, sa kupit rin ang hulog.

213salesgirl: Si Ninoy, magaling lang ang timing ng pagkadating niya. Pero hindi

214 siya karapat-dapat maging bayani. At ang mga rallies na ginagawa sa

215 pangalan niya, magulo!

216T. Valencia: I am beginning to think that these student demonstrators have

217 nothing better to do than to chant meaningless slogans.

218crowd: (singing) How much is that doggie in the window? Bow wow!

219 How much is that doggie for sale? Bow wow

220student: We all know Ninoy might have been a good replacement to Marcos.

221 But just because his death unified the Filipino people, it doesn’t

222 necessarily make him a hero.

223Henares: The move to proclaim Ninoy as national hero can’t prosper if Marcos

224 objects. But as a political weapon, that’s different! It gets Marcos off-

225 balance.

226teacher: Madaling abutin ang pagka-bayani ni Ninoy. Sa pagkamatay niya,

227 marami sa amin ang nagising.

228Soliven : It would be the greatest honor for people to regard Ninoy as an

229 attainable hero. He never wanted to be unreachable, Ninoy was

230 'maka-tao'.

231businessman: I never wanted to sacrifice my stability, but when Ninoy gave up

74

232 his life -- I started marching on the streets.

233Metro aide: Hindi lahat ng namamatay para sa bayan ay dapat maging bayani.

234Ninoy: I return voluntarily, armed only with a clear conscience and fortified in

235 faith that in the end, justice will emerge triumphant.

236Newscaster: First Lady and Minister of Human Settlements took the witness

237 stand yesterday. She denied reports that she had anything to do

238 with the Aquino assassination.

239First Lady : (crying) I have tried to save Ninoy’s life twice. My sending him to

240 the United States for a heart operation was a humanitarian gesture on

241 my part. I would never try to kill anyone. I was the victim of an

242 assassin. I still have the emotional and physical scars.

243Agrava, & others: Happy birthday to you, happy brthday....

244Cardinal Sin: “Greater love no man has than that he should lay his life for his

245 friend.” This was what Ninoy did on this tragic day in our history.

246 He died because he was our friend.

247First Lady : I return from exile and to an uncertain future with only determination

248 and faith to offer-- faith in our people and faith in God.

249F.Aguilar : (singing) Pilipinas kong minumutya Pugad ng luha ko’t dalita Aking

250 Adhika Makita kang sakdal laya.

251MUSIC: ST1: FADE UP, HOLD FOR 10 SECS,THEN FADE UNDER FOR

252ANNCR: Is Ninoy a national hero?-- or is he not? This is the question that haunts

253 The consciousness of this generation. The answer comes from the

254 mouths of the people who participated in the drama of the past year.

255 We hear the testiments of the living witnesses of this most unusual time

256 in our history. But witnesses cannot be a judge. “The final judgment

257 of any age must properly belong to the historian from the safe distance

258 of decades hence when all facts and forces, all persons and events may

259 be entered on both sides of the ledger, and evaluated with detachment

260 and dispassion.” What will the verdict be on Senator Benigno Aquino,

261 Jr.?(PAUSE) Everyone dies at one time or another. But to die in such a

262 way as to give meaning to life is a privilege reserved to a very few:

75

263 Lincoln, Gandhi, Rizal, Christ. It is a privilege that has become a

264 historical necessity. (PAUSE) Is Ninoy’s death a historical necessity?

265 Will Ninoy’s death inspire and win the battle that Ninoy lost in his

266 lifetime? Is he our national hero?

267MUSIC: ST1, FADE UP, THEN CROSSFADE WITH

268MUSIC: ST2, FADE UP THEN FADE UNDER FOR

269ANNCR: The answer may be in the words of one who mourned him.

270 BIZ: (CASSETTE) Interview with Henares: “he best instincts of man have

271 always been virtue over victory and sacrifice over success, and have

272 always idealized the Christlike figure who consummates by his tragic

273 failure the redemption of his people. When at his appointed hour,

274 Ninoy Aquino died, we felt that all of us died with him. But we also

275 felt that by his death, we were born anew."

276MUSIC:ST2, FADE UP AND OUT FOR

277ANNCR: The answer my countrymen, is in your hands.

278MUSIC: THEME FADE UP, ESTABLISH, THEN FADE OUT

Dear Amy,

In this documentary, I have attempted to have a compendium of voices that are

heard on TV, radio and in public forums. The format is a series of spliced tapes one after

another, some voices familiar like that of Marcos and various voices of the opposition...

and voices of ordinary men and women who were involved in the passions of our times.

The script is a collection of many voices with the continuity of a historical drama.

University of the Philippines, 1985

76

THE ECONOMY AND THE NATION

I. Nationalist Revolution: Nationalism the greatest historic force at work

There are historical forces at work in the world today that are changing our world

in unexpected ways. Among these is Nationalism, the same force that untied the yoke of

Western Imperialism after World War II, liberating the nations of Asia and Africa. It was

not the Imperialism of the United States that dissolved the Soviet Union and the

Communist World and the military dictators of the Third World – it was the Nationalism

of the oppressed peoples. It was not Communism that beat the United States in its

Vietnam War, it was the Nationalism of the Vietnamese. It was not the Imperialism of

the Western Powers or the Communism of Mao Zedong, but the Nationalism of its own

people that impelled China to come out of its shell and make its presence felt in the

world. And it will be Nationalism that will spell the end of the borderless Global

Economy as the realization sinks in that, under the WTO, the rich get richer and the poor

gets poorer. The Age of Nation-State that came out of the Napoleonic Wars and the two

World Wars is again at hand.

It is Nationalism that impels the United States to be the greatest military power in

history, and to embark on a unilateral course to get what it wants, to the consternation of

the rest of the world. While the USA concerns itself with the threat of Terrorism, China

is gaining friends among the nations of Southeast Asia by dealing with their primary

concerns of poverty and underdevelopment. The Asian Summit in Kuala Lumpur where

the USA was pointedly not invited, is a portent of things to come.

Arthur Schlesinger Jr. in his new book, “Bitter Heritage,” postulates that the

basic policy followed by the USA to contain China is flawed. He wrote in effect, that the

USA spent so much to destroy Vietnam because Americans thought Vietnam will be an

instrument of Chinese expansionism, only to find out after their defeat, that Vietnam

hates China more than than the USA does. As result, the Japanese, the Taiwanese and

the Americans are pouring billion of dollars to help Vietnam develop into a new

Economic Tiger. It is Vietnamese Nationalism that is its strength, not its Communism.

77

Unlike the Philippines, Vietnam has achieved a economic growth of 9% per

annum and reduced poverty by half over that last ten years, while refusing the help of the

IMF and refusing to join the WTO. In contrast, the US puppet regime in the Philippines,

under the control of the IMF and the WTO is collapsing. Losing the Philippines means to

the USA, losing the entire Southeast Asia. Schlesinger wrote that the policy of the

United States to contain the Communists with a string of military bases and an array of

puppet regimes dependent on the USA, is an utter failure. Being dependent, the

Philippines cannot be depended upon. He said that the USA must reverse its policy, and

surround China with nations like Vietnam, with REVOLUTIONARY NATIONALISTIC

governments, even if they happen to be communistic. Like Singapore, which, though

composed of 90% Chinese, abhors the possibility of Chinese domination.

This is the thinking that is slowly invading the inner sanctums of the US Central

Intelligence Agency (CIA). And another shift in thinking has occurred. The corrosive

force is no longer Corruption, which is endemic in most societies, even in the most

progressive and advanced. The real villain is not Corruption, it is TREASON, the only

factor that differentiates our leaders from the leaders of our neighbors, a Treason that is a

direct consequence of our lingering Colonial Mentality, the kind of treason that infects

Bernie Villegas and Jesus Estanislao of the Opus Dei, the kind that sells us out to the

Americans and the IMF.

In the Philippines as in other third world countries, the only group that is capable

of mounting a real revolution is not the Middle Class of Edsa (which is not a revolution

but a restoration), but a group of young officers willing to gamble with their lives.

II. Nationalist Revolution: The CIA needs Nationalists to contain China

The Young Officers Organization, New Generation (YOUng) was initially

encouraged by the CIA as part of its efforts to divide and conquer the Armed Forces, in

the same way it encourages the proliferation of political parties to keep the Filipino

people pregnant, barefooted and dependent on American largesse. Today the YOUng

and Magdalo factions loom as the only ones, in the opinion of the CIA, capable of

mounting a real Nationalist Revolution, comparable to that of Vietnam, that can be

depended upon to contain Chinese Expansionism. The CIA has given up on the generals

78

of this country, their traditional allies, because they are too old, corrupt, lazy,

incompetent, cowardly, treasonous and without any influence over the ordinary soldiers

in the field. It is even so in other countries where colonels like Moummar Kadaffi, Abdul

Nasser, Suharto and Gringo Honasan are the only officers capable of mounting a coup

d’etat.

Actually the Chinese people like Americans, more than the Americans like the

Chinese. Many impoverished Chinese migrated to the USA in the late 1800s to help

build the Union Pacific railroad. Chinese libertarians, like Sun Yat Sen, grew up with

American missionaries. Many Chinese looked to US universities to give them a modern

education. But Americans, Teutons like the British the Germans and the Dutch, have a

history of prejudice against the colored races, and somehow the Americans look upon the

Chinese as they once looked upon the Japanese, as the Yellow Peril. Without the long-

term perspective of a history-weary nation, with its penchant for simple and instant

solutions to age-old problems, and with the kind of beetle brained leaders like Georgy

Bush, the USA is obsessed with the imperative of containing Chinese Expansionism.

It is this obsession that will drive the USA now to support nationalistic

governments, even if militaristic, dictatorial and/or communistic, to contain a China and

an India who are destined to dominate the world by the second half of this century, in the

same way it used to support puppet governments dependent on American largess, even if

militaristic, dictatorial, and/or fascistic during the Cold War. On the other hand, a

resurgent China is expanding its influence, and looking forward to a Chinese dominated

conglomeration of nations that will eventually include Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore,

Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam and Myanmar, where enterprising Chinese

Businessmen control the economy and with it the political structure of the country.

Thus we may find in the Philippines a new version of a Cold War pitting the

American CIA, Nationalists like Alejandro Lichauco and the Young Officers Union,

against the diehard Communists, Chinese Intelligence Agents and the Chinese Chambers

of Commerce. This is no longer the 1950s. This is the New Millennium, and a new War.

Nationalist Alejandro Lichauco is a Harvard man through and through, educated

in the “real” undergraduate school of Harvard (graduates of the MBA and other

postgraduate students are regarded as “barbarians”) – with two degrees, Bachelor of Arts

79

in Political Science, and Bachelor of Laws, and considers himself a follower of the Larry

Henares/Salvador Araneta/Claro M. Recto school of thought in economic matters He

served as the Policy Director of the Philippine Chamber of Industries and the National

Economic Council when I headed those two organizations. He was elected delegate to

the 1971 Constitutional Convention, defied Marcos, and was incarcerated as a political

prisoner. He has written four books that focused on the historical connection between

American Imperialism and Filipino mass poverty, and is dismissed as one of marginal

influence in the national scene. He, the YOUng and the Magdalo will probably be

chosen as CIA’s own.

III. Nationalist Revolution: The Nationalist Agenda

It will be a strange partnership, the Nationalist Forces and the CIA. But it is a

partnership dictated by Imperatives. The CIA needs independent Nationalistic

governments to serve as buffer states between China and Southeast Asian countries

dominated by Chinese businessmen, that threaten to become an Economic Community

dominated by China. On the other hand, the Nationalist Forces need to be protected from

the kind of police and soldiery that now assassinate Bayan Muna members and journalists

as a knee jerk reaction to any social change. The Nationalist Forces are also

uncomfortable with alien influences by Chinese Businessman with ties to China, and

Filipinos with ties to the US Embassy, American Big Business and the IMF.

Alejandro Lichauco never ceases to remind us that in the 1950s, the Philippines

was poised to be the first Economic Tiger in Asia, with the highest GNP growth in Asia

of 9% per annum, with a foreign exchange rate of P2 to one US dollar, and no foreign

debt to speak of. What happened to frustrate our economic development is a story of

treason, corruption and betrayal that Lichauco outlines in his latest book “Hunger

Corruption and Betrayal” – moving the Senate of Jovito Salonga, Aquilino Pimentel,

Erap Estrada, and Tito Guingona to accuse Jose Cuisia and Jesus Estanislao (of Opus

Dei) and other officials of “consummated treason” by delivering our economy to the

tender mercies of the IMF.

But suppose a CIA sponsored coup d’etat succeeds in putting the Nationalist

Forces in a position of absolute power, what may be the Nationalist Agenda???

80

• Suspend the Constitution for ten years, and rule by decree.

• Repudiate all foreign debts, as the British, Americans, Russians, Chinese did.

• No dual citizenships will be recognized, no colonial double allegiance tolerated.

• Economic Sabotage, Treason, and Corruption will be deemed capital crimes.

• Abolish the Minimum Wage Law, 40-hour week and the right to strike.

• Adopt Singapore’s Internal Security Act to jail subversives indefinitely.

• Import and Exchange Controls will be re-imposed.

• Install a “Make Work” program like Roosevelt’s New Deal, to develop an internal

market producing for itself and force feed industrialization (based on import

substitution and production of capital goods); modernization of agriculture (“If we

cannot grow our own food, we deserve to starve”); and concentrating on

supplying the people’s basic needs, as per Mahatma Gandhi’s advice (“Produce

your needs and postpone your wants. Your needs make you vulnerable enough

without the added weight of unneeded wants.”)

The amenities of living rest upon human care and human labor. There is something

terribly wrong in the Philippines, when at the time of great unemployment, we cannot

clean and protect our parks, staff our libraries and museums, collect garbage and protect

the peaceable from the ravages of a violent minority. Nor produce what is needed to live

decently. To institutionalize unemployment as a concession to “free market forces,” as

the WTO demands we do, is cruel and stupid. Unemployed people produce nothing.

They are supported by those who are employed. Put to work, they will produce

something and cost less. 85 million people, producing goods for each other, without the

competition of advanced nations, will produce an internal market and an industrial

capability that will eventually allow us to compete with the rest of the world on even

terms. To do this requires national discipline, economic protectionism, and nationalism.

Feb. 15-17, 2006, DWBR-fm

Supply side horse-shit for the birds!

IMF economic policy as followed by the NEDA works on the theory that if the

rich get richer, the wealth will trickle down to the poor. This is the same “supply side”

economics being followed by the Reagan Administration in the United States.

81

Economist John Galbraith once described the “trickle down” approach as

tantamount to “horse and birds,” If you feed the horse enough oats, some of oats will

show up in the horse-shit for the birds!

President Cory’s economic advisers -- presumably Sec. Solita Monsod, Jobo

Fernandez, Vicente Jayme, Cesar Buenaventura -- every time Cory wants a decrease in

prices of petroleum products, insist on a decrease not only on gasoline (now less 14%),

and cooking gas (12.5%) which are used directly by the consumers, but also a BIGGER

decrease for diesel fuel (21%) used by bus companies, and fuel oil (17.7%) used by

factories.

The customer gets a small price decrease at the gas station, but not in bus fare and

consumer goods. A 17.7 percent decrease in fuel oil prices still means zero decrease in

consumer prices, and an increase in the income of the rich. Inspite of Monsod insisting

on an inevitable trickle-down, the rich just get richer, and the poor poorer.

* * *

From 1968 to 1985, the IMF policy has resulted in an income tax restructuring

that, adjusting for inflation, resulted in the increase of taxes for the poor (52.2 percent),

an increase of taxes for the middle class (53.3 percent), and a DECREASE of taxes for

the very rich (minus 25.5 percent).

Higher sales taxes on consumption goods are taking a larger slice of the poor’s

income than of the rich.

While the IMF’s import liberalization allows the rich to have their golf balls,

jewelries, and expensive clothes from the boutiques of New York and Paris, the dollar

exchange rate goes down steadily, assuring a continuous across-the-board cut in the

poor’s standard of living.

The IMF policy of export oriented agriculture, and small-scale low-wage labor-

intensive industries, “to attract foreign investment,” are all part of the supply side

economics that Monsod’s NEDA is compelled to pursue.

* * *

Today the lowest 20 percent of the population contribute only two percent of the

GNP. And 90 percent of the farm population are below the poverty line.

82

Winnie says that our GNP has increased, but the improvement only shows up in

the balance sheets of the rich and the multinationals, and the poor get progressively

poorer. The horses of Makati are full of oats, but there is not enough oats in the horse-

shit for poor birds in the rest of the nation.

Presidents Jimmy Carter of the Trilateral Commission and Ronald Reagan of the

Republican Party, unduly influenced by the rich and the conservative in the USA,

followed the same “supply side, trickle down” policy with the tax cuts in 1978 and 1981-

84.

In 1977, the wealthiest one percent had 9.2 percent of the total US income and

paid 15.8 percent of total taxes. In 1988, they had 12.5 percent of all income, and 16.2

percent of total taxes. In other words, their income went up by 36 percent, while their

taxes increased by just 4 percent.

In 1977, the wealthiest one percent had an average income of $307,174 in

constant inflation-adjusted dollars; in 1988, it soared to $429,845. None of the wealth

trickled down, the bottom 80 percent not only lost income, they paid higher payroll taxes.

* * *

Vice President George Bush who will probably be the next US President,

proposes another walk on the supply side with his proposal to cut capital gains tax from

the maximum of 28 percent to 15 percent, which will give the wealthiest one percent an

average yearly tax cut of $30,000.

No wonder Harvard economist Laurence Summers calls the Bush economic

program: deja-voodoo (a pun on deja vous, which means By God, I’ve seen this before in

some nightmare). This is exactly what the Monsod and IMF economic program is. Only

we are not as rich as the Americans, so such program pushes the majority of the people to

the level that cannot sustain life and dignity. It is a cruel and treacherous betrayal of the

Filipino nation.

This is a good thing to know during the current talks with the IMF representatives

who are pushing for the usual restrictive conditionalities of expanded import

liberalization, more retrogressive taxes on the shoulders of the poor, an export-oriented

plantation economy, low-wage labor-intensive small-scale industries, tight credit,

devaluation, wage freeze and priority for foreign debtors ahead of national survival.

83

The oats are for the rich and the foreign, the horse-shit is for the Filipino people.

November 9, 1988

Ateneo Survey is a media blitz phoney

THE Ateneo Weather Station survey is a big phoney, a media blitz calculated to

promote the interest of the USA at the expense of the Filipino people.

To begin with, the survey was financed by Ford Foundation known to be a

conduit for the CIA. This is not the first time the Ateneo collaborated with American

neanderthals. The Institute of Philippine Culture of Father Dennis Lynch SJ, which

supervised some of its surveys, was found to have received $500,000 worth of grants

from the US Department of Defense through the Office of Naval Research.

Secondly, it asked leading questions designed to elicit answers favorable to

American interest.

Thirdly, it specifically denigrated the Senate which has opposed the bases

agreement on constitutional grounds; denigrated both the Senate and the House which are

the only democratic bastions against a pro-American clerico-fascist technocracy; boosted

Fidel Ramos and the military at the expense of Cory and her civilian government; and

above all, moved to pave the way for the retention of the US military bases.

* * *

In its multiple choice questions, the Ateneo survey lists the reasons why one

should be dissatisfied with the Senate’s performance, all couched in all-knowing

intimations of rascality:

• Has not accomplished much; Senators are always travelling rather than working;

always on recess.

• Some Senators are fighting the President or the Government.

• All of them are thieves; graft and corruption are not checked.

On the other hand, the survey lists the reasons why one should be satisfied with

the Senate’s performance, all tepid and non-committal, couched in terms that sound

sarcastic and mocking:

• Attends to people’s needs or complaints; trying to improve the life of the people.

84

• Has helped restore our freedoms, respect for Constitution, maintains

independence of law making body.

• Cooperates with the President.

Those are the leading questions by which the Ateneo directs our mind to its

purposes. Looking at them, the reaction of people is automatically to condemn the

Senate for the frustrations of their lives.

* * *

In the same way, in framing the questions about the presence of the US military

bases, arguments in favor of retention are planted in our minds with such statements as:

• Should be retained until 1991, and thereafter removed if benefits offered by the

US are not increased.

• Should be retained beyond 1991 because present set-up provides huge benefits to

the Philippines from the US.

As Senator Letty Ramos Shahani complains, “the bias of the questions is towards

the economic implications of the bases; there is no mention of sovereignty or nationhood;

neither is there an awareness that the bases could be used for economic development.”

A simple yes or no does not suffice to answer the question, if the answer is

dependent on unspecified conditions. Many may want the bases to be retained if the

Americans pay adequate compensation for the bases. But how much is adequate?

$100,000? $100 million? $500 million? P1 billion? $5 billion? $10 billion?

What is our threshold of pain, the point at which we will risk nuclear annihilation

and imperial oppression, for sheer survival. The Ateneo does not want or care to know.

As far as the Ateneo Social Weather Station is concerned, you are in favor of the bases

whether you ask for $1 extra benefit or $10 billion.

* * *

Senator Letty says that if we framed the questions differently, the answers would

have been different, such as these for instance:

• Should not be retained beyond 1996 (or another alternative period) because the

bases serve as magnets to nuclear attacks.

• Should not be retained beyond 1996 (or another alternative period) because the

existence of such bases detract from our becoming a self-reliant nation and

85

diminishes our capacity to compete with our neighbors such as Singapore,

Indonesia, or Taiwan.

There is a statistical methodology involved here: how the sample size of 1,200

was selected, its stratification and method of random selection, the degree of significance

and the deviation from the norm, as well as the idiotic questions propounded.

There is the Heisenberg Principle here, the theory that the public opinion poll has

a band-wagon effect on the public’s mind, and will reinforce whatever latent opinion for

the retention of the bases the Americans want to prevail.

No doubt about it, the Ateneo survey is a media blitz phoney designed to

substitute the mature judgment of our leaders with the off-the-cuff snap judgment of the

uninformed, unconcerned and uninvolved, as the final arbiter of our nation’s destiny.

Dung.

December 1, 1988

We got rhythm, Winnie and I!

A TV panel including Sec. Winnie Monsod and a Catholic bishop discussed

Population Control, and the need to dampen our propensity to increase and multiply in

order raise our standard of living. A World Bank report said that even if we achieve our

development goal of 6.5 percent growth per year, our unemployment problem will be

worse by the end of the century.

They discussed the methods of birth control: artificial (condoms, pills, IUDs,

ligation, vasectomy) and the natural rhythm method. Preferred by Winnie, member of the

Christian Family Movement, is the rhythm method. Me too, primarily because it has no

side effects, no physical intervention that detracts from the fun of sex, and because

dammit, I want more children. Rhythm is the most unreliable method of birth control, so

there.

The bishop said that artificial methods, like abortion, are diabolical instruments of

murder, sort of like having the gas ovens of Auschwitz and Dachau right inside the

womb.

* * *

86

Ex NEDA Secretary Placido “Cidito” Mapa Jr. who is an Opus Dei felt the same

way. He accused the USAID and the Americans of ulterior motives: dumping their

surplus production of condoms and IUDs into the Third World, and trying to defuse the

population explosion of the colored peoples so as to preserve the hegemony of the white

man.

The USAID people, not being used to any back-talk from the little brown

brothers, were enraged. They conducted a campaign among Marcos and the Batasan to

get Cidito off their backs. But Cidito did a MacArthur on them.

You remember in the Korean War, while the UN forces were being pushed to the

sea by the Chinese hordes, Dugout Dog went around and landed behind their backs at

Inchon, split the Chinese army and drove them back to the Yalu River.

Well, while the USAID was talking to Marcos and the Batasan, Cidito Mapa

landed behind their backs at Washington DC, and marshaled his pro-Life forces among

the Congressmen, and cut the foreign aid budget of the Philippines.

We admire our kautod Cidito for standing up to the Americans. And we disagree

with those accuse him of deliberately encouraging population growth as part of the

membership drive of the Opus Dei and the Catholic Church.

* * *

I resent the campaign to blame the Church for our high birth rate. The Philippines

which is 83 percent Catholic, has a birth rate (BR) of 3.1 percent and population growth

(PG) of 2.4 percent -- the highest in the world.

So what? Poland (95 percent Catholic) has a BR of 1.9 percent, a PG of 0.9

percent; Spain, 1.1 percent BR, 0.3 percent PG; Italy, 1.0 percent BR, 0 percent PG;

France, 1.4 percent BR, 0.4 percent PG; Austria (85 percent Catholic), 1.2 percent BR, -

0.1 percent PG -- all Catholic nations with birth rates among the lowest in the world.

Surveys show that in the USA and elsewhere, Catholics say “the Pope has no

business peeping into our bedrooms,” or “Them that don’t should not advise them that

do, on how to do it.” In the USA, over 90 percent of all the Catholics use pills and

condoms.

87

On the other hand, many non-Catholic countries have high birth rates and

population growth too: Malaysia, 2.9 percent BR, 2.2 percent PG; Indonesia, 3.07 percent

BR, 1.7 percent PG; Egypt, 4.0 percent BR, 2.9 percent PG.

* * *

Why do we have high birth rates?

In the Philippines, a man enters the labor force with two obligations: he must

support his children till they can fend for themselves; he must support his parents until

they die. When he can no longer work, he has no savings to tide him over old age. He

has to depend on his own children to support him. The more children he has, the more

secure he feels. It stands to reason then that a Filipino feels the need to have as

MANY children as possible, whether he is Catholic or not.

On the other hand, the American begins his productive life with only one

obligation: to support his children up to the age of 18 or so. Most Americans have to

work their way through college, because their parents feel no obligation to subsidize their

education after high school.

The American takes no responsibility for his parents who are expected to have

savings of their own to sustain them through old folks’ home and death. With so few

obligations, every American can save for his old age. The fewer children he has, the

more money he saves. It stands to reason then that American feels the need to have

as FEW children as possible, whether he is a Catholic or not.

If Winnie wants a lower birth rate, the only thing to do is to break the pattern. Let

the government take care of the old folks as they do in the USA and elsewhere, and

relieve the youth from the obligation to support the aged. Thus freed from this cycle, our

laborers have less children to support them when they are old.

December3, 1988

Chinese have no grammar, so why do we?

IN the Ateneo of my youth, we were forbidden to speak Tagalog or any

vernacular, the theory being we can learn our own dialect at home, but English is what

we are supposed to learn in school. So I learned Pangalatok and Ilonggo, but not enough

Tagalog to utter a decent curse other than the usual epithet against motherhood.

88

I resented being a nationalist who can’t speak Pilipino, so I got a guru to teach

me. After a week, I quit. I had enough trouble with purist poppycock substituting

salumpuwit for silya and salipawpaw for eroplano. But the grammar was contrived to

mush the brain and blow the mind.

Why do I have to learn Tagalog grammar? Why can’t I learn how to speak like a

child does? No, my guru said, I can’t learn Tagalog without learning its grammar.

Really now. The Chinese language has no grammar at all. The oldest surviving

language, existing 5,000 years, it spawned the first government civil service in the world;

developed gunpowder, paper, rockets, printing press; conducted business in all corners of

the known world; gave birth to literature and poetry -- while the white men of Europe still

lived in caves and painted themselves blue.

* * *

In Chinese, there are:

• No tenses (I came, I come, I will come, I have come, I will have come). Notice

the way the Chinese speak Tagalog: Ako bigay pera, with no indication whether it

is in the present, past or future, unless modified by another phrase. Ako bigay pera

ngayon (present); Ako bigay pera bukas (future); Ako bigay pera kanina pa (past).

• No conjugation of verbs (amo, amas, ama, amamos, amais, aman -- I love, you

love, he loves, we love, you love, they love). Unlike in Spanish where the subject

is built into the verb, Chinese is more like English, with ako, ikaw, siya modifying

a common verb.

• No declension of nouns and pronouns (ego, mei, mihi, me, me -- I, my, to me, me,

by me). Latin has six cases for each noun: a nominative (subject of a sentence),

genitive (like the English possessive), dative (indirect object), accusative (direct

object), vocative (direct address like Gago!), and ablative (denoting relations

expressed by from, by, with, in, or of). English has only the subject, object, and

an occasional possessive. Chinese has none at all.

• No genders (hic, haec, hoc -- this man, this woman, this object). Latin and

Spanish have genders indicated in their nouns and adjectives. For the masculine

gender, Latin has the suffix –us, as in Maximus, and Spanish had the suffix –o, as

in Maximo; and for both, the feminine gender has the suffix –a, as in Maxima.

89

• No alphabet (abcdefghi...), the Chinese use pictographs like Egyptian

hieroglyphics, which denote not sounds but ideas.

* * *

Most alphabetized languages like our English and Filipino written in horizontal

lines, sideways from left to right, the lines arranged from top to bottom. Our writing is

phonetic, that is, words represent sounds.

Chinese characters are written in vertical lines from top to bottom, the lines

arranged from right towards the left. And they consist of pictographs, that is, they

represent not sounds, but complete ideas.

One Chinese character, square in shape with a dot in the middle, represents the

sun. The character representing mouth, actually looks like a mouth. To be literate in

Chinese, one must know 2,000 of these characters.

Each of these characters have different sounds in different parts of China. There

are many dialects in China but only one written language. In Peking, they speak

Mandarin, the official spoken language in China. In Taiwan and the Philippines, the

Chinese speak Fokien, because most Chinese there came from the province of Fokien. In

Hong Kong and Singapore, the Chinese speak Cantonese, because their ancestors came

from Canton province.

There is no R sound in Chinese, as there are no L sound in Japanese. The

Japanese written language was originally adopted from the Chinese, but the Japanese

have another way of writing with an alphabet called katakana, the better to depict foreign

words and Western names.

In China, Western names are contrived from characters with sounds close to the

sound of the name. The name Larry Henares, for instance, is done with six characters: La

Li E Na Le Si.

The Chinese language sounds musical, like the twittering of birds, not guttural

like Dutch and German, or seductive like the Spanish, Italian and the French.

To his sweetheart, a Chinese says Gua Ai Ni; to a foreigner, Kao Si E; to an

enemy, Say In Niya; and to you, dear reader, this morning, Ho Cha Khee.

Without grammar we can develop our National Language.

December 7, 1988

90

Jose Rizal and Flips of little faith

DECEMBER 30 is the time to reflect upon the life of our national hero Dr. Jose

Rizal who 92 years ago today, at the age of 35, was executed on the field of

Bagumbayan, now Luneta.

He was a giant of a man, the like of which the human race has yet to reproduce, a

genius in all fields of both the arts and sciences.

He was a painter, a cartoonist, a sculptor, a poet and a novelist, a linguist

proficient in Spanish, English, German, French, Tagalog, Bisaya, Pampango and

Pangalatok. He was also an engineer who built a water system, a botanist with several

flora named after him, a doctor of medicine, an ophthalmologist, a political thinker, a

futurist.

He was not only an intellectual, he was also an athlete. He was a good boxer and

a expert fencer, a lover of women, a propagandist, a leader of men, a nationalist, a hero

and a martyr.

Compared to Rizal, George Washington and Napoleon Bonaparte were tin

soldiers, Mao Tse-tung and Lenin intellectual malcontents and political hacks, King

Henry VIII a fornicator.

Jose Rizal was a whole man, excellent in all endeavors, the best of his race and of

his species. But his crowning glory was his death, like that of Jesus Christ, a glorious

transfiguration of tragic failure into the redemption of his people.

When he died in that bleak December morn, we Filipinos felt we all died with

him; but we also felt that by his death we were born anew, as one nation and one people.

* * *

Unfortunately the race that produced Jose Rizal also produced Kinik Bernas,

Bernie Villegas, Fortunato U. Abat, Mary Concepcion Bautista, and Rolando Abadilla.

It also produced idiots who say that I am ungrateful for my American education at

MIT. Morons also said the same of Jose Rizal, accusing him of ingratitude for the

Spanish education he acquired in Madrid. Rizal answered angrily:

“If they take us for ingrates, we reply to them face to face that if in exchange for

the education they give, they require from us that we foreswear the truth and the voice of

91

our conscience -- that we suppress our sense of justice in order to sacrifice to their

opulent interests, the interests of our native country, our fellowmen and our brothers --

then we curse and repudiate their education, and let them never expect from us the least

measure of gratitude!”

Me, I am not thankful at all for my excellent MIT education, not to the likes of

Kulas Platypus, Richard Nixon, John Dillinger and Al Capone. It needs brains to get

through MIT, and six wild horses cannot drag Kulas and his friends through one semester

of Differential Equations in good old Boston Tech. So don’t give me that dung about

being “grateful” to these imbeciles.

* * *

A race that produced Jose Rizal has a higher destiny than being lapdogs of

American imperialism. A race that produced Claro M. Recto who had a perfect grade in

all his subjects, graduating MAXIMA cum laude (not just Summa, the highest, but

Maxima, the highest possible) in all three school courses, then became our greatest

nationalist -- surely such a race can do better than be an obturator to the American

sphincter ani.

The torch of civilization has been passed from mother to son, from colonizer to

colonized, moving ever westward -- from the magnificence of Egypt, to the glory that

was Greece, to the grandeur that was Rome, to all Europe till it stopped at the Atlantic

seaboard. Then the torch was carried across the ocean to the New World by two great

colonial powers: Spain and Great Britain.

Spain went to South America, thence to the Philippines, its only colony in the Far

East. Great Britain handed the torch to the USA in North America, who is passing it on

to its only colony, the Philippines.

* * *

Two Roads of Destiny bring the torch to our Philippines, the only Christian nation

in Asia, the only English speaking country where English has become the universal

language, the nation who wrought the first nationalist revolution, the first democratic

republic, and the first peaceful revolution in this part of the world.

The Philippines stands astride the largest continental shelf in the world, from the

Spratleys to Mindanao Deep. Our islands are the tips of mountains overlooking shallow

92

valleys where the food and resources of the future will come forth -- from undersea

farms, mines and oil rigs, and grazing areas of domesticated fishes.

In Europe they have the North Sea Shelf, too small, too cold; in the Americas,

nothing there except the Texas and Mexican Gulf, too small.

Do you have any doubt, you Flips of little faith, that ours will be the greatest

nation on the face of the earth in the next century??

December 30, 1988

Snafus: info only as good as sources

FLAVIO MA. GUERRERO wrote in to say that even before it was suggested in

my column dated Oct. 28 (Lost heritage diminishes our humanity), “there is in our

beloved Philippines a radio station that is exclusively devoted to playing the classics.

Tune in on Station dzFE-fm, 98.7 megahertzz on your dial, from 7 am to 12 noon, and

from 6 pm to 12 midnight.”

Bravo, here is a station that needs our continued support. For that matter, we

should support the Cultural Center of the Philippines; the PR department is conducting

tours for schools. Hoy, mga baduy, get some culture into your diet, you don’t want to

grow up an ignoramus like... shucks, it’s Christmastime soon and I have to be charitable.

My appreciation for the letter of Maria Celine Veloso Pil, Associate Professor of

Music of Sta. Escolastica and PWU, for her clarifications on Chopin’'s music. She

should know better than I do that Chopin’s melodies “have been ‘troped’ by others with

words and music and immortalized in songs. Indeed the song hit “Till the End of Time,” I

assumed was taken from a Chopin piece used as a movie music entitled Heroic

Symphony which was certainly taken from Polonaise in A flat Major, as Maria Celine

says. I stand corrected.

But I disagree with Maria Celine that Chopin must be turning in his grave, he

must be jumping with joy at the thought that his music has survived the centuries in

forms the people enjoy most.

* * *

Bless those who strive to bring culture to the people. A few years ago a group

made up of director Leo Rialp, script-writer Joey Reyes, producers Girlie Rodas and

93

Ronnie Henares, artists Mitch Valdes and Nannette Inventor, set up a wing-ding of a

show called Tit for Tat, that ran for more than a hundred full-house performances in the

Cusco Bar, Ramada Hotel, with four versions and two years in the running. It was so

good that every show was a sell-out and standing room only. It ended only when the

actresses became too bored to continue.

How did they accomplish this never-to-be-repeated achievement? The producers

offered a first-class show at a very low cost on condition that the tickets be sold at an

affordable break-even P120 to P150 per person, and that the place make money only on

the food and drinks.

A year ago Ogie Salonga of Rumors Game Room successfully did the same with

a series of shows starring Regine Velasquez, Tux, and Gino Padilla.

This year Serafin Pua of Birdland (Timog corner Morato, QC) is doing the same

thing with a well-produced (with full orchestra) weekly show “Regine Velasquez -- of

Age” every Wednesday night (tonight) till December 3, for only P120 entrance fee. Also

after a a series of shows, Janno Gibbs is doing a repeat in the same place on November

18th.

* * *

Igno Ordoñez wrote to say that his letter criticizing me for “’crafting a column

with built-in insults’ was intended neither for print nor for offense.” Also that an

editorial flip omitting one word “the” gave an entirely different meaning to a sentence

that everyone interpreted to mean it is un-Filipino to throw brickbats. Also that his name

Igno is coined from a Christian appellation, Regino.

Igno ends: “A fellow coffee sipper once asked what makes Henares popular; I

answered read the Inquirer where there you are. Let’s all drink and make a jolly good

day!”

Let us indeed, Igno, and sorry for my “over-sensitive nerves.” It is not pleasant to

fight for the Filipino, and be rewarded with sneer, smear and the indignities of the loyalty

check, whispered lie and secret dossier.

* * *

94

Guillermo Miranda wrote that Herminigildo “Mennen” Tayag, not Diosdado

Macapagal, was valedictorian; and Fidel (it’s Igmidio!) Galang, not Mark Soliman, was

salutatorian in their high school class.

My compadre Dadong Macapagal in his biography recounts that from the 2nd

year up to the 4th month of the 4th year, he topped the class. In the 5th and decisive

month, a history instructor named Garcia depressed his grade from the usual 95 to 85

percent, while upping Mennen’s from the usual 85 to 95 percent.

Since “cumulative grading” gives the last grade the same weight as the previous

average, this dropped Dadong in the Official Roll from first to fourth. To Garcia, a close

colleague of Mennen’s aunt, he said, “You did me an injustice because as a poor boy, I

am powerless.” In the final grading, Dadong was second.

Unlike book authors, a columnist is subject to the tyranny of deadlines, and not all

info, even Jeannie’s, can be checked, especially if it is not essential to the article.

My information is only as good as my sources.

November 16, 1988

CIA doesn't go to church to pray

FOR centuries the Vatican has been a prime target of foreign spies.

Ecclesiastical, political and economic information are reported every day by thousands of

priests, bishops and papal nuncios from every corner of the globe to the Office of the

Papal Secretariat. Probably world’s greatest repositories of raw intelligence, it is a spy’s

gold mine.

General William “Wild Bill” Donovan, American master spy during World War

II, forged an alliance with Father Felix Morlion, founder of Pro Deo, a Catholic

intelligence network, which was moved from Lisbon to the New York and financed by

the USA to help the Allies win the war.

After the war, the CIA created a special unit just to tap the rich Vatican source of

information and monitor developments within the Holy See.

The CIA’s interest in the Catholic Church is not limited to intelligence gathering.

The Vatican, with its immense wealth and political influence, has in recent years become

a key force in global politics, particularly with Catholicism playing a pivotal role in

95

Poland, Latin America and the Philippines. Unknown to most of us, the Vatican though

outwardly apolitical, not only has a foreign office and a diplomatic corps, it also has a

foreign policy.

* * *

With Polish Communists embracing Catholicism, and Latin American and

Filipino Catholics embracing communism, the CIA took a great interest in bringing its

influence to bear on Vatican policy.

Since World War II, the CIA has:

• Penetrated the American section of Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM),

wealthiest and most powerful of Vatican orders. Members included CIA director

William Casey, CIA director John McCone, ex State Secretary Alexander Haig,

Lee Iacocca of Chrysler, Spyros Skouras the shipping magnate, Baron Hilton of

the hotel chain, ex Treasury Secretary William Simon. Through this organization

the CIA recruited ex Nazis like General Reinhard Gehlen and Klaus Barbie to

serve the CIA.

• Passed money to a large number of priests and bishops, some of whom became

CIA agents. One is Jesuit Father Roger Vekemans who was given $10 million,

funneled through CIA and USAID, to facilitate the election of Eduardo Frei. Frei

was a fascist Falangist reworked by the Jesuits as a progressive to defeat Salvador

Allende in Chile in 1964. In the Philippines, Jesuit Father Dennis Lynch received

$500,000 to finance Ateneo’s Institute of Philippine Culture.

• Collaborated with right-wing groups to harass outspoken prelates and political

reformers and support vigilante death squads, as documented by Penny Lernoux

in her book Cry of the People. The CIA also trained and financed police agencies

responsible for the torture and murder of bishops, priests and nuns.

In 1975, the Bolivian Interior Ministry -- in collaboration with the CIA -- drew up

a master plan dubbed the “Banzer Plan” -- after Hugo Banzer, Bolivia’s right-wing

dictator whose security adviser was Nazi butcher Klaus Barbie.

The plan -- adopted by ten Latin American governments and our own Marcos

martial law government -- involved “compiling dossiers on church activists; censoring

and shutting down progressive Catholic media outlets; planting Communist literature on

96

church premises; arresting or expelling foreign priests and nuns; funding groups engaged

in covert operations, from bombing churches to overthrowing governments.”

The success of the Banzer Plan was vividly demonstrated in San Salvador in the

later 70s when an anonymous group distributed a leaflet that read: “Be a Patriot! Kill a

Priest!” A series of clerical assassinations followed, culminating in the murder of the

progressive and popular Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero.

* * *

It is not surprising that here in the Philippines, the Bishop-Businessman’s

Conference (BBC) should be led by four ex-ConCom Commissioners who promoted

provisions on American Bases, American investments, and IMF colonial economic policy

in our constitution, with rightist views on vigilante death squads, liberation theology,

Basic Christian Communities, and American imperialism.

It is not surprising that the Ateneo Social Weather Station of Jesuit Father Joaquin

Bernas is helping form public opinion in favor of American Bases. And the CRC of the

Opus Dei and Bernie Villegas is doing the same to prepare the public for a CIA-

sponsored military junta government.

It is not surprising that priests and nuns are being accused of being communist

fronts and dupes, arrested, deported and murdered -- including Bishop Fortich of

Bacolod, champion of the poor and downtrodden, who probably will never survive to die

of old age.

December 15, 1988

Are we Filipinos really poor?

How poor is the Filipino? The American totes up his figures in regimented

columns and comes up with the answer:

The USA (241 million people) has 4 times the population of the Philippines (58.1

million), but has a Gross National Product or GNP ($3,855 billion) that is 118 times our

own ($32.6 billion). The American has a per capita income ($13,451) that is 22 times

our own ($598).

National income statistics are often used by economists in comparing wealth and

economic well-being of countries and peoples. But the standard methods of national

97

income accounting necessarily differentiate between goods and services bought and sold

in the market, and identical goods and services that do not enter the market at all. The

value of the former appears in the compilation of statistics; the latter does not.

In other words, the national income rises when a man eats in a restaurant; and the

national income falls flat when he cooks his own food. Thus, in the Philippines where

most people with the help of their neighbors build their own houses, plant and harvest

their crops without money ever changing hands, there is a tremendous amount of

unbought goods and services that never get registered in national income statistics.

Furthermore, in a highly monetized economy like in the USA, goods undergo

long and complicated processes all paid with money before they reach the final

consumer.

Take the consumption of an egg. The egg on the breakfast table of the American

has been washed, graded, inspected, trucked, refrigerated, stored, packed displayed and

sold through various channels. The egg on the table of the ordinary Filipino probably

dropped straight from the chicken to the pan.

Take the consumption of pork. The American pig is fed with commercial feed,

pampered by paid veterinarians, is sold to a meat packing plant where it is slaughtered,

cut, ground, cooked and packed in tin cans which in turn are stored, transported and sold

through a chain of jobbers, wholesalers and retailers before it is eaten by the American

consumer.

In the Philippines, the pig is kept under the house unattended, fed with left-over

food, slaughtered in the backyard and cooked by its owner before it is eaten and offered

free to relatives and neighbors. No cash passes hands, no increase in the national income

is ever registered.

The money values added to the egg and the pig as consumed in the USA

contribute more to the national income of the USA than in the Philippines, even though

the satisfaction derived from their consumption are the same in both nations.

Multiply this situation with thousands of other products needed for life and limb,

and we realize how differences in economic sophistication can result in great disparity of

national income.

Americans eat in restaurants, we cook our own food; they send their clothes to the

98

laundrymat, we wash them at home; they drive cars, most of us walk or cycle; they buy

records and cassettes, we serenade each other; they go to theaters to buy the services of

paid performers, most of us sing, dance, play or gossip for each other’s entertainment;

they go to hotels, we go to relatives’ houses; they buy books or watch television, we

listen to village idiots, barbershop philosophers and politicians. What Americans

consume enter the money economy and are duly registered in the accounting of the

national income, ours do not.

Lastly, a warm wonderful climate places in the hands of the Filipino, almost

without asking, a plentiful supply of plants and animals, not only in a short season, but

throughout the year. His needs are few, simple and readily supplied.

It is a colossal exercise in irony that the Americans having placed themselves in a

comparatively inhospitable region, are now forced to overcome the hazards of their

environment by wearing thick woolen underwear, coats, overcoats, mittens, overshoes --

by erecting beehives of concrete with central heating and a maze of plumbing -- by

forcing crops out of a reluctant earth through the use of fertilizers, tractors and enormous

combines -- and lending a little cheer to their frenzied lives with jets, pets, stereo sets,

sherbets, corsets, and hairnets.

And having produced all these things, the need for which was imposed only by

the unsuitable setting in which they perversely decided to live, they weigh all these goods

and finding them many, and duly registered tier upon tier in their national income

statistics --- they now proclaim themselves rich and call upon us poor Filipinos to

emulate them.

But are we Filipinos in fact so poor?

November 22, 1988

Opus Dei, Jesuits: now the dogs of war

ALVIN CAPINO of the Globe (5 December 88) reports that even while the

controversy over the Ford-financed Ateneo Poll Survey is still raging, another survey by

the Opus Dei CRC (financed by the neo-fascist Hans Seidel Stiftung) showed that a

plurality of businessmen (43 percent) are amenable to a fascist military junta government,

as against a measly 6.8 percent who will fight to preserve democracy.

99

Anybody with a copy of the CRC survey, please send a copy to this writer, care of

the Inquirer. This is serious. Usually the Jesuits and the Opus Dei hate each other, and

the Jesuits are a prolific source of materials critical of the Opus Dei. If it is true, as it

appears to be, that the CIA was able to unite the Opus Dei and the Jesuits to promote pro-

American clerico-fascist imperialism, we Filipinos are doomed.

Father Joaquin “Kinik” Bernas SJ and Bernie Villegas of Opus Dei, whom we

once wrote of as The Hounds of Heaven (Francis Thompson), have now turned into the

Dogs of War (Shakespeare).

* * *

Vincent M. Baduel, of 47 Mt. Rainier St., Filinvest Homes I, Capitol District, QC,

wrote to refresh our memory about a poll conducted by the Ateneo Social Weather

Station a few months before the Snap Elections of 1986. The chief pollster, whom

Vincent did not name but whose identity everyone knows, predicted that Marcos will

WIN against any opposition candidate.

“The people were infuriated with the dubious poll results. For all his ballyhooed

US training, he was completely unable to even faintly suggest the seething anger of the

people against the dictatorship.

“To aggravate the American pre-conditioning of this pollster’s mind, he was very

close to the powers-that-be. His wife was a a government official taking orders from the

Labor Minister who had generously awarded several projects to a government

consultancy which hired the pollster to head its development research.”

At the government consultancy, he often made snide remarks, showed off his

English to denigrate Pilipino, felt out of place and left.

* * *

“His inability to have a decent command of the national language seriously

impairs his ability to measure the public temperament, let alone analyze or interpret the

national mood. If this pollster will continue to be a fixture at the Ateneo Social Weather

Station, its survey results will likewise continue to suffer from lack of credibility.”

That’s right, Vincent. The Ateneo Social Weather Station also predicted

incorrectly that the opposition will win ten of the 24 senatorial slots in the May ‘87

elections.

100

The Jesuits are the best teachers I ever had, and I owe them all I am. “Give me

your young, and they will be ours all their lives,” Jesuits are fond of saying. But that is

not always true. The Jesuits had and lost Rizal and Recto the nationalists, Jose Maria

Sison the communist, Tony the Muslim, and Father Kinik.

Kinik never got to Ateneo de Manila till he took up law; and he grew up in a town

near Polanggi, Albay where “all men are holy and all women are naughty.” I like him

but he confuses me.

He was the head of the pro-American Council of Trent, once jokingly referred to

as Rasputin of Malacañang, yet as ConCom delegate he voted almost consistently with

the Nationalist Bloc (“only when we lose in the voting,” some Nationalists say unkindly).

Later I will write how the Jesuits and Opus got involved with the CIA.

* * *

Ms. Noemi Galvez points out that much of my column “seems to have been

borrowed from Newsweek.” True, also from Stars and Stripes, US World and News

Report and Time, all of which in turn borrowed from news services and syndicated

columns. Exact wordings are within quotation marks, paraphrases are not.

She cites factual mistakes: Bush is CIA chief administrator, not a CIA spy (He is

a spy like CIA chief Allen Dulles was); Reagan did not transgress that law in the Iran-

Contra Scam (as president he is ultimately responsible); Jesse Jackson did not lose the

nomination because he was black (tell that to the blacks!); that the US is not a racist

society and that Cuomo does not look like a Mafia goon (Americans said so!).

“The American political system may be flawed as you seem to be trying to point

out (I did not), but then all political systems are inherently flawed. We Filipinos should

refrain from casting stones at the Americans until we get our own seriously flawed

political house in order (tell that to the Americans and their Filipino agents who cast

stones at us).”

It would be nice if Ms. Noemi Galvez in turn analyze the speeches of Kulas

Platypus and Flatfoot Fogey with the Floo Floo.

December 12, 1988

101

Law of 20, hope for economic miracle

WHAT is happening in the Philippines today is what happened in Italy ten years

ago. Italy was brought to its knees by the oil crisis, plagued with strikes and labor

troubles, by the terrorism of Red Brigades, and by the rampant criminality of Mafia

operating with impunity.

Inflation stalked Italy at the rate of 21 percent per annum, with the budget deficit

reaching $31.2 billion, an unacceptable of 11 percent. Unemployment rose to 1.6

million, 11 percent of the labor force.

Milan’s Borsa Valori, Italy’s principal stock exchange, shut down for three days

to forestall a panic that saw share prices plunge by 20 percent in an hour.

The lira continued to decline in value, large industrial firms went into bankruptcy,

and industrial production slumped by 5.4 percent in a year.

Terrorism continued to stalk the land even in late 1981, with the bullet ridden

bodies of Roberto Peci, brother of a former Red Brigade leader, and Venice industrialist

Giuseppe Taliercio; and indiscriminate bombing in Bologna’s railroad terminal that killed

85 people.

* * *

In 1981, the government of Prime Minister Armando Forlani fell as a result of the

P-2 Affair, the discovery of a secret right-wing Masonic Lodge that included Cabinet

ministers, members of parliament, military, police and business leaders.

Forlani’s was Italy’s 41st government in 36 years, a woeful statistic showing that

Italian governments on the average last no longer than ten months.

By all indications, with democratic Europe’s largest Communist party, Italy

should have collapsed and expired with a whimper, or succumbed to revolution long ago.

Yet the Italians survive, as we Filipinos do, in spite of the vast gap between them

and their ineffective government. They survive in spite of a welfare system that is out of

control, schools and social services that are in disarray and worst of all, a bureaucracy so

swollen and inept that it is mocked as lacei e laccioli, shackles and snares.

Italians have a word to describe the way life goes on nicely while institutions

appear to crumble: malgrado, “n spite of.” And its symbol is the leaning tower of Pisa,

102

which by all laws of gravity, should have fallen centuries ago. But it continues to stand...

malgrado.

* * *

The Italians survived and prospered because of the existence of an underground

economy brought about by small and medium-sized businesses called the “ants of Italy”

which provided work for millions of people officially listed as unemployed and injected

wealth reckoned at 25 percent of the GNP.

These illegal businesses that the Italian government cannot regulate anyway, were

given recognition with the “Law of 20” under which businesses employing 20 or less

workers are exempt from official regulations on wages, benefits, safety rules and social

security.

As in the Philippines, these small businesses are family oriented, and are difficult

to assess because they never file reports on which national statistics are compiled. They

range from teachers selling cupcakes, to small shops selling ready made dresses to the

supermarkets, and collectively have grown so large that they became the third economy

of Italy, the two others being the state-owned corporations and large industries such as

Fiat and Olivetti.

“This explains why we have the standard of living of Northern Europe and the

Japanese standard of savings,” says Franco Modigliani, Nobel Prize economist. In 1987

Italy’s GNP rose by 15 percent to $683 billion, and put Italy ahead of Great Britain as the

world’s fifth industrial power!

* * *

The underground economy and the Law of 20 wrought mutations in the basic

structure of the economy. Big companies began to farm out production to cottage

industries, and recover from their slump. Fiat bought off the 15-percent share of Qaddafi

in the company, and merged with Alfa Romeo to become Europe’s No. 2 car maker.

Olivetti is now a world class computer firm.

To trigger people-powered entrepreneurship and disperse industries to the rural

areas, two brilliant solons, Rep. Oscar Orbos and Sen. Bert Romulo authored bills called

Kalakalan ng Dalawampu which exempts Countryside Business Establishments (CBE)

from income tax, VAT, minimum wage law, labor code, social security, a minimum

103

government supervision. The CBE is limited to those with 20 or less employees, assets

not exceeding P500,000, and location in the countryside. The CBEs which has to be

registered with the Municipal Treasurer will be taxed a flat P2,000 to P8,000 per year

depending on assets employed.

Watch this generate a similar economic miracle in our countryside.

November 15, 1988

When CRC sets up a military junta...

REGARDLESS of who is the US president, American foreign policy is conducted

more by the CIA than by the State Department. Such a policy is usually formulated in

the Georgetown Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think-tank run by Jesuits

and the CIA.

Right-wing Catholics like William Buckley (editor of the right-wing National

Review), Roger Fontaine (author of LIC bloodbath doctrine), Richard Allen (CIA chief),

General Vernon Walters (CIA), Alexander Haig (White House chief of staff), Jeane

Kirkpatrick (UN Ambassador) and William Casey (CIA chief) have a strong influence on

such policy.

US policy in Latin America and the Philippines is usually done with the

cooperation of the Vatican due to the overwhelming Catholic population in the area.

In 1962, with populist Pope John XXIII and liberal President John Kennedy, CIA

and the Vatican set out to co-opt rather than repress social unrest in Latin America. The

principal instruments were the Christian Democratic parties.

* * *

In order to build a popular base of support, the Christian Democrats got involved

in land reform, voter registration, labor union organization, and built bridges to

Protestants, Radicals, and Marxists. The leaders in this ecumenical movement were the

Jesuits, who were often the brains behind the Christian Democrats.

The failure of Jesuit Father Roger Vekemans to elect Eduardo Frei president of

Chile in 1964, in spite of the $10 million channeled to him by the CIA and the USAID,

and also the aborted birth of the Christian Democratic party in the Philippines, in spite of

the efforts of our own Jesuit-trained Sen. Raul Manglapus, due to martial law -- as well as

104

the waste of $500,000 channeled by the US Department of Defense to Ateneo Jesuit

Dennis Lynch’s Institute of Philippine Culture -- convinced the CIA to shift its support

from the liberal Jesuits to the more conservative Opus Dei.

In 1965, an Opus Dei priest called Javier de Pedro planed in from Hong Kong to

organize an Opus Dei think-tank called Center of Research and Communications (CRC)

under Bernardo Villegas. In the same year, the same priest organized in Chile, an Opus

Dei think-tank called Institute of General Studies (IGS) under Pablo Baraona.

The stage was set for the collaboration between CIA and Opus Dei.

* * *

In 1970, Nixon ordered the CIA to mount a coup d’etat against elected President

Salvador Allende of Chile. But the Chilean military had no experience in running a

government, so the CIA recruited the Opus Dei IGS for the job.

Twenty of these IGS technocrats, led by Pablo Baraona (IGS’s Bernie Villegas),

Arturo Fontaine, Jaime Guzman, Claudio Orrego, Francisco Orrego, Hernan Cubillos,

Alvaro Puga, Enrique Campos Menendez, were trained by the CIA from late 1971 till

1973.

Alvaro Puga of IGS in his column Diario De Vida de Ud. actually predicted with

uncanny accuracy, the political assassinations, the murder of Allende and the date of the

coup. Opus Dei helped Pinochet to set up a military dictatorship.

In the aftermath, Opus Dei Hernan Cubillos became Foreign Minister, and Opus

Dei Pablo Baraona became Economic Minister, just what they had to be, to best serve the

CIA.

Jeffrey Hart in his “A Chilean Spring?” (National Review March 1978) gives us a

preview of what might happen if CRC’s military junta is set up in the Philippines:

* * *

“Chile is an important sector of the front line in a colossal global military-

political-ideological struggle that makes World War II look like an Indian raid...

Probably the most interesting man in Chile today is Pablo Baraona, Minister of the

Economy... Pinochet and the military intend to keep public order while Baraona pursues

his economic policies with virtually a free hand... What the military regime is doing is

105

providing a shield -- critics say ‘machine guns in the street’ -- behind which this process

can go forward... In a sense Baraona is what the argument over Chile is all about.”

The recent CRC survey saying that 43 percent of businessmen are amenable to a

military junta, while only 6.8 percent would oppose it -- has chilling implications. Before

EDSA, the CIA differed with the State Department:

“The Snap Election is an exercise in futility. It will only polarize and paralyze the

nation. Whoever wins will inherit a revolutionary situation that may inevitably lead to

civil war. The Filipino people have become so ungovernable that the only viable option

is a military dictatorship to keep order, and technocrats to manage the economy.”

Perhaps Bernie Villegas is what the argument is all about.

December 20, 1988

14 countries suspended debt payments!

SOMETIMES we wonder if Jobo Fernandez, Ting Jayme and Ernest Leung are

morons, liars, traitors or what. To keep us captive of IMF, they say with a straight face

that if we renege on any debt payments, foreign banks will retaliate, seize Philippine

assets abroad, freeze bank accounts, halt short-term trade credits, and bring our country to

its knees. There is little chance of this, and these three baboons know it.

Since 1987, at least 14 debtor nations had unilaterally suspended part or all of

their debt service payments: Bolivia, Brazil, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador,

Honduras, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Nigeria, Panama, Peru, Tanzania, Zambia and Zaire.

Were these countries crippled by their creditors? Hell no, except for Brazil and

Peru, these countries continued to pay a small portion of debt due, and the foreign banks

continued to lend funds to finance new imports and to keep their economies going.

* * *

Even when Peru limited its debt servicing to 10 percent of its export earnings,

foreign banks continued to lend it money because the healthier Peru’s economy is, the

more its exports and the higher will the debt payments be. This continued for two years

till government mismanagement led to the current economic crisis; only then did bank

lending stop, as the result, not as the cause, of the crisis.

106

Brazil stopped all payments on debt service so the foreign banks stopped lending

new money because they had no incentive to do so. But Brazil is already industrialized,

and is less vulnerable to foreign pressure than the Philippines is.

The lesson to be learned from the experience of these 14 countries is this:

A country may suspend some but not all of its debt servicing, as long as it couples

its payment reductions with a coherent economic strategy (as Peru did not) and keeps its

economy in good order -- then foreign banks will keep extending credit for needed

importations.

* * *

Why did foreign banks fail to retaliate against unilateral suspension of debt

servicing?

• For one thing, foreign banks are no longer united as they used to be. Many banks

have set up reserves against foreign debts, in effect written off these unrepayable

debts. Others have gone out of international lending. And most banks have

pulled out of active participation from the giant bank consortium.

• The banks are loathe to refuse current and future profits that come from from the

goodwill of debtor nations. Interest rates have risen from under 10 percent in

1979 to over 20 percent in 1981, and profits are good.

• Cushioned by these profits and recognizing that most past debts are unrepayable,

all banks by 1987 built up reserves against future losses.

• Hence, most banks regard payments on past debts as icing on the cake that will

eventually be given up when debtor countries unite and impose their own strategy

for debt reduction.

* * *

What should be the Philippine strategy on debt repayments?

First, as Argentine President Alfonsin said to Cory when he came here for a state

visit: Just do it, don’t talk about it. Present your creditors with a fait accompli, don’t

give them a chance to object or threaten. Don’'t add insult to injury by telling them what

you are going to do. It hurts their vanity to have the world know that you do not kowtow

to them.

107

Second, at the very least, we should reduce payments to the average paid by other

countries. Of the total debt of $1,190 billion, the Third World paid out debt service

payments of $119 billion in 1987, 1.3 times the inflow of $90 billion new aid and loan,

for a net outflow of $29 billion. The Philippines whose debt totaled $28.6 billion on the

other hand was bled $3.1 billion, 2.1 times the inflow of of $1.5, for a net outflow of $1.6

billion.

By reducing debt service payments to the global average of 1.3 times the inflow

of aid and loans, would have reduced our 1987 payments from $3.1 billion down to $2.0

billion, a savings of $1.1 billion, enough to fuel a real economic recovery. Little

objection is anticipated since this would have covered all payments due on short-term

($0.53B), medium-long term ($1.47B), World Bank ($0.28B), IMF ($0.14B), ADB

($0.11B), gov't creditor and bonds ($0.14), other short term ($0.14) and a portion of long

term loans to private banks.

Third, we should put a cap on debt payments as a percentage of export receipts --

to give our creditors the incentive to lend us new money to finance exports. At 20

percent of export, our payments would have been $2.0 billion, equal to the world average.

At 10 percent, we could have enjoyed a real bonanza.

Dung, dung, dung.

Taking a leak at the CIA and CRC

THE “news leak” engineered by CIA Chief Billygoat Lofgren and feeble-minded

McCarthyists in the military, that “communist cadres” have infiltrated Congress, only

elicited an outraged statement from Speaker Ramon Mitra that Congress “will tolerate no

witchhunt for communists or other radical ideologues in Congress.

“If the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) aims merely to use Congress as

a channel for airing the party line, issues, thoughts and ideas, then I believe we have no

cause for alarm.

“That is what Congress is all about. It is, as it should be, a forum for every

political idea, including those of the Marxists.

108

“Subversion is a different matter, and if it is in the field of ideas the communists

are challenging us, then we should not fear that our own democratic ideas will necessarily

end up second best in the competition to attract popular allegiance and support.”

Gen. Renato de Villa, AFP Chief of Staff, backtracked and denied responsibility

for the “news leak.”

* * *

Like Adolf Hitler, militarists and clerico-fascists are using the Communist bogey

to destroy Democracy and Nationalism in the Philippines, to pursue the aims of American

Imperialism. They are planning a CIA-sponsored military junta in our country, as they

did in Chile. In Chile, the CIA instruments for the murder of President Allende and the

imposition of a dictatorship were the military and the Opus Dei Institute for General

Studies (IGS), the equivalent of our Opus Dei CRC.

Peter Lee U of CRC clarified the questionnaire showing that 43 percent of

businessmen support a military junta while only 6.8 percent oppose it:

“There has been NO explicit NOR underhanded attempt by the CRC staff to

highlight the issue of a civilian-military government, let alone show that the majority of

businessmen would support a junta.

“The questions are clear and straightforward. Even the question on the

businessmen’s reaction to a civilian-military junta, the one that sparked a lot of

controversy, was couched in as neutral a manner as possible.

“The questionnaire was distributed four months ago to 765 businessmen. The

views of 90 respondents gave us an inkling on the private sector’s probable responses to

certain hypothetical scenarios on the economic and political fronts.”

* * *

The Opus Dei CRC which is funded by neo-fascist Hans Seidel Stiftung, known

to be a conduit for the CIA, is now conducting a Short-term Economic Prediction in Asia

(SEPIA) project, partly funded by the Tokyo Institute of Developing Economies (IDE) --

another CIA conduit?

Question: How many of the 90 correspondents of the CRC survey are

multinational companies, so-called “Friends of the CRC,” members of the American

Chamber and the ultra-rightist Makati Business Club?

109

Question: How come the “civilian-military junta” suddenly became interesting to

the CRC? No one in the Philippines even mentioned it before, except Embassy CIA

Chief Billygoat Lofgren who has been expressing interest in the Chile Scenario -- so how

did the question even crop up, unless the CIA and the CRC have some hidden purpose in

the back of their minds??

There are strange people in the Opus Dei CRC. Many of them are celibates with

an aversion to the opposite sex, like Bernie Villegas and Jess Estanislao. Go to the CRC

building on Pearl Drive, in the Ortigas Complex in Pasig, and you encounter closed doors

and furtive eyes. You enter after much questioning and you feel enclosed by well-

scrubbed and austere surroundings hemmed in by forbidding walls, almost like a

nunnery.

* * *

You go to the men’s comfort room, and there are no urinals, for God’s sake, only

toilet bowls in cubicles wide enough for two people, no tell-tale drops to betray a

masculine presence, and floors shiningly clean, clean enough to eat on. You exclaim,

“Golly, they squat!”

You are reminded of a science fiction story The Martians by Joseph Albright:

Strange people these Martians, they are neuters and they squat when they pee,

with pig’s eyes and pig’s snouts and all the love for us earthlings. They abolished

disease and hunger, and sent many of us, fat and happy, to their paradise in Mars, never

to return to our purgatory on earth. I don’t trust them, slowly learned their language,

and read the book they all read, “How to Serve Man.”

My friend saw the book and exclaimed, “You see, they are all good, these

Martians, they live only to serve us.”

I hated to tell him that “How to Serve Man” was a cookbook!

When the CRC boys say they intend to serve Filipinos, we should ask: sauteed,

baked, or roasted? As a dish fit for the Americans?

January 11, 1989

110

THE MILK WARS Why it is imperative to keep away from Nestlé

“Nestlé causes world-wide epidemic of diabetes and obesity.” Nestlé is a

Swiss company with total assets of over US$ 67.5 billion dollars, total sales of over US$

67.2 billion dollars, and a yearly net income of US$5.2 billion, with 500 factories in most

countries, including the Philippines. It is the biggest supplier of food products, especially

milk and milk products, in the entire world. Its malpractices and unethical marketing

methods has largely resulted in almost total loss of the breastfeeding culture in the

modern world especially in the poorest nations that can ill afford it, and has resulted in

the epidemic of juvenile diabetes, allergic reactions, life threatening diarrhea, and chronic

diseases such as obesity, adult diabetes and vascular disease, caused by lack of

breastfeeding. This sad state of affairs resulted in the frantic efforts of the World Health

Organization and the UNICEF to promulgate the “International Code on the Marketing

of Breastmilk Substitutes and Related Products” in 1981, to which all nations in the

world now subscribe, and the “Global Strategy on Infant and Young Child Feeding” in

2002; and the various World Health Assembly resolutions that are passed upon by

Health Ministers of all nations.

“Nestlé is the worst enemy of breastfeeding advocates.” Nestlé is the avowed

enemy of the breastfeeding advocates, and to a large degree of the WHO and the

UNICEF, giving rise to an international standard of ethics that forbids direct involvement

with Nestle and other Milk Companies by the World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action

(WABA), the International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN), and indeed with the

approval of the WHO and the UNICEF too. To survive the onslaught of Nestlé, it is

imperative for us to keep as far away as we can from Nestlé.

“Nestlé Kills Babies.” Nestlé has been the object of a general boycott in Europe

by Breastfeeding advocates up to now, for its unethical methods and malpractices in the

marketing of infant formula milk. As the IBFAN website tells it, “When the exposé The

Baby Killer was published in 1975, Nestlé denied any wrong-doing. It even sued

campaigners in Switzerland who translated it into German, but had to drop nearly all

111

charges as experts trouped into court to provide substantiation. Nestlé only won against

the title in German, which was Nestlé Kills Babies, on the grounds it wasn’t committing

deliberate murder. The Judge awarded token fines and warned Nestlé to change (its

ways).”

“Nestlé’s country is the Black Hole of tyrants’ ill-gotten wealth.” Nestlé is not

an American company, and as such is not liable for its acts under the US Foreign Corrupt

Practices Act of 1987, as American companies are. Otherwise, Nestlé and all its

subsidiaries would have long been subject to heavy fines and its managers would have

long languished in jail. When it comes to money and greed, Swiss gnomes have no equal

in the world. Their banking system is the black hole into which the ill-gotten wealth of

tyrants disappears forever. They still hold the wealth of the Russian Tsars, the Nazi

leaders, the Shah of Iran, and the late unlamented dictators of the banana republics of

Latin America, the Caribbean and darkest Africa.

“Nestlé kills labor leaders.” Nestlé and its subsidiaries are probably among the

most unprincipled and most vicious in the world. Filipino labor leaders involved in

disputes with Nestlé Philippines are regularly being assassinated by hired goons with

impunity. On the afternoon of January 1989, a gunman entered a roadside restaurant,

approached Meliton Roxas, labor union president in the Nestlé plant in Cabuyao, and

shot him at close range with a .45 caliber pistol. Meliton died on the spot. He was only

34. To escape, the killer ran towards the Nestlé Compound; the Nestlé guards

mercilessly gunned him down; he was never officially identified. Late afternoon on

September 22, 2005, Diosdado Fortuna, 50, leader of a coalition of employees on strike at

the Nestlé plant, was gunned down in front of a plastic factory in Barangay Paciano Rizal

in Calamba. The killer is still at large.

“Nestlé suppresses freedom.” I remember when I had a program in Channel 9,

Make My Day, I was asked to invite Ines Fernandez of Arugaan as a resource person on

breastfeeding. The next day Nestlé sent people to threaten to pull out all their

advertisements from Channel 9. The station panicked and moved to cancel my show.

Fortunately, I was able to contact Johnny Santos who was then president of Nestlé

Philippines. He denied having sent a demolition squad to destroy my program,

apologized, promised to fire the malefactors, and even gave me some ads for my Make

112

My Day program. In 2004, Dr. Mian Silvestre of the Philippine General Hospital was

interviewed by a German television crew and she mentioned that milk formula is

especially dangerous in the Philippines because we do not have clean water needed to

mix with the infant formula. Later she was told by her bosses in the hospital that if she

repeats that again, all hospital projects funded by Nestlé will be stopped. It was

explained to her that her remarks over German television was relayed by the German

subsidiary of Nestlé to Nestlé Philippines which told the hospital authorities in no

uncertain terms to keep Dr. Mian Silvestre quiet. That is the type of fascist organization

Nestle is.

“Nestlé’s principles focus only on market dominance and profits, not ethics,

morality or the ultimate good of the human race.” Nestlé's business objective

according to its Website, “is to manufacture and market the Company’s products in such

a way as to create value that can be sustained over the long term for shareholders,

employees, consumers, and business partners.” There is no mention whatsoever about

ecology and the preservation of the environment. There is no mention about the

irrelevance of gender, color, or creed in the hiring of its employees. There is no mention

about the dignity of labor and the rights of the working man in dealing with its

employees. There is no mention of Corporate Social Responsibility to the host nation

and compliance with its national policies, programs and goals. There is no mention of

the rights of infants and young children to be free of malnutrition in the first two years of

life. There is only mention of the rule of law in an environment where Nestlé can use its

tremendous resources to influence the passage of such laws. There is no mention of the

international commitments by all nations, as well as Nestlé itself as a socially responsible

organization, to respect the WHO/UNICEF “International Code on the Marketing of

Breastmilk Substitutes and Related Products,” and the “Global Strategy on Infant and

Young Child Feeding.” Nestlé simply pretends that WHO and UNICEF do not exist.

Nothing noble, no ideals, no hopes or great expectations, only the crass commercialism of

a greedy corporation to make a product it can sell, even if it is not needed by, even if it is

not good for, the health of the consumer.

“Nestlé regularly violates the law.” At the last part of Nestlé’s enunciation of

Business Principles, it states: “Nestlé continues to maintain its commitment to follow and

113

respect all applicable local laws in each of its markets.” Nestlé does not pretend to obey

international commitments on Breastfeeding, but only local laws within its power to

influence. But even then, it simply is not true that they obey the local laws. They violate

it regularly.

“Nestlé regularly violates Section 6(d) of the law.” Today, even if it is

expressly prohibited by law, Nestlé still sponsors hospital programs on “The Basics of

Motherhood” as it did with Makati Medical Center in October 2004, on breastfeeding,

bottle-feeding and weaning, where breastfeeding advocates like Nona Castillo and Dr.

Elvira Esguerra were displaced as regular lecturers, violating the National Milk Code,

Section 6(d) “Manufacturers and distributors shall not distribute to pregnant women or

mothers of infants any gifts or articles or utensils which may promote the use of

breastmilk substitutes or bottle-feeding, nor shall any other groups, institutions or

individuals distribute such gifts, utensils or products to the general public or mothers.”

“Nestlé regularly violates Section 6(b) of the law.” Today, even if it is

expressly prohibited by law, Nestlé still gives away samples of its products as it did in the

2004 July Nutrition Month Celebration of Makati Medical Center, violating Section 6(b)

“Manufacturers and distributors shall not be permitted to give directly or indirectly,

samples and supplies within the scope of this Code or gifts of any sort to any member

of the general public…”).

“Nestlé regularly violates Section 10(d) of the law.” Even if it is expressly

prohibited by law, Nestlé sponsored the first Reader’s Digest Health forum in the

Philippines on April 7, 2005, with Nestlé speakers quoted as saying, “A lot of nutritional

companies now produce formulas very close to breastmilk, adding essential fatty acids

which are good for brain and eye development” (Dr. Theingi Han), and “We recommend

that babies take formula milk up to the age of one” (Dr. Mary Lim), violating Section

10(d) “The term ‘humanized,’ ‘maternalized’ or similar terms shall not be used,” and the

sacrosanct principle that babies must be exclusively breastfed for the first six months of

life.

“Nestlé regularly violates Section 8(c) and Section 6(b) of the law.” Today,

even if it is expressly prohibited by law, Nestlé still sponsors Nestlé Baby Programs for

politicians involved in legislative work on health to advance the Breastfeeding Culture,

114

violating Section 8(c) “No financial or material inducements to promote products

within the scope of this Code shall be offered by manufacturers or distributors to health

workers or members of their families, nor shall these be accepted by the health workers

or members of their families...” and Section 6(b) “Manufacturers and distributors shall

not be permitted to give directly or indirectly, samples and supplies within the scope of

this Code or gifts of any sort to any member of the general public…”).

“Nestlé sells contaminated milk.” Without the facilities to inspect breastmilk

substitutes, the Philippines is ever in danger of being subject to contaminants for which

Nestlé Products were taken off from the market SIX times in the United States. NOTE

THESE. Nestlé’s Carnation Follow-Up Formula was recalled in 2001 for excessive

magnesium content that may cause low blood pressure and irregular heart beat. Its

Carnation Good Start, Alsoy and Follow-Up were recalled in 2000 for doubtful sterility.

Its Carnation Follow-Up was recalled in 1999 for its lumpy, curdled appearance; again in

1997 for being adulterated, unsanitary, and linked to gastrointestinal disease. Its

Carnation Alsoy Concentrate was recalled in 1996 for mislabeling. Its Carnation Good

Start was recalled in 1994 for containing non-pathogenic spoilage organisms and other

microorganisms. That’s a total of SIX recalls for mighty Nestlé.

“Nestlé sabotaged the National Milk Code for 19 long years.” The National

Milk Code (Executive Order 51) was signed into law under the Freedom Constitution by

President Corazon Aquino on the 20th day of October 1986 as attested by Joker P.

Arroyo, Executive Secretary. The Inter Agency Committee headed by Alfredo R. A.

Bengzon, Secretary of Health, issued the first Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR)

to E.O. 51. Since then up to now, a period of 19 years, no other IRR was subsequently

issued to give teeth to the law. During the administration of Erap Estrada, Health

Secretary Romualdez boasted that he was a consultant of Nestlé and subsequently the

Milk Code was not implemented as it should have been. A Nestlé Vice-president,

Atty.Mabini Antonio, was chosen to be in the Technical Working Group (TWG) to

formulate the IRR. As a result of his presence, for years and years 11 versions of a draft

of the new IRR were kicked around and set aside by the BFAD and Nestlé.

“Nestlé dominated the Bureau of Food and Drugs.” Mabini Antonio is a soft-

spoken man, with a reasonable tone of voice, who has mesmerized his colleagues in the

115

TWG of the BFAD into accepting without question his “legal parameters” in formulating

the new IRR, 11 drafts of which was discussed and set aside since 1986, after a flurry of

open hearings in which breastfeeding advocates were not encouraged to attend (not

enough room, kuno), while 85% of those who attended were lawyers, advertising

agencies and representatives of milk companies. I met with Nestlé’s Antonio as part of

the TWG in the first BFAD hearing (February 28, 2005), and consequently in every

important meeting where I spoke, in the Senate Hearing (May 4, 2005), the two National

Anti-Poverty Commission Meetings (May 25 and June 6, 2005), the Cabinet meeting of

June 14, 2005. Mabini Antonio was always there, a shark among the sardines, and he

always spoke with authority, sounding as though he was spokesman for the TWG, while

the TWG chair OIC Ofelia Alba remained largely quiet.

“Nestlé has a friend in the Senate.” Senator Pia Cayetano’s father, the late

Senator Rene Cayetano, was a personal friend of mine. He and my son Ronnie were of

the same faith (“Christian,” not Catholic, they claim) and of the same parish. It was

through Ronnie that my daughter Dr. Elvira L. Henares-Esguerra, a breastfeeding

advocate, came in contact with Senator Pia Cayetano. There was an initial lack of

interest in the breastfeeding issue, until Elvira mentioned that I have hard-to-get statistics

from the NEDA to show that the Philippines imports a fabulous $400 million of milk and

milk products every year, ten times the rate with which Marcos plundered our country in

his 14 years of Martial Law. It was then that Pia Cayetano, chair of the Senate

Committee on Health, decided to call a Hearing to hear me talk on the Economic

Consequences of the Loss of the Breastfeeding Culture. It was a success, and Pia

Cayetano decided to become the champion of the Breastfeeding Advocacy. Elvira was

surprised later to find out Senator Pia Cayetano was heavily subsidized by Nestlé

Philippines, in her “Bike for Hope” program which invariably endorses “Nestlé Baby

Food” and “Nestlé Baby.” Elvira was shocked to find out that the one senator she

counted on to amend and update the National Milk Code was allied with Nestlé, the worst

enemy of the world-wide breastfeeding advocacy movement. And when Elvira warned

Pia’s aides about the possibility of conflict of interest, Pia dropped Elvira’s group like a

hot potato, claiming they are too much of “hard-core activists,” or words to that effect,

according to her Indonesian friend Mona.

116

“Nestlé’s Senator friend is thoroughly involved with Nestlé products.” The

extent of her involvement is obvious from the Nestlé’s press statement published in the

April 2005 issue of Baby Magazine (See Exhibit 8), here quoted in full: “Nestlé Baby and

Senator Pia Cayetano Pedal for Better Health. The 2nd ‘Bike for Hope’ charity Bike

Ride organized by the Compañero Rene Cayetano Foundation and led by Senator Pia

Cayetano, recently led a group of riders up to Baguio City. In a remarkable display of

strength and endurance, the good senator as well as cycling enthusiasts from different

parts of the country pedaled up to Baguio City by way of Rosario, Pangasinan. NESTLÉ

BABY FOOD joins hands with Sen. Pia Cayetano in spreading nutrition education and

good feeding practices to the various towns that the charity Bike Ride passed along the

way. With the cooperation of local government, through the different town Mayors and

Health Department Officials of Pozorubio, Sison and Rosario, Pangasinan, NESTLÉ

BABY FOOD and Sen. Pia Cayetano distributed Nestlé Baby Cereals, Nutrition Reading

Materials and other Nestlé giveaways to the residents of the aforementioned towns.

Nestlé Philippines through NESTLÉ BABY FOOD supports Sen. Pia Cayetano and her

‘Bike for Hope’ Charity Bike Ride. Bound together by a common goal for greater good

health and nutrition education throughout the country.”

Nestlé’s Senator friend, the Chair of the Senate Committee on Health and

Demography, in charge of the various bills on Breastfeeding, including the Revision

of EO 51, has been violating together with Nestlé, the National Code on the

Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes and Related Products. The quotation from the

previous paragraph above proves that both Pia Cayetano and Nestlé have violated

sections of EO 51 that forbids giving samples (“Nestlé Baby Cereals”) and “gifts of any

sort” (“nutrition reading materials and other Nestlé giveaways”) to the public to promote

baby products under the scope of this code; and that forbids “financial or material

inducements to promote products within the scope of this code.” To entrust the revision

of the National Milk Code to Nestlé’s friend is virtually consigning it to the garbage

heap.

“Nestlé is the object of a world-wide boycott.” In 1939, Dr. Cecily Williams, a

physician working among the poor in Asia, gave a speech, “Milk and Murder,” to the

Singapore Rotary Club in which she said “... misguided propaganda on infant feeding

117

should be punished as the most miserable form of sedition, and these deaths should be

regarded as murder....” At that time, and in some places as late as 1977, Nestlé was

selling sweetened condensed milk as an infant food, in spite of well-known scientific

research that showed this was unsafe for infants. In 1968, Dr. Derrick Jelliffe, working in

Jamaica, coined the term “commerciogenic malnutrition” to describe the impact of

industry marketing practices on infant health. In 1973, a cover article in New

Internationalist Magazine, "The Baby Food Tragedy," called for a campaign to stop

promotion. Over the next several years, the issue drew further public attention. Health

workers and missionaries working with poor Third World families and communities

witnessed the devastating effect these formulae had on the health and financial well-being

of many families. Their stories and testimonies were told to churches and community

action groups. People then began to feel that it was important to act. The year 1976 saw

the culmination of a lawsuit involving the Third World Action Group and Nestlé. A

booklet called The Baby Killer had been translated into German, retitled “Nestlé Kills

Babies,” and distributed in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria.

“Nestlé is condemned by church groups.” In 1977, the story moved to

Minneapolis where ICCR (Interfaith Centre for Corporate Responsibility), a group that

monitors church investments, founded INFACT (Infant Formula Action Coalition).

INFACT launched an organized boycott against Nestlé, the largest seller of infant

formula and breastmilk substitutes. The boycott included all products made by Nestlé. A

great deal of support for the boycott came from churches, whose missionary work

brought them into direct contact with developing countries. They could verify the facts

and the tragic results of marketing practices. INFACT demanded that Nestlé stop all

promotion of baby formula, give up milk nurses, stop giving out free samples, and do no

direct advertising. The boycott soon spread to Europe, Canada, and New Zealand. In

addition to the boycott, INFACT helped to move the issue into the political arena.

“Infant Food Day” was declared in Minnesota on April 13, 1978. Endorsed by the

governor, the event was celebrated with a protest rally and letter-writing campaign

against Nestlé. Congress was deluged with mail. Partly as a result of this mail campaign,

Senator Edward Kennedy, chair of the Senate Subcommittee on Health and Scientific

Research held hearings on the promotion and use of infant formula in developing

118

countries (in which Dr. Natividad Clavano of Baguio General Hospital played a major

role) , and called on the United Nations to act on the problem.

“Nestlé is opposed by WHO and UNICEF.” In 1979, WHO and UNICEF

hosted an international meeting and called for the development of an international code

of formula marketing. In 1981, the International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk

Substitutes was adopted by the World Health Assembly (WHA) by 118 votes to 1. In

response to the Code, Nestle and almost every infant formula company now markets a

product called “follow-up” formula. Depending on the brand, follow-up formulae are

marketed for babies between the ages of three months and three years. Evidently, Nestlé

and the other companies hope to escape the prohibitions of the International Code by

calling the product something other than “infant” formula and marketing it for slightly

older babies. As a result, in 1984 and 1986 the WHA adopted resolutions regarding

cereals and other infant foods promoted for use at too early an age and banned free and

subsidized breastmilk substitutes to hospitals. These moves were essentially designed to

close the loopholes in the original Code, of which Nestlé and the other manufacturers

were taking full advantage.

“Nestlé Boycott remains in effect today.” By 1988 it was clear that many

companies continued to give free supplies to hospitals and clinics throughout the world

and, in protest, many countries started more consumer boycotts. The Nestlé boycott was

resumed and remains in effect today. American Home Products (Wyeth Labs) has also

been included in the boycott. The campaign against the infant formula industry has

expanded beyond opposing the practices of the baby-food manufacturers. Critics of the

industry are also actively pursuing positive initiatives to promote breastfeeding and have

successfully enlisted UNICEF and WHO to join their efforts. In 1990, the Innocenti

Declaration of the United Nations called upon all countries to adopt the Code in its

entirety by 1995.

Nestlé, the Swiss mother firm as well as its local subsidiary, is a vicious,

unprincipled, unethical, and deadly enemy of all who cherish freedom of speech,

human rights, the rights of labor, the economic stability and progress of the nation,

and the health and well-being of our children. With its tremendous resources,

Nestlé stands alone and apart from other milk companies, in lonely and lofty

119

splendor, sublime in its imperial majesty, yet its corrosive fingers reach into every

nook and corner of our social fabric and body politic and spin its web of corruption

on every unprincipled Filipino decision maker and every curmudgeonly Filipino

who loves making money more than he loves his country and his children.

For our nation to survive, it is imperative for us decent Filipinos to keep

away as far as possible from the God-almighty, God-awful Nestlé.

Quoting and paraphrasing various international reports, November 1, 2005

Wyeth Philippines, guilty of illegal, unethical and immoral behavior

My first experience with Wyeth Philippines, then Wyeth Suaco, is a painful one.

As the President of the Philippine Chamber of Industries, I was a close friend and

colleague of Mr. Suaco, the joint partner of Wyeth. Then as a member of the cabinet of

President Diosdado Macapagal, as Chairman of the National Economic Council, and

Presidential Administrator of Community Development (PACD) in the 1960s, I caused

the conduct of a raid on the warehouses of Wyeth Suaco Phils., under the leadership of a

James Gump, and confiscation of a shipment of expired Digitalis. This I did upon

information given me by my own cousin; an American named Eric Sollee, who worked

with Wyeth Suaco and told me that James Gump said: “We are selling it to the Chinese,

they love to poison the Filipinos.” Because he was an American with the high powered

Sycip-Salazar law firm to defend him, Gump escaped persecution, but the Digitalis

remained confiscated and my cousin Eric Sollee was fired and blackballed, and ended up

as fencing instructor in MIT in Boston.

In 1981, the Philippines subscribed to the World Health Organization (WHO)

“International Code on the Marketing of Breast Milk Substitutes and Related Products.”

In 1986, President Corazon Aquino, with her powers under the Freedom

Constitution, signed into law Executive Order (EO) No. 51, known as the National Code

on the Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes and Related Products, in order to implement

the International Milk Code.

From 1986 to 2005, a period of nineteen (19) years, no new Implementing

Rules and Regulations (IRR) were drafted, adopted and instituted for the effective

implementation of EO No. 51 which at the time lacked sufficient penalties and sanctions

120

against Milk companies and erring government officials (especially the Bureau of Food

and Drugs) for culpable violations of the Code. As a result the Code was honored more

in the breach than in the compliance, and our exclusive breastfeeding rates plummeted

down 16% national average (in India, 40%), and to an infinitesimal ½ % in the National

Capital Region and in the Southern Tagalog Region. The average duration of exclusive

breastfeeding is only 1 ½ months, while India has 4 months and the ideal is 6 months.

Desperately our officials tried to pass the necessary IRR. In those long years,

eleven (11) drafts of the new IRR were considered, discussed, disputed, amended,

and set aside ad infinitum, with perfunctory open hearings conducted month after

month, year after year, under the Bureau of Food and Drugs (BFAD), with no end in

sight for its finalization; That impasse was due to the fact that the Technical Working

Group of the BFAD in charge of drafting the IRR, includes in its membership a

representative from Nestlé, named Atty. Mabini Antonio, whose views on the “legal

parameters” of the IRR have been accepted without question by government bureaucrats,

bolstered by a battery of milk company lawyers from the Pharmaceutical and Healthcare

Association of the Philippines, who attend the public hearings in force, whose

interpretation is contrary to the spirit and intent of EO No. 51 and the strategies/policies

adopted by the WHO/UNICEF, and which were vigorously opposed by breastfeeding

advocates who are often turned away for lack of room. Today; the 12th draft of the

Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) to EO No. 51, was finally completed on

September 16, 2005 for approval and signature by the Secretary of Health.

Today, the milk companies, particularly Wyeth Philippines, continue to violate,

with impunity, as they have been doing for the last 19 years, the letter and spirit of the

EO No. 51, the National Milk Code. And the milk companies are marshalling their

resources to keep the IRR from being signed, by extorting the support of associations of

advertising agencies and the association of radio and broadcast media (KBP, Kapisanan

ng mga Brodkaster sa Pilipinas), and by unfairly using their tremendous financial

resources, to the detriment of the Filipino people;

The entire advertisement campaign of Wyeth Philippines is based on a false and

unproved health claim that the Promil infant formula creates geniuses out of children,

with a subliminal message that it is better than breastmilk, in violation of several

121

provisions of the National Milk Code that forbid false health claims, that forbid

statements that “idealize the use of breastmilk substitutes,” and “discourage

breastfeeding,” often without the mandatory tag line, “Breastmilk is best for babies up to

two years of age.” The use of pregnant mothers in advertisements with gifted children to

promote Promil is a blatant attempt to undermine subliminally the principle that babies

should be breastfed exclusively for the first six months.

Wyeth Philippines, together with other milk companies, has violated as it always

did in the past, the provisions of the National Milk Code, Section 6 (b) “Manufacturers

and distributors shall not be permitted to give directly or indirectly , samples and

supplies within the scope of this Code or gifts of any sort to any member of the general

public…”and Section 6(d) “Manufacturers and distributors shall not distribute to

pregnant women or mothers of infants any gifts or articles or utensils which may promote

the use of breastmilk substitutes or bottlefeeding, nor shall any other groups, institutions

or individuals distribute such gifts, utensils or products to the general public or mothers,”

two examples of which are as follows:

1. a flyer issued by the Makati Medical Center, Dietary Department, for July Nutrition

Month Celebration 2004, every Thursday in July 2004, to promote complementary

foods in addition to Breastfeeding, a “Healthy Baby Contest” and “special gifts” for

the participants from milk companies including Wyeth Philippines.

2. An alleged practice of Wyeth Philippines of distributing samples of its Promil and

other products by the box, selling them to doctors and others, invoicing them as sales,

carrying the sales as accounts receivable, and then taking them off the books as bad

debts. Unfortunately, while many doctors frankly admit having received samples in

this manner, none of them so far would make a sworn statement to that effect, since

inevitably the representatives of Wyeth show up with very compelling arguments to

keep them from doing so.

Wyeth Philippines also violated and continues to violate the National Milk Code,

Section 6(e) “Marketing personnel shall be prohibited from advertising or promoting in

any manner the products covered by this Code, either directly or indirectly, to pregnant

women or to mothers of infants….” the proof of which is the flyer from Medical City (a

hospital), “Parenting 101 for Expectant Parents, a lay forum on Pregnancy, Childbirth

122

and Baby Care,” in partnership with Wyeth.

Wyeth Philippines violates the following provisions of the National Milk Code as

well: Section 5(b) “Informational and educational materials… shall include clear

information on the following points: (1) the benefits and superiority of breastfeeding…x

x x (3) the negative effect on breastfeeding of introducing partial bottle-feeding; (4) the

difficulty of reversing the decision not to breastfeed… Such materials shall not use any

picture or text that may idealize the use of breastmilk substitutes.” And Section 10(d)

“the term ‘humanized,’ ‘maternalized’ or similar terms shall not be used.” As

evidenced by the following advertisements:

1. advertising Wyeth Gold 1 as “Now even closer to breastmilk.”

2. advertising the BonaLine of Wyeth, as containing Nucleotides, and showing a

breastfeeding mother with the message, “Sa unang 6 na buwan ni baby, kailangan

niya ng gatas na may Nucleotides…. Kaya sa unang 6 na buwan, bigyan si baby ng

gatas na bukod sa abot-kaya ay siksik pa sa sustansiya. Siguraduhing may

Nucleotides ang gatas ni baby upang lumaki siyang malusog at angat sa iba,”

translated thus: “In the first six months of the baby’s life, he needs milk containing

Nucleotides…. Therefore in the first six months of his life, give the baby as much as

you can afford of milk full of sustenance…. Be sure there are Nucleotides in your

baby’s milk, so that he will grow up healthy and better than the other babies.”

This advertisement is also against Philippine national policy because it undermines

exclusive breastfeeding in the first 6 months of the baby’s life.

Today, as Presidential Consultant on National Affairs to Her Excellency, Gloria

Macapagal Arroyo, President of the Republic of the Philippines, as I was to her

predecessor, President Fidel V. Ramos, I am involved in the completion of the Final

Draft (2005) of the new Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) for EO No. 51, the

National Milk Code of 1986, and I have often been the focus of the attention of milk

companies trying to effect a negotiated compromise to water down the final IRR.

As such, I was privileged to meet with Perpetuo “Boy” de Claro, President of

Wyeth Philippines, and exchanged views, confidential information and no-holds-barred

discussions with him on the subject of the IRR. On occasions of said meetings which

occurred between May 17 to July 22, 2005, Mr. Boy de Claro made such statements that

123

belied a singular, serious and obnoxious lack of basic courtesy and of ethics; a

pronounced insensitivity to our national problems, especially our infant mortality; a

scandalous indiscretion, a pecuniary greed; and a lack of redeeming social

responsibility which a representative of a rich foreign company subsidiary like Wyeth

should accord to the nation and to its government officials, as a money-making guest in a

poor country like the Philippines, to wit:

1. Boy de Claro said that ultimately the milk companies will prevail no matter how

stringent the law, the rules and the regulations are, because experience shows that the

consumption of milk still increases astronomically despite all obstacles. He cited the

experience of Malaysia which forbids the advertisements of breast milk substitutes

for babies up to 3 years old, and yet has almost twice the consumption of milk (40

liters per capita) compared to the Philippines (22 liters per capita) which forbids the

advertisements for babies up to only 6 months of age.

2. Boy de Claro also said that the Philippines is widely known to be a corrupt society,

and that in a corrupt society, rules and regulations are seldom followed.

3. Boy de Claro also said that he has contacted people both in Malacañang (Presidential)

Palace and the Department of Health, to make the President and the Health Secretary

aware that Wyeth is prepared to invest 30 million dollars (or was it pesos?) in the

Philippines, but only if the regulations were not made more stringent. I reminded

him that I’m an economist and cannot see that a one-time investment of 30 million

dollars could favorably be compared to the 400 million dollars of annual milk

importation , not counting the continuous outward flow of annual profits that result

from investments like these.

4. Boy de Claro even threatened to bring here high powered executives from the USA to

bring pressure on our administration, without knowing that 18 out 32 senators and all

17 of the Catholic Bishop Conference of the Philippines have already signed petitions

urging the Administration to sign the new IRR into effect, and have taken position on

a higher moral plane than than the crass commercialism of Milk companies and their

satraps and cohort.

5. In addition, Boy de Claro also threatened to challenge the new IRR with a petition for

a TRO (Temporary Restraining Order) and preliminary and/or permanent injunction

124

through the courts. He said that he has the lawyers that could force the issue up to the

Supreme Court and frustrate the implementation of the IRR for several years until he

gets his bonus and retirement pay. He retires within 3 years, he said, after which he

no longer cares about the IRR, or about the advocates of breastfeeding, or about the

country itself, because “you guys can kiss my ass goodbye.” He does not realize that

our Supreme Court is the ONLY one in the world that upheld the principle of Equal

Pay for Equal Work in “international schools.” This Supreme Court will surely

uphold the rights of babies against the crass commercialism of Milk Companies.

I filed a complaint before Douglas A. Dworkin, Chair of the Wyeth Ethics and

Business Conduct Committee, of Wyeth USA, from whom I received an e-mail dated

August 18, 2005. I complained about the unethical and illegal behavior of Perpetuo

“Boy” de Claro, President of its subsidiary Wyeth Philippines; and reminded its officials

that they are jointly and severally liable for the acts of their subsidiaries and subordinates,

under the US Foreign Corruption Practices Act of 1977.

As a matter of fact I am preparing a complaint against Wyeth in the US

Department of Justice and the US Securities and Exchange Commission for culpable

violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977;

November 11, 2005

The Most Moving Scene Ever Written, By Dr. Elvira L. Henares Esguerra

Once upon a time there was an old man who was condemned to death by

starvation by the king. His daughter visited him daily in prison, and he survived for a

long time. The king was puzzled because he expected the man to die by starvation in less

than a month. He had the incident investigated and found out that the daughter who was

a nursing mother, came to visit her father daily to feed him with milk from her breasts.

He was so moved by this story of the milk of human kindness that he pardoned the old

man, and set him free.

This old story probably inspired one of the most moving scenes ever written by a

great author. This is the last 2½ pages, the stunning climax of Pulitzer Prize novel The

Grapes of Wrath, by Nobel Prize winner, John Steinbeck, about the Great Depression in

the USA. Ma, the matriarch of the story, just lost her son, Tom, who went into hiding

125

from the authorities for having killed a man in a labor strife. The rest of her family just

endured a terrible storm, and her youngest daughter Rose of Sharon just lost her baby, a

still-born child, in the storm. They find shelter in an abandoned house. The story

continues to the end.

“Lay down, Rose of Sharon,” Ma said. “Lay down and rest. I'll try to figure

some way to dry you off.”

Winfield said, “Ma!” and the rain roaring on the roof drowned his voice. “Ma!”

“What is it? What you want?”

“Look! In the corner.” Ma looked. There were two figures in the gloom; a man

who lay on his back, and a boy sitting beside him, his eyes wide, staring at the

newcomers. As she looked, the boy got slowly up to his feet and came toward her. His

voice croaked. “You own this here?”

“No,” Ma said. "Just come in out of the wet. We got a sick girl. You got a dry

blanket we could use and get her wet clothes off?" The boy went back to the corner and

brought a dirty comforter and held it out to Ma.

“Thank ya,” she said. “What's the matter with that fella?"

The boy spoke in a croaking monotone. “First he was sick, -but now he's

starving.”

“What?”

"Starving. Got sick in. the cotton. . He ain't eaten for six days.” Ma walked to

the corner and looked down at the man. He was about fifty, his whiskery face gaunt, and

his open eyes were vague and staring. The boy stood beside her. “Your pa?” Ma asked.

“Yeah! Says he wasn’t hungry, or he just eaten. Gave me the food. Now he’s too

weak. Can’t hardly move.”

The pounding of the rain decreased to a soothing swish on the roof. The gaunt

man moved his lips. Ma knelt beside him and put her ear close. His lips moved again.

“Sure,” Ma said. “You just be easy. He’ll be all right. You just wait till I get

them wet clothes off my girl.”

Ma went back to the girl. “Now slip them off,” she said. She held the comforter

up to screen her from view. And when she was naked, Ma folded the comfort about her.

126

The boy was at her side again explaining, “I didn't know. He said he ate, or he

wasn’t hungry. Last night I went and bust a window and stole some bread. Made him

chew it down. But he puked it and up, and then he was weaker. Got to have soup or

milk. You folks got money to get milk?"

Ma said, “Hush. Don’t worry. We’ll figure something out.” Suddenly the boy

cried, “He's dying, I tell you! He’s starving to death, I tell you.”

“Hush,” said Ma. She looked at Pa and Uncle John standing helplessly gazing at

the sick man. She looked at Rose of Sharon huddled in the comfort. Ma’s eyes passed

Rose of Sharon’s eyes, and then came back to them. And the two women looked deep into

each other. The girl's breath came short and gasping.

She said “Yes.”

Ma smiled. "I knew you would. I knew!” She looked down at her hands, tight-

locked in her lap.

Rose of Sharon whispered, “Will -- will you all -- go out?” The rain whisked

lightly on the roof.

Ma leaned forward and with her palm she brushed the tousled hair back from her

daughter’s forehead, and she kissed her on the forehead. Ma got up quickly. “Come on,

you fellas,” she called. “You come out in the tool shed.”

Ruthie opened her mouth to speak. “Hush,” Ma said. “Hush and git.” She

herded them through the door, drew the 'boy with her; and she closed the squeaking

door.

For a minute Rose of Sharon sat still in the whispering barn. Then she hoisted

her tired body up and drew the comforter about her. She moved slowly to the corner and

stood looking down at the wasted face, into the wide, frightened eyes. Then slowly she

lay down beside him. He shook his head slowly from side to side. Rose of Sharon

loosened one side of the blanket and bared her breast. “You got to,” she said. She

squirmed closer and pulled his head close. “There!” she said. “There.” Her hand

moved behind his head and supported it. Her fingers moved gently in his hair. She

looked up and across the barn, and her lips came together and smiled mysteriously.

This is one of the most moving scenes ever written. What a stunning climax. A

young girl just lost her baby, a still-born child wrenched from her womb in an open field

127

during a turbulent thunderstorm. Later, in an abandoned house, out of her pain and

misery, she nursed a starving old man with her breastmilk, and smiled… a smile that

celebrated for all time what the milk of human kindness should really be. There were no

sexual connotations, yet it caused a furor in the United States among those who called it

indecent and obscene, and scourged it in an orgy of book burning. And when it was

made into a movie, the Catholic Legion of Decency threatened to have it boycotted all

over the country unless the scene was cut out of the movie.

Subsequently this 1939 Pulitzer Prize-winning epic about the Great Depression,

The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck, earned for its author the Nobel Prize for

Literature. The movie that won the Oscar Award for John Ford as the Best Director, and

Jane Darwin as the Best Supporting Actress of 1940.

I. The Milk Wars: the Background

The movie sextology Star Wars fought in the future throughout the Universe,

pitted the Empire of the Dark Side against The Force of the Good Side. The continuing

Milk Wars in every country in the world for the past 75 years to the present, pit Nestle,

Wyeth and the Milk Companies against the World Health Organization (WHO) and the

UNICEF.

This account written in the third person is about the Milk War in one country, the

Philippines, and the 19 year Battle to formulate Implementing Rules and Regulations to

give teeth to the National Laws and Policies on Infant and Young Child Feeding in the

Philippines. It is primarily the story of three Breastfeeding Advocates: one, an 81-year

old man (an economist, engineer, writer, retired businessman and former cabinet

member); two, his daughter (a doctor of medicine, dermatologist, pharmacist and

internationally recognized lactation consultant); and three, a friend (mass communication

expert, internationally recognized lactation consultant, 90-lb. skinny vegetarian, and

iconoclast activist). Together in a short period of ten months in the year 2005, these

three won the battle against the Milk Titans that was lost for 19 years. And this is

their story. Together they are known to the Milk Companies as the Unholy Trinity:

Goddamn the Father, Goddamn the Daughter, and Goddamn the Holy Skeleton.

First, the background. The mother of the Father was Concepcion Maramba who

128

in the 1920s, graduated from the University of Illinois as the first graduate of Home

Economics in the Philippines, became an educator, a suffragist, and subsequently the

President of the powerful National Federation of Women’s Clubs. The Father’s aunt was

Manuela “Lolita” Maramba, graduated with a master’s degree in Nutrition from the

Western Reserve University (Cleveland, 1948), and a master’s degree in Health

Education from the University of North Carolina (1949), the first schooled Nutritionist of

the Philippines, who in the 1950s once worked for the UNICEF, and rejected imported

milk in favor of indigenous foods rich in calcium for the national program against

malnutrition. She’s 93 years old today in 2006, still perambulatory and mentally active.

In 1975, Dr. Natividad Clavano of Baguio General Hospital in the Philippines

traveled to Washington DC to attend a hearing of a US Senate Subcommittee under the

chairmanship of Senator Ted Kennedy, where she galvanized the entire world with a

10,000-baby study in her hospital by which the total elimination of baby milk formula

from the maternity wards, resulted in a dramatic reduction of infant mortality by 95

percent. Teddy Kennedy joined the crusade against the milk companies and demanded

that the World Health Organization (WHO) do something about it. In 1981, the

WHO/UNICEF passed the International Code on the Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes

and Other Related Products. In 1986, the revolutionary government of President Corazon

Aquino signed into law Executive Order 51, known as the Philippine Milk Code. For 19

years the law was honored more in the breach than in the observance, because no new

and effective Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) were formulated to implement

it, due largely to the presence of a Nestle representative in the Technical Working Group.

God the Father is 81-year old Dr. Hilarion “Larry” M. Henares Jr., MIT graduate,

formerly Chairman of the National Economic Council and Presidential Administrator of

Community Development (PACD) under President Diosdado Macapagal, a retired

industrialist and former President of the Philippine Chamber of Industries, a columnist,

Radio and TV commentator, and Presidential Consultant on National Affairs serving

President Fidel Ramos and President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. God the Daughter is Dr.

Elvira L. Henares Esguerra, RPh, MD, FPDS, IBCLC. God the Holy Skeleton is Ms.

Nona D. Andaya Castillo, IBCLC. This Unholy Trinity of Breastfeeding Advocates

challenged the Milk Companies, so powerful financially and politically, throughout the

129

bureaucracy up to the Presidential Cabinet, and won.

II. The Milk Wars: the First Confrontation

The first confrontation of the Milk Companies was with the Father, Larry

Henares, in 1997. He was at the time the most widely read columnist in the country, in

his column Make My Day in the Philippine Daily Inquirer and other newspapers, a

Presidential Consultant to President Ramos, a.radio commentator, and a Talk Show host

on Channel 9, where the Daughter Elvira was the executive producer. Larry was

requested to invite to his TV program Breastfeeding advocates headed by Ms. Ines

Fernandez of the Non Government Organization (NGO) Arugaan, and Elvira Dayrit of

the Department of Health. Ines Fernandez is a member of IBFAN and WABA, world-

wide networks of breastfeeding advocates. Elvira Dayrit was in charge of the

breastfeeding program in the Health Department, and she herself is a lactating non-

mother, breastfeeding an adopted child, and wife of future Secretary of Health Manuel

Dayrit.

The program aired live on July 30, 1997, proved to be very interesting, when it

was revealed (1) that the WHO and the UNICEF was having a running battle with the

Milk Companies, (2) that Nestle was called a Baby Killer and subjected to a world-wide

boycott, (3) that Etta Mendez, who is an Opus Dei member and the government Censor

as head of the Movie, Television and Radio Classification Board (MTRCB), purportedly

called up to forbid the camera man from taking close-ups of breasts feeding a child

(obscene?), and (4) that Nestle people were fuming mad over the program (did they call

in behalf of Mendez?) Larry invited Nestle to appear in a subsequent program to answer

the allegations of Ines.

Next day, the President of the Channel 9 called up Larry to tell him that Nestle

representatives threatened to withdraw all their ads from the station unless the TV

program of Larry Henares was scratched by the station. Larry called up the President and

CEO of Nestle Juan Santos, berated him as a “misbegotten creep” and cursed all his

forebears “from the first Santos that ever stood up on her hind legs and barked.” Juan

Santos, who later became a Secretary of Trade and Industry, denied all knowledge of the

actions of his Nestle people, promised to fire the guilty ones. and offered to give

130

advertisements to the Henares program as a peace gesture. Larry Henares on his part,

featured Nestle’s side on his radio program and suggested that the breastfeeding

advocates accept an offered financial assistance from Nestle.

Four years later, in 2001, the Daughter Dr. Elvira L. Henares Esguerra,

affectionately called “Virus” because she is so infectious, gave birth to her third child.

Not having breastfed her first two children, she was determined to breastfeed Larry her

newborn son, with the help of Ms. Ines Fernandez and Nona D. Andaya Castillo, both of

Arugaan, a Day Care Center. She surrounded herself with a family support system

composed of her husband Dr. Eriberto Esguerra, and specially her two children, Angeli,

12, and Gabriel, 10. Angeli and Gabriel took courses on massaging the mother and

taking care of the baby, long before Larry was born. After Larry’s birth, Elvira and her

entire family accompanied Ines and Nona to WABA’s Breastfeeding Conferences in

Kuala Lumpur and Tanzania in Africa. The breastfeeding 7 month old baby Larry

Henares Esguerra was the youngest official delegate ever to attend any international

conference, the darling among the delegates and the media, and had his picture taken with

the Vice-President of Tanzania. And the 10-year-old Gabriel made a PowerPoint

Presentation on how he and his sister became their mother’s support group. This created

a sensation among the delegates, and the PowerPoint show was repeated again.

Eventually it led to the founding of Elvira’s Children for Breastfeeding, Inc.; to a video

made by Father James Reuter of the Philippine Catholic media for the Year of the Family

2003, and sent to Rome for the edification of Pope John Paul II; and to the nomination of

the Esguerra Family to the WABA Hall of Fame.

This is the story of how the Daughter, Elvira Esguerra became a breastfeeding

advocate.

III. The Milk Wars: Dealing with the Bureaucracy

The Daughter Dr. Elvira L. Henares Esguerra not only attended “WABA’s

Regional Conference on Global Initiative on Mother Support” in Kuala Lumpur,

Malaysia on April 22-26, 2002, and the WABA’s “Global Forum II” in Arusha, Tanzania

on September 20-26, 2002, she also went on to attend a Trainor’s Course on

Breastfeeding Counseling in New Delhi, India, on October 1-7, 2002. Among those she

131

met on those trips were fellow Filipinos connected with the Breastfeeding Movement in

the Philippines, bureaucrats from the UNICEF and the Department of Health, to whom

she enthusiastically offered her services as a Breastfeeding Advocate. But she was also

puzzled at the uncaring response of these bureaucrats, who were even apathetic in the

face of her advances.

Elvira first met Dr. M.C., a Filipina employee of UNICEF Philippines, in 2002 in

Africa. In 2004 at the Mommy Summit in Manila, she met Dr. M.C. again, and she told

her that she is available without pay to help in the Breastfeeding Movement, “Use me, I

want to help,” and was met by a blank stare behind a closing elevator door.

Later in January 2005 when the new UNICEF country representative, Dr.

Nicholas Alipui, printed in a news item his desire to meet Breastfeeding Advocates to

help in the movement, Elvira immediately went to see him. She was given the run-

around by his staff, and when she persisted, she was told that Alipui was too busy to see

her, and said that before he will see her, she must first be interviewed by a Dr. Romanus

Mkerenga, who happened to be the boss of Dr. M.C. Imagine Elvira’s chagrin when after

seeing Mkeranga, she was told that there is no longer any need to see Alipui.

But the Daughter Elvira cannot be denied. She showed up when her grand-aunt

the venerable Jessie Lichauco gave a party to which Nick Alipui was invited, and asked

her Father Larry Henares, Presidential Consultant of President Gloria Arroyo, to

accompany her to Nick Alipui’s office at UNICEF. “I wanted to meet you but I never

said you were to see Mkerenga first. My staff told me that. And I am angry that they

told you it is no longer necessary for you to see me.” Alipui declared. His senior

executive Dale Rustein was moved to say, “I have been here for three years already but it

is only now that I find breastfeeding advocates from the private sector.” This was already

2005, he could have met her earlier..

Dr. M.C. of the UNICEF was once an employee of the Department of Health, as

still is her friend, Dr. J.B. who was once in charge of breastfeeding in the Department of

Health. Both share an almost pathological antagonism to the private sector. When Dr.

Alipui the head of UNICEF that funded a seminar, specifically asked Dr. M.C. to invite

Elvira and her group to the meeting, Dr. M.C. and Dr. J.B arrogantly told Elvira to her

face that there is no room for her.

132

The Father of the Unholy Trinity, and the older and wiser advocates from other

nations, have this to say to the Daughter Elvira about the psychological make-up of lower

echelon bureaucrats. “They are not very bright and they know it. Because of this, they

are very insecure about the jobs they occupy. To them the job is not an opportunity to

perform, but a sinecure that must be held on to for dear life until the time comes to retire.

Any change from the status quo is more likely for the worse than for the better, therefore

they tend to hibernate and mark time by doing nothing. They hate most activist

advocates like Elvira who demand performance from them, because anything they do

may be done badly and expose their inability to perform the simplest tasks. They love

most the milk companies who praise them to high heavens for not doing their job. Oh

bureaucrats and the milk companies make the necessary motions and noises at each other.

But it is only for show and not for blow. But we offend them at our risk. We come and

go, and move on, but they last forever, protecting each other’s asses.” How true.

IV. The MilkWars: The Opening Salvo

In 2001, two family friends of the Unholy Trinity were appointed by President

Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to positions in the field of Health: Dr. Manolet Dayrit as

Secretary of Health, and Dr. Francisco Duque III as the President of the PhilHealth

Insurance Corporation. In 2002, the Daughter Elvira began her advocacy in earnest. The

Holy Skeleton, Nona D. Andaya Castillo, joined her as co-director of Children for

Breastfeeding, Inc. Together they wrote up proposals (1) to monitor hospitals to ensure

compliance with the RA 7600 known as the Rooming-In Act, (2) to monitor milk

company advertisements to ensure compliance with the EO 51, known as the Milk Code;

(3) to set up Breastfeeding Clinics in hospitals and health facilities, (4) to convince malls

and business establishments to be “mother-baby friendly” to breastfeeding mothers; (5) to

establish a Lactation Library and Training Center. Such proposals went to the

Department of Health, the PhilHealth Insurance, the City of Makati, and Senator Pia

Cayetano.

Secretary Dayrit assigned Undersecretary Margarita Galon to study the proposals,

but this was abandoned after so many months, without informing Elvira, “because the

133

Department decided to concentrate their attention on an attempt to break the Guinness

World Record for Simultaneous Calisthenics.”

. PhilHealth President Duque assigned a Dr. Banzon to study a plan of

accrediting “baby friendly hospitals” and outsourcing it to Children for Breastfeeding,

Inc. but somehow it got bogged down in the problem of actuarial risk. Mayor Jojo Binay

of Makati City assigned a Dr. Maria Lourdes B. Salud of City Health to study the

proposal. She dismissed it outright for “lack of budget funds.” No funds from the richest

city in the country??? Pia Cayetano ignored the proposal when she was told that Elvira

objects to Pia’s relationship with Nestle.

In meetings galore, briefings, conferences, public hearings, and appointments,

some officials do not show up on time, because they were shopping. And Elvira

developed the habit of texting their bosses that they are not around to do their jobs. Not

only that, in frustration, she demanded that they sign a paper certifying that they are

committed to Breastfeeding, and then compounding the insult by taking a picture of them

signing the paper. Can you blame the bureaucrats if they think Elvira comes in too

strong, is a radical activist and a pest? Can you blame Elvira either? Clearly the God-

bless the Daughter needed a lesson and a re-education. So did the Bureaucrats too. God-

bless the Father was to supply the lesson and education.

The Bureau of Food and Drugs had been conducting public hearings that were

never scheduled publicly. Under the watchful eye of a Nestle member of the Technical

Working Group (TWG), 11 versions of a draft IRR were composed, discussed, quarreled

over, and rejected over the years. Public hearings were usually composed of 85 percent

representatives of milk companies and their lawyers, 10 percent government officials and

5 percent from the private sector cowed into silence by lawyers arguing about “legal

parameters.”

Elvira purely by chance found out the schedule of such a hearing and called up to

say her group will be attending. She was told that there was no room for her group.

When she insisted on coming, she was told to come alone. Elvira went to her father in

tears. WHAT??? God-bless the Father shouted in anger, “Bring all your people, I will

accompany you myself!” The date was February 28, 2005. God-bless the Father strode

into the venue, announced that he will make the first speech, berated the TWG for

134

wasting 19 years, and told them that the 12th version will be the last and final one, which

he will personally bring to the attention of the President of the Philippines. The battle

was joined. The first salvo was fired. When the smoke cleared, 6 ½ months later on

September 16, 2005, the fourth birthday of Elvira’s son Larry, the 12th and final version

of the IRR was finalized and ready for signing by the Secretary of Health.

V. The Milk Wars: “Legal Parameters” before the Bureau of Food and Drugs

The public hearing of the Bureau of Food and Drugs (BFAD) was held in Hotel

Aloha on February 28, 2005, and was funded by the World Health Organization (WHO).

85 percent of those who attended were representatives of milk companies, mostly paid

lawyers, marketing executives, advertising agencies, radio and TV executives, and

organizations of sales outlets like shopping malls. 10 percent were made up of

government officials such as the National Nutrition Council which is funded by Mead

Johnson to the tune of P18 million, DOH (like Dr. J.B.) and BFAD officials headed by

the chairwoman, newly installed OIC Ofelia Alba.

Larry Henares the Father insisted on being the first to present his testimony. He

spoke of his first experience with Nestle which took offense at the mere presence of

breastfeeding advocates in his Talk Show, Make My Day, on Channel 9 in 1997, and

threatened to pull out its ads from the station. Basically this Swiss company was

fascistic, intolerant of the freedom of the press, he said. Presently, he called attention to

and protested the presence of a Nestle representative in the Technical Working Group, a

shark among the sardines he was to describe him later in the year, blaming him for the

impasse that kept the BFAD from issuing a new IRR for the last 19 years, wasting their

time and money, with 11 draft versions of the IRR that never got finalized. A Nestle

representative is welcome as a witness, a resource person, a guest or a comic relief, but

certainly, he said, not a participant in the decision-making process.

He then reminded the Department of Health and the Bureau of Food and Drugs

that they are not referees or umpires between the interest of milk companies and the

interest of the Filipino people. They are partisans, charged with the responsibility to

promote, protect and defend the health and well-being of the Filipino people. Every issue

involved in the IRR has its pros and cons, and it is the duty of the government to resolve

135

all issues in favor of the Child, not the Milk Companies.

One of the weapons of the government, used by the USA, is called Affirmative

Action. In the field of Civil Rights in the absence of laws that enforce equality of

opportunity, President John F. Kennedy, declared that as a matter of national policy, the

government will deal only with companies who employ Negroes to the extent of the

proportion of the ratio of their population in the national demography. It was extra legal,

not provided for by law, but not expressly forbidden by law either. Affirmative Action

was challenged in court and found enforceable in the USA.

His words fell on deaf ears, as the lawyers of the milk companies argued about the

“legal parameters” that should govern the IRR. He argued that what is not specifically

forbidden by law, may be legal. They argued back that what is not specifically mandated

by law, is illegal. It was almost surreal, lawyers on one side, economists and advocates

on the other, speaking different languages, one in legalese for strict interpretation of the

law for the sake of corporate profits, the other in plain English for a broader interpretation

of the law for the maximum protection of the Child. Henares was to argue in a letter to

BFAD that the so-called “legal parameters” were fictional and self-serving, challenging

the very core of the lawyers’ contention that the law EO 51 was meant to protect only

infants, defined as babies from 0 to 6 months in age, in contrast to the breastfeeding

advocates’ contention that as the WHO/UNICEF recommends, “Breastmilk is best for

babies aged two years and beyond.” Henares argued that the Scope of the EO 51, Section

3, covers the “following products: breastmilk substitutes, including infant formula…” It

does not say “limited to” infant formula. There is no limit to the government’s power

under the law to protect babies in the first two years of their lives, when development of

their intelligence, mental and emotional stability and lifelong health is crucial and

irreversible. This was the tipping point that cast a cloud on legal arguments of milk

lawyers.

VI. The Milk Wars: Short-lived success before the Senate Committee on Health

God-bless the Daughter Dr. Elvira Esguerra and God-bless the Holy Skeleton

have been in contact with Senator Pia Cayetano, Chair of the Senate Committee on

Health and Demography, asking her to champion their cause and pass new legislation that

136

will plug the loopholes of the present law EO 51 which was based on the 1981

WHO/UNICEF International Code on the Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes and other

Related Products, and needed to be updated to the 2002 WHO/UNICEF Global Strategy

on Infant and Young Child Feeding, and the various Resolutions of the World Health

Assembly of Health Ministers all over the world.

Senator Cayetano would bewail the lack of interest among other senators who

rarely attend the meetings of the Committee on Health. Most often she finds herself the

only senator attending, sometimes joined by Senator Juan Flavier, a medical doctor who

was once Secretary of Health under President Fidel V. Ramos.

A chance remark of the Daughter Elvira, nicknamed Virus, pricked the attention

of the senator. Virus said that her Father was able to wangle statistics from the National

Economic Development Authority, successor to the National Economic Council of which

he was once Chairman, which showed that the yearly importation of milk and milk

products into the Philippines has reached $400 million yearly, an amount equal to 10

times the average yearly plunder of our resources by the dictator Marcos in the 14 years

of Martial Law. This milk importation was worse because it represented a yearly

expenditure out of our dollar reserves far into the future without any foreseeable limit.

Since breastfeeding is practically free, Henares said, “breastfeeding is the most

effective and far reaching strategy for the alleviation of poverty.” At last Senator

Cayetano had an issue of great interest to the senators who were more concerned with

poverty than infant mortality. She scheduled a Health Committee Hearing on May 4,

2005. The Father wrote to each of his friends among the senators asking them to attend

the hearing. As a result six heavyweight senators showed up in the hearing: Majority

Floor Leader Francis Pangilinan; Mar Roxas; Edgardo Angara; Alfredo Lim, Ramon

Magsaysay Jr.; and of course Pia Cayetano. It was an affair to remember.

It was one of the most well attended senate hearings on health on record. God-

bless the Father spoke first while God-bless the Holy Skeleton Nona Castillo manipulated

the PowerPoint. The legendary Dr. Natividad Clavano, now retired, who started it all in

the Kennedy Sub-Committee in 1975, was there – and she revealed a standard of

international ethics, developed among the Breastfeeding Advocates worldwide (the

WABA and the IBFAN) in collaboration with the WHO and the UNICEF, to avoid

137

contact with milk companies, especially Nestle and Wyeth, against whom a world-wide

boycott is in progress, as a result of bitter experience.

With the attention of the senators focused on them, delegation after delegation

from the rural health workers, the UNICEF and the WHO, as well as from the Pediatric

Society, lined up support for a new legislation to promote breastfeeding. The Nestle

representative in the BFAD-TWG, its vice president and ombudsman Atty. Mabini

Antonio, even pledged support for breastfeeding in principle. A singular triumph that

was marred only by the mental lapse of UNICEF’s Dr. M.C. saying she favored soliciting

financial assistance from the milk companies.

Unfortunately, Senator Pia Cayetano lost interest in the new law, when it was

pointed out to her by Daughter Elvira that her close association with Nestle Baby Food in

connection with her Bicycle Tour, and her mother’s association with Wyeth in the

promotion of her children’s books, was in gross violation of the present law and of

international ethics. But the Senate’s interest in Breastfeeding never flagged. When the

Unholy Trinity asked for signed petitions for the approval of the new IRR before the

Secretary of Health, 20 out of 23 senators signed up.

VII. The Milk Wars: Running Interference in the A nti Poverty Commission

The National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC), a cluster of cabinet secretaries,

was ordered by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to conduct a hearing before whom

Presidential Consultant Larry Henares must testify on the “Economic Aspects of the

Breastfeeding Culture” preparatory to being invited to a Cabinet Meeting to be held on

the subject. The President who is an economist struggling to keep the Philippine

economy afloat, was interested in Breastfeeding as the most effective and most far-

reaching strategy for the alleviation of poverty.

The NAPC was chaired by a certain Imelda Nicolas, a tomboyish spinster

apparently averse to the propagation of the human race, who showed early her prejudice

against breastfeeding advocates and in favor of the Milk Companies. In the first hearing

on May 25, 2005, Chair Nicolas was flanked by Nestle Vice President Mabini Antonio on

one side, and Senator Pia Cayetano, herself being funded by Nestle, on the other. Nicolas

was engaged in a loud and animated conversation with Antonio, paying scant attention to

138

the testimony of the Father Larry Henares, whom she deliberately distracted and

interrupted several times – (1) saying that she and Senator Cayetano agreed with Nestle

that the Department of Health should follow the “legal parameters” set by the milk

companies in finalizing the IRR draft; (2) insisting that the culpable violations of three

milk companies (Nestle, Wyeth and Mead Johnson) on which Henares was expounding

are irrelevant to the purpose of the hearing; (3) also opining that the revelation of the

world-wide boycott of Nestle products, called Baby Killers in a court case, and the recall

of contaminated Nestle milk products, was libelous and out of turn.

On the second hearing dated June 6, 2005, Nicolas brought to fruition a proposal

of the Department of Social Welfare (funded by Mead Johnson) to import millions of

pesos worth of cow’s milk to feed school children. Breastfeeding advocates vigorously

protested, saying that this was unnecessary and ill-conceived, citing a World Assembly

Resolution that recommended indigenous foods rich in calcium that is more desirable

than cow’s milk. The most formidable supporter of this project is the National Nutrition

Council which is also currently funded by Mead Johnson to the tune of P18 million a

year. Its official named Didi Tangco was compelled to say to the Holy Skeleton, Nona,

“I do not care what you say about cow’s milk. I do not care to read any literature about

its dangers. I just do not care.” So much for open-mindedness, she is a living example of

why the WABA, IBFAN, WHO and UNICEF adheres to ethics against contact with milk

companies. Its CEO Elsa Agbayani had a child who died of cow’s milk allergy, yet she

supports cow’s milk, how tragic! Milk company funding does cause dangerous brain-

washing.. Recently the Nutrition Council was transferred from the Agriculture

Department to the Health Department. The problem is how to fire its CEO for her cow’s

milk obsession!

Imelda Nicolas brought out new statistics from NEDA, designed to take the edge

off the Henares’ figures. Only $57 million of infant milk formula are being imported

every year, not $400 million which is the importation cost of all milk and milk products.

It became increasingly apparent that Nestle’s Mabini Antonio was orchestrating Imelda

Nicolas’ moves. The WHO came up with another set of statistics that showed that the

$57 million or P3.1 billion of imported infant formula, was being sold to the public at

P21 billion, seven times the original cost., a profit motive that justifies the efforts of milk

139

companies to undermine the National Milk Code.

The hearing ended with Imelda Nicolas’ recommendations that (1) the

Department of Health is prohibited from questioning the importation of milk by the

Department of Social Welfare for its school luncheon program; (2) that as a matter of

protocol, only the DOH Secretary, not Larry Henares, will be permitted to speak before

the Cabinet on the question of Breastfeeding. Henares was not told about this. A climax

in the Milk Wars was brewing.

VIII. The Milk Wars: Unqualified Success in the Presidential Cabinet Meeting

A new Secretary of Health was appointed, Dr. Francisco Duque III, formerly

CEO of the PhilHealth Insurance. Although he assumed office two weeks before, he was

scheduled to take his oath of office on June 14, just before the Cabinet meeting scheduled

for the Breastfeeding issue. Because he was new in the game and not familiar with the

issues involved, Duque consented to have Henares speak on the Breastfeeding issue

during the Cabinet meeting. Henares prepared his presentation, with the urgent request

that the President (1) proclaim August 1 to 7 as World Breastfeeding Week to be

officially celebrated together with 120 countries worldwide, according to international

ethics that dictate that the milk companies are not welcome to participate; (2) approve the

Five Year Program (to the year 2010) for Infant and Young Child Feeding, in response to

the WHO/UNICEF Global Strategy, (3) mandate the finalization of the new IRR for

signing by the Secretary of Health.

On the day itself, after the swearing-in, Imelda Nicolas approached the President

to tell her that Duque will make the Breastfeeding presentation, not Henares. Henares

protested, citing the original order of the President to the Anti-Poverty Commission

asking that Henares be asked to present his paper there in preparation for the Cabinet

Meeting. The WHO head and Imelda Nicolas insisted that Henares, although of cabinet

rank as a Presidential Consultant, has no personality in the Health Department. Duque

said, “You decide, Madame President.” The president decided that Henares will speak

first as a Breastfeeding Advocate, and Duque will answer as the Health Secretary. At the

outset, Nicolas was angry, she took Henares aside and warned him about speaking

against the importation of milk by the Social Welfare Department. Henares gave her the

140

shaft. The Cabinet Meeting proceeded without a hitch, Henares and Duque spoke in

tandem, perfectly synchronized. The President was impressed, and the three-pronged

request for a World Breastfeeding Week, a program for Infant and Young Child Feeding,

and the finalization of the new IRR were approved in principle. Henares made a special

point of making his case against the importation of milk and encouragement of

indigenous calcium rich foods for the malnutrition program of the Department of Social

Welfare headed by Dinky Soliman, moving the President to remark, “it does no good to

encourage consumption of milk, since our milk industry can only supply one percent of

the demand.” It helped that Director Sally Bulatao of the National Dairy Authority, a

niece of Henares, supported the position of the Breastfeeding advocates not to rely on

imported milk. It also helped that a few days later, the infamous Hyatt 10 made their

move, several cabinet members resigning in masse and calling upon the President to

resign and vacate the Presidency. For Gloria and her supporters, that was an act of

treachery. Among the Hyatt 10 were Imelda Nicolas, chair of the Anti-Poverty

Commission and Dinky Soliman, Secretary of the Social Welfare Department that

planned to import milk in massive quantities. The Internet reported the approval of the

importation, but it was not true.

The President was deep in a political crisis owing to the so-called “Hello Garci”

Tapes that allegedly involved her in a plot to cheat in the presidential elections of 2004.

She wanted help to improve her political image. And to help her, she invited the entire

Henares family to dinner at Malacañang Palace on July 18, 2005: Larry Henares,

Presidential Consultant, his children and their spouses: Ronnie, TV director and talent

manager; his wife Ida of the GMA-7 TV network; Atom, Harvard educated big

businessman who makes abaca pulp, produces palm oil, owns power stations and a TV

and radio network, and his son Quark, Palanca Awardee and film director; Elvira,

dermatologist and breastfeeding advocate; and her husband Bert Esguerra, internist-

pulmonologist; lawyer Danby and his wife, Kim, BIR Deputy Commissioner; Juno,

executive of ABS-CBN; Rosanna and her husband Eric Angeles in the hotel business.

IX. The Milk Wars: Dinner at Eight with the Presi dent

The President invited the entire family of Larry Henares for dinner at eight, on the

141

evening of July 18. Asked why the invitation was extended, the President, whose

husband and son left for abroad for an extended self-exile, replied wistfully, “Perhaps I

want to be adopted into your family.” Larry Henares, 81, served in the cabinet of her

father, and her mother was from Pangasinan, like Larry, and was a family friend. Larry

on his part asked the President to invite to dinner the new Secretary of Health “Pincoy”

Duque, whose father also served in the cabinet of her father, and who was also a family

friend from the same province of Pangasinan. Invited as well, upon the suggestion of

Henares, was the new head of the UNICEF, Dr. Nicholas Alipui, who started the concern

for the loss of the breastfeeding culture with a poignant “letter to the editor” earlier in the

year. Also invited was the Holy Skeleton in the person of Ms. Nona D. Andaya Castillo,

Elvira’s colleague and partner.

The Henareses had the President’s complete attention from 8 to 11 PM. The

evening was spent in pleasantries, in photo opportunities, in solid suggestions for helping

the president weather her political crisis, but the conversation inevitably drifted to the

Breastfeeding issue. The President repeatedly spoke of her difficult experiences

breastfeeding her children, “I had to stop, my children were developing diarrhea,” she

said, to the consternation of Nick Alipui and the Unholy Trinity of Breastfeeding

advocates. “My God,” Alipui were to remark later, “the President does not believe in

Breastfeeding!”

But the President being an intelligent open-minded woman, did listen with interest

and understanding, and at the end of the evening she seemed thoroughly convinced of the

necessity of bringing back the Breastfeeding Culture into the Philippines. It was at this

point that Larry Henares pointed out to the President that the World Breastfeeding Week

will be celebrated two weeks later on August 1 to 7, and the opportunity presents itself

for a celebration in Malacañang that will catch the attention of the nation and the world.

“We’re too busy nowadays,” said the President, and added, “I’ll give you no more than

one hour on August 1. What do you have in mind?” Henares answered, “We’ll take the

opportunity to issue a Presidential Proclamation celebrating World Breastfeeding Week

every year from August 1 to 7; to launch the 5-year program for Infant and Young Child

Feeding in accordance with the WHO Global Strategy; and to sign into effect the new

IRR to EO 51.” “It’s too soon and too late,” said Pincoy Duque, “Today is July 18. I

142

cannot mobilize the department in two weeks for the affair.”

“You cannot because you are too big a bureaucracy, but my family can. I promise

you my family will navigate the shoals of bureaucracy from Malacañang Protocol to the

Health Department, make up the guest list, make sure they attend, write the proclamation

and all the speeches, draft the program, and get sponsors to fund the affair,” Henares

promised. “Pincoy will have to make the decision,” the President declared.

Health Secretary Pincoy Duque made the decision on July 21, “It is too soon to

sign the IRR, it has to go through the usual public hearings and due process and won’t be

ready until it is approved by the BFAD-TWG and the Executive Committee. To facilitate

this I will put Undersecretary Alex Padilla to preside as chairman of the TWG. The

President asked me to consult Economic Adviser Tom Alcantara before I sign the IRR.

You do the rest, Uncle Larry.”

Malacañang Protocol had few imperatives: (1) A consolidated guest list must be

submitted for approval and used as a check list for admission to the Palace; (2) A dress

code must be strictly adhered to, no slippers, no blue jeans, no dusters allowed; (3) the

program must be submitted for approval. Only the Unholy Trinity was involved in the

affair, Larry, Elvira and Nona, and their liaisons to UNICEF (Ms. Alexis Rodrigo), and to

the DOH (Dr. Yoly Oliveros).

X. The Milk Wars: A Day of Wonder at the Malacañang Palace

Everything was being prepared for the Malacañang Affair, scheduled for 10 to 11

AM in the Palace. Larry drafted the Proclamation for Breastfeeding Week and the

program. Nona drafted all the speeches including that of Manila City Mayor Lito

Atienza who promised to make Manila a mother-baby friendly city, and break the

Guinness World Record for simultaneous breastfeeding. Elvira together with UNICEF’s

Alexis and DOH’s Yoly made up a guest list of 300 people, expecting 200 to show up.

Late Friday afternoon less than 3 days before the Affair, Larry received a text message

from Alipui and Pincoy. They just attended a Bright Child Affair in Malacañang that

gathered a record of 500 guests into the Ceremonial Hall in the Palace, “It is impressive,

we must eclipse it with our Breastfeeding Affair,” they urged. On August 17th 2005,

Larry reported to the President on the Breastfeeding Affair held on August 1, 2005:

143

“There are times, Madam President when you have that know-it-all look of a

schoolmarm that makes people look stupid and feel resentful. But then there are times

when you look positively radiant with an inner glow that clutches at the hearts of those

with you. Such a time it was during the August 1, 2005, Affair in the Ceremonial Hall

when you declared August 1 to 7 as World Breastfeeding Week. You were really at your

best and loveliest.

“We had only 10 days to accomplish the task, planning only a simple affair with

300 guests. The Bright Child Affair of the DSWD, with busloads of schoolchildren and

totaling 500 guests, impressed UNICEF head Dr. Alipui and DOH Secretary Duque so

much that they texted me to try hard to surpass it. We had three days to gather 700

guests but we did it. Duque brought the doctors who were hospital heads, Senator

Gordon a 20-man delegation of Japanese Red Cross, Father Reuter a whole community

of indigenous tribes. And of course everyone brought as many nursing mothers as

possible. We filled the Ceremonial Hall to the rafters with extra chairs from end to end,

a record, the Protocol told me. Asked to compare the Bright Child with the

Breastfeeding Affair, Protocol rated ours 10 and the Bright Child 7.5; and for the first

time in 300 years, Malacañang Protocol was breached. Down at Gate One, a long line

of newly born babies with their fathers and mothers from Fabella Hospital waited, while

my daughter Elvira pleaded, ‘I know their names are not posted and they are wearing

sandals, blue jeans and dusters, but this affair is for them. They simply cannot afford

shoes and good clothes. They are fresh from the delivery room and we did not have time

to post their names.’ They were let in, after a fervent prayer of the group to the Virgin

Mother.

“The Henares technique for winning Oratorical Contests (we won Voice of

Democracy three times) worked like a charm: ‘First make them laugh, to open their

minds. Then plant the seeds of thought and water them with tears.’ With my introduction

of Nuestra Señora de la Leche, I made the audience laugh. The speeches and the

PowerPoint presentations planted the seeds of thought, and you, Madam President, you

watered them with the tears of the audience.

“It was most moving, the way you left the stage to approach Dr. Clavano, to

congratulate her for making history as the first Breastfeeding advocate in the world. It

144

moved the audience to tears to hear the mother and daughter Nona and Isabelle Castillo

sing a lovely serenade to the nursing mothers, ‘Come close to me, Neneng, let me shower

you with kisses,’ with the toddlers bringing flowers to each mother, climaxed by my

grandchildren, Larry Henares Esguerra and Uno Angeles, bearing roses to you and

being hugged and kissed in return. Then the most gracious gesture of all, which moved

everyone to tears --- you motioned all the nursing mothers and fathers to come to you, all

in a line, and you shook each hand, blessed each baby and kissed each nursing mother.

And your speech was the best on Breastfeeding I have ever heard yet. Congratulations,

Madam President.”

XI. The Milk Wars: Back to BFAD, the Final Solution

Two down and one to go. The World Breastfeeding Week was officially

proclaimed in the Philippines in tune with 120 countries and the international standard of

ethics avoiding involvement with the Milk Companies. The 5-year Program for Infant

and Young Child Feeding launched as our commitment to the WHO/UNICEF

International Milk Code of 1981, the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the

2002 Global Strategy on Infant and Young Child Feeding. The only one left to be done is

the finalization of the 12th version of the IRR, for the first time since 19 years ago.

We had other reasons to thank the Lord. By some miracle as a good omen, fell

into our hands a 200-year-old painting of our Lady breastfeeding Jesus (owned by Pia Sy-

Santos) – the patron saint, Nuestra Señora de la Leche y Buen Parto, Our Lady of

Breastmilk and Happy Delivery, and also a replica of a 100-year old statue of the same

(owned by Remedios Gonzales). Both were displayed during the Malacañang Affair.

The UNICEF under Dr. Nicholas Alipui, the initiator and the inspiration of the

movement, marshaled the resources of the UNICEF to fund Elvira’s and Nona’s Children

for Breastfeeding Inc. to bring the movement to a successful conclusion.

It is back to the BFAD-TWG where the 12th version of the IRR draft was being

revised. The breastfeeding advocates were officially invited to the BFAD-TWG

meetings to participate in the proceedings, but the BFAD was less than cooperative, often

re-scheduling meetings without informing the advocates. The situation improved when

DOH Undersecretary Alex Padilla took over as chairman. It was decided early that

145

heavy administrative penalties be imposed on milk companies and government officials

in violation of the Code; that infant formula milk, as in the Rooming-In Act (RA 7600),

would be marketed only through drug stores and pharmacies; that milk companies should

not be represented in any decision making branch of the regulatory body; that there

should not be any confusion between trade names of infant formula and milk for older

children; that as a matter of policy, exclusive breastfeeding is for infants up to six

months of age, and breastfeeding is best for babies up to two years and beyond. “I feel as

if I am being gang-raped,” said Nestle vice-president and Ombudsman Mabini Antonio,

member of the TWG. The contentious issue of “legal parameters” was resolved by

including the Philippine commitment to implement the WHO Global Strategy and World

Assembly resolutions in the IRR, justifying it with two quotes from the 1987

Constitution, Section 15 and section 2 of Article II: “The State shall protect and promote

the right to health of the people…” and “The Philippines… adopts the generally accepted

principles of international law as part of the law of the land.” The final version was

approved by the BFAD-TWG on September 16, 2005.

The IRR is of particular interest to the Milk Industry. For 19 years they were able

to violate the law with impunity in the absence of Implementing Rules and Regulations

(IRR), and derived enormous profits at the expense of 16,000 babies every year dying

before the age of 5 because of improper feeding, P320 million for funeral expenses, P430

million for hospital expenses and medicines; $57 million or P3.1 billion yearly for infant

milk importation out of the Foreign Exchange Reserves; and P21.5 billion out of the

pockets of the poor for milk purchases, when breastfeeding is practically free. Because

of them, the rates for exclusive breastfeeding in the Capital Region is an infinitesimal ½

% of nursing mothers, and the average duration is only 1 ½ months instead of the ideal 6

months as recommended by WHO. To save their profits they are mounting a Milk Lobby

Fund of P3 billion, P200 million of which was offered to breastfeeding advocates to

“promote breastfeeding.” Their mission is to frustrate the signing of the IRR into effect.

But the Unholy Trinity has moved to the moral high ground with the support of the entire

Catholic Bishops’ Conference, 20 out of 23 Senators, the Pediatric Society, and 80

NGOs.

146

XII. The Milk Wars: The war is never really finis hed

The so-called Unholy Trinity, Economist Larry Henares, 81, his daughter Dr.

Elvira L. Henares Esguerra. 49. and her partner Ms. Nona D. Andaya Castillo (43),

Breastfeeding Advocates, were able to accomplish three important achievements (1) have

August 1 to 7 officially proclaimed the World Breastfeeding Week to be celebrated

according to the standards and ethics of WABA, IBFAN, WHO and UNICEF, avoiding

any involvement with milk companies; (2) cause the launching of the 5-year program on

Infant and Young Child Feeding as per the Philippine Commitment to the WHO/UNICEF

Global Strategy; and (3) the finalization of the Implementing Rules and Regulations for

the National Milk Code and other international commitments. They were able to do these

within the short period of 6 ½ months from February 28 to September 16, 2005. They

did it by negotiating through the bureaucratic maze of the Bureau of Food and Drugs, the

Department of Health, the Philippine Senate, the National Anti-Poverty Commission, the

Presidential Cabinet and Malacañang Palace itself. They did it against the tremendous

resources of the Milk Companies, and with the help and encouragement of Dr. Nicholas

Alipui and Dale Rustein of UNICEF, Secretary Francisco “Pincoy” Duque and

Undersecretary Alexander A. Padilla of the Department of Health. They won the Milk

War in the Philippines. But the war is never really finished.

The Final IRR going through due process weathered its way through the DOH

Executive Committee, and is still to be signed by the Secretary. Everyone is assured that

it will be signed after the Budget is approved by the Congress of the Philippines.

Perpetuo de Claro, president of Wyeth Philippines, has claimed connections with the

President’s daughter, the sister of a high official of DOH, and many others, and has been

shown to be a liar and a braggart. He has been reported to the Ethics Committee of his

company, headed by Vice President Douglas A. Dworkin, and will shortly be accused of

violations of the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act before the US Department of Justice

(reference: Mark Mendelsohn) and the US Securities and Exchange Commission. US

Embassy Economic Counselor Robert Ludan paid a visit to the DOH and threatened to

get WHO and UNICEF to back off the Breastfeeding Issue. He was duly reported to the

US Charge D’Affaires for his unethical behavior.

Wyeth and the Philippine Healthcare Association of the Philippines (PHAP) have

147

threatened to drag the DOH to the courts with a Temporary Restraining Order, in case the

IRR is signed into effect. Larry Henares was able to get the support and the legal advice

of the recently retired Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Hilario Davide, who assured

him, Dr. Alipui, and Usec. Alex Padilla that the Courts will most probably not issue the

TRO, considering that it is the National Policy that DOH is implementing, and that the

state should protect the interests of the Child in the long years ahead while the legal

merits of the case is being adjudicated. Elvira and Nona were able to convince SM Super

Malls Inc., one of the largest in Asia, through Elvira’s friend and school mate Annie Silva

Garcia (VP for Operations) to be a breastfeeding friendly shopping center, where

breastfeeding mothers are welcome and given priority in all queue lines to cash registers,

movie ticket counters, and toilet facilities. Both also initiated the attempt of Manila

Mayor Lito Atienza to break the Guinness World Record on Simultaneous Breastfeeding

(the record being 1,130 in October 2002, in Berkeley, California) by having 5,000

nursing mothers do it in the San Andres Sports Center on February 14, 2006.

Nona and Elvira are now giving advocacy workshops and training sessions to

school children, barangay health workers, NGOs and officials of the Department of

Education. Nona and Elvira are partnering with DOH and PhilHealth to monitor

violations of the Milk code and the Rooming-In Act. The Milk Companies are getting

the traditional politicians, such as Speaker Jose de Venecia, to intervene, but it is doubtful

if they can reverse the triumphs of the Unholy Trinity, those they call Goddamn the

Father, Goddamn the Daughter and Goddamn the Holy Skeleton.

In a letter to USEC Padilla, Dr. Alipui said “I am happy and I want to be the first

to state categorically that I am more than delighted at the outcome!

“Thank you and a million thanks to the greatest team of breastmilk advocates I

have ever worked with in my 25 years in nutrition support programming - Secretary

Duque, Usec Padilla, Larry, Elvira, Nona, Dale, Jean-Marc, Mrs Phumaphi, David Clark

and of course others who have worked very hard on this. Just to say that this much

happiness I feel for the children of the Philippines today is due to your relentless effort

and I salute you for that. I hope we will have the Exceom approval and the signature of

the Secretary before the end of 2005 when we will declare actual victory.”

The Milk Wars will never really be finished.

148

CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENTS

I. Charter Change: Presidential or Parliamentary?

Our current presidential system is only 16 years old, brought into being by a new

constitution. Now we hear a swelling chorus of voices urging that this infant document

be tampered with, so soon after birth, to take us back to parliamentary government.

The more fervent advocates insist it is the only road to the country’s salvation. I

am afraid, however, firstly that it will take more than a change in our structure of

government to solve our problems; and secondly, I am afraid it is arguable if a change

back to the parliamentary system would in fact be a change for the better.

Parliamentary governments are not the same all over the world. There are

variations. The oldest and most classic example of parliamentary government is to be

found in the United Kingdom, or Great Britain. In the U.K., members of Parliament -- or

MPs -- are elected by clearly-defined constituencies, exactly the same way we elect the

members of our House of Representatives, by clearly-defined districts. In the U.K., the

party that has succeeded in electing the largest number of MPs becomes the party that

governs; it becomes the government. In West Germany and The Netherlands, the voters

cast their ballots not for individuals but for the parties. This system is known as

proportional representation. Of course the voters know who are the individuals running

under the various parties, so that candidates recognized as attractive and brilliant

sometimes sway the voters towards their respective parties. But the ballot is filled with

the name of a party, not of any individual.

The votes are then counted and the contending parties are allocated seats in

Parliament that correspond to the percentage of the total vote they have received. Thus if

Party A received 41 percent of the total vote, it will have 41 percent of the seats in

Parliament; if Party B got 27 percent of the vote, it gets 27 percent of the seats; and so on

down the line. The party that has garnered the largest number of votes will be called

149

upon to form a government. If this party received more than 50 percent of the vote and

thus enjoyed a clear majority in Parliament, it will then organize the government by itself,

composed exclusively of its own members. However, if it got less than 50 percent of the

vote, it will then have to invite and negotiate with the lesser parties to form a coalition

government.

The third variation of the parliamentary system is France. The French model

combines the presidential and parliamentary systems. The President is the head of the

state, with powers equivalent to those of chairman of the board, and the Prime Minister is

the head of government, in effect the chief executive officer. French deputies get elected

the same way as British MPs and Filipino congressmen, by clearly-defined constituencies

or districts.

It was the French model in fact that the constitutional convention in the early ‘70s

copied when it adopted the combined presidential-parliamentary system embodied in the

1973 constitution. As a result of that, we had Marcos as President and Cesar Virata as

Prime Minister. The Batasan was our legislative body, our Parliament, and this was the

governmental set-up we had in the country up to the events of February 1986.

The most important element in a parliamentary system is the stability of the

various political parties competing for power and for the right to govern. These parties

must espouse clearly-defined principles, ideals, goals and aspirations, different from one

another so that they are clearly distinguishable. Filipino political parties, alas, do not fit

this description.

II. Charter Change: No differences between political parties

FILIPINO political parties never differed from each other in principles, ideals,

goals and aspirations since the end of the World War II and the restoration of our

independence. At that time the major political party was the Nacionalista party, which

had been dominant throughout the prewar period.

But the two leaders of this party, President Sergio Osmeña and Senate President

Manuel Roxas, both wanted to be President, and neither would give way to the other. So

Roxas broke away from Osmeña and the Nacionalistas and formed his own party, the

Liberal party. And, as you know, he ran against Osmeña and defeated him.

150

After this we witnessed two more political convulsions which were even more

startling. First, Ramon Magsaysay, who was President Quirino’s secretary of national

defense and was the brightest star in the Liberal party, left this party and moved over to

the Nacionalista party when Quirino refused to yield the presidential nomination to him.

Magsaysay ran against Quirino and beat him. Then, a dozen years later,

Ferdinand E. Marcos, then president of the Senate and co-leader of the Liberal party with

President Diosdado Macapagal, took the same route as Magsaysay and defected to the

Nacionalista party. He ran against Macapagal and also beat him.

So Presidents Osmeña, Quirino and Macapagal were thwarted in their bids for

reelection by rivals who had been among their closest colleagues and associates

personally and politically. Why? Because they refused to sacrifice their reelection

ambitions. Presidents of the Philippines never step aside for others but leave office only

in three ways: first, carried away in a box, dead; second, by being defeated for reelection;

or, third, by being flown to Honolulu.

Mrs. Aquino has solemnly promised time and again that she will not run for

reelection in 1992. She kept her promise in spite of all dire expectations and the

importunings of her politician brother. I suggest that a monument be constructed in

honor of Cory. This business of switching parties without any qualms has not been

confined to Presidents. It has happened all the time -- among candidates for senator,

congressman, governor, mayor.

Two of the giants of Philippine politics, Claro M. Recto and Lorenzo Tañada,

won reelection to the Senate not by running with their own party but with the opposite

party, as “guest candidates.” And Ninoy Aquino changed from Nacionalista to Liberal

when his calculations told him that his political ambitions had better prospects with the

Liberals. These were not necessarily unprincipled or depraved men who did this. It was

easy for them to do it because there were no basic and fundamental differences between

the Nacionalista and Liberal parties. They were two sides of the same coin.

They were carved out of the same power structure that has ruled this country since

the beginning of the century and continues to rule it to this day -- a power structure that is

feudalistic, conservative (even reactionary), pro free enterprise, against Socialism and

other isms (except opportunism), protective of the Catholic church, protective of the

151

landlords, protective of capitalists, hostile to militant labor unions and peasant

movements, and subservient to the Americans. The Nacionalista and Liberal parties

shared these common positions and convictions. Thus no profound questions of

conscience and principles stood in the way of anyone who, for reasons of political

advantage and convenience, decided to cross the line, from one party to the other.

III. Charter Change: Decisive majority can be demolished here

Today’s parties-- the LDP of Angara, the Masang Filipino of Erap, the NPC of

Danding Cojuangco, and the Lakas-NUCD of de Venecia, LP of Drilon, and KBL of

Marcos, have no basic differences. They believe in and practice the same things. They

belong to the same deck of cards. After an election new faces may turn up, but this does

not mean that any vital change will be enforced among the Filipino people, because the

faces will have come, will have been shuffled, from the same old pack of cards.

In our history, what has been the only truly basic and substantive difference

between our political parties? Only this: that at any one time, one would be in power and

the other out of power. The only difference is between the ins and the outs. And a lot of

our politicians, suddenly finding themselves out of power, would immediately maneuver

to move over to the party in power, which in turn would not hesitate to welcome and

embrace them with open arms. For politics, as Amang Rodriguez has said, is addition.

The worst example in our history of the utter contempt shown by Filipino

politicians for the ideals of party loyalty and consistency took place after the election of

Macapagal as President in 1961. Macapagal and his vice-president, Emmanuel Pelaez,

the Liberal candidates, won the election, but the Nacionalistas succeeded in retaining

control of Congress. The Senate was evenly divided, 12 to 12, which meant that the

holdover Senate president, Amang Rodriguez, president of the Nacionalista party, kept

his post. For the House of Representatives, however, the people voted overwhelmingly

for the Nacionalistas. They sent 77 Nacionalista congressmen to the House as against 27

Liberals -- almost a 3-to-1 margin. Thus the holdover Nacionalista speaker, Daniel

Romualdez, was reelected to the office. But he stayed in it for only 34 days. Some

Nacionalista congressmen could not wait to cohabit with the opposite party; others must

have succumbed to a variety of enticements; and a few, I suppose, were threatened “or

152

else.” When the Liberals decided to lower the boom, 54 congressmen voted for Cornelio

Villareal, while Romualdez got the votes of only 37 of his original 77 Nacionalistas. The

man who maneuvered this coalition is no other than our present Speaker of the House,

Joe de Venecia, when he was an assistant of Cornelio Villareal.

The senators were slightly better in observing the proprieties although the final

outcome was the same. The 12 to 12 tie in the Senate held fast for several months, but in

time it was ruptured to give the Liberal candidate, Ferdinand Marcos, the senate

presidency. Ironically from this position of power Marcos maneuvered to join the

Nacionalistas, and beat Macapagal for the presidency. I cannot think of any legislature in

the world where a majority of 77 against 27 can be demolished so that the entire equation

is turned upside down. In the Philippines it was done in 34 days. I don’t think it can

happen anywhere else even in a thousand days.

It seemed clear that the Filipino people wanted a Liberal president to co-exist with

a Nacionalista Congress. But the politicians totally ignored this mandate. Now, an

essential aspect of the parliamentary system is that the government in power can be

brought down and ousted at any time it loses a vote of confidence in Parliament. Just

imagine what will happen in the Philippines when a no-confidence vote is threatened by

any group willing to change parties for no good reasons. The result is political chaos.

IV. Charter Change: Political parties should be like religions

In the United Kingdom members of Parliament have a fixed term of five years.

This is not guaranteed however -- it could be shorter -- because Parliament may be

dissolved at any time before the end of those five years. It may be dissolved either by the

ruling party itself or if the ruling party should lose a vote of confidence. The ruling party

dissolves Parliament if it wants an election -- what we call a snap election -- to be held

immediately. This happens when it believes, through public opinion polls, that it is very

strong with the electorate and will win the snap election easily. It does not want to wait

because if it waits, an unforeseen crisis may wipe out its lead overnight. So it calls a snap

election. The second way Parliament is dissolved is when the ruling party loses a vote of

confidence in Parliament. When this happens, elections have to be held immediately.

The party in power and the opposition have to present themselves to the people for

153

judgment. If the opposition wins, then it takes over and an entirely new government,

with an entirely new program, new goals, new ministers, new faces comes into office and

will run the country.

In calling snap elections, some British politicians miscalculate. The worst

miscalculation was made by Winston Churchill, the towering figure who led Great

Britain through the agony of World War II and won a glorious victory. Throughout the

war he had governed the country as prime minister in a coalition government between his

party, the Conservatives, and the major opposition party, Labor. After having crushed

Hitler and Germany, Churchill had every reason to believe that the British people would

reward him with an equally decisive electoral triumph. So he called a snap election. He

and his party were massacred. Labor won by a landslide, collecting a majority of close to

200 seats in Parliament. I wonder what Churchill thought at the time about people’s

ingratitude. On the other hand, in the mid-60’s, the Labor party under Harold Wilson,

ousted the Conservatives from power by scraping through the elections with a majority of

only four seats in Parliament. As Prime Minister, Wilson dazzled the country with the

politics of bravura and showmanship, and only 18 months later, in March 1966, he called

a snap election. The outcome was an overwhelming Labor victory that raised their

majority of four to one hundred. That was a stroke of political genius.

In Harold Wilson’s administration in the UK, during those 18 months the Labor

party was the government with a majority of only four seats in Parliament, all the votes of

no-confidence that were raised by the Conservatives against it, failed. Not a single Labor

MP, switched to the other side, and voted against his own party. Can we imagine what

happens in a comparable Philippine situation? All the horsetrading, the opportunistic

maneuvers, devious deals and all the fishing in troubled waters in a similar Philippine

context? The result would be severe political instability and uncertainty, with all the

harmful consequences to the economy, the conduct of foreign relations and other

essential national endeavors. The reason members of Parliament in U.K. and other

countries with successful parliamentary systems take their party affiliation seriously, is

the fact that the various parties represent genuinely opposing political traditions,

principles, beliefs and objectives. There are Socialists and Conservatives and

Communists, free traders and protectionists, nuclear warriors and pacifists, the urban-

154

oriented as against the rural-oriented. Thus, for a member of one party to cross over to

the other side would be as radical as changing one’s religion, say from Catholic to

Muslim. It would mean the complete overhaul of his system of political beliefs.

V. Charter Change: We cannot survive prolonged political chaos

The absence of strong party loyalties and discipline, militates strongly against a

parliamentary system of government here. Political parties in the Philippines are

beholden to personalities, it is not the other way around. And a parliamentary system,

with its opportunities for changing a government at any time, without having to wait for a

fixed election date, would bring into full play our tradition of defections, turnabouts and

betrayals. The result would be unmitigated chaos, instability and anarchy, which a fragile

and vulnerable society like the Philippines cannot afford.

The classic contemporary example of parliamentary government run wild is Italy.

At the end of World War II from 1945 to 1990, Italy has had more than 50 changes of

government, or an average of about one government per year. During this period it has

had grave crises, including threats of civil war and coups d’etat. But Italy has survived,

and today is a flourishing, prosperous, stable nation, a dynamic member of the European

Community. Why? Because Italy always had a deep reserve of political, economic and

social cohesion -- certainly deeper than we have. We do not have that reservoir of

strength. Our sense of nationhood is under constant strain and stress, witness all the

active separatist movements. Our people living below the poverty line, comprise 70 to 80

per cent of the population, a critical mass, waiting to explode into revolution under

enough pressure. Ours is a society that cannot survive prolonged political chaos and

instability.

One more feature of parliamentary government that is alien and anathema to our

political traditions is that it inhibits individualism among legislators. Members of

parliament are not allowed to file individual (or private) bills except for the most

compelling reasons. Any private bill filed must go through a laborious process of

screening before it is taken up on the floor, and through an even more tedious ordeal, if it

is to win the entire chamber’s approval. In the House of Commons, the number of

private bills approved each year never exceeds 10 -- usually it’s four or five or six, that’s

155

all. What will this do to the egos of Filipino congressmen, who measure their self-esteem

and effectiveness by number of bills they introduce and get approved. Even bills

changing the names of schools and streets are counted. Each of our congressmen wants

to be the highest pointer, like Jaworski in basketball, and they will die of frustration if

they are prevented from introducing individual bills.

In a parliamentary system, bills are introduced only by the party in power,

because to govern, it must decide what legislation is needed to advance its program and

the people’s wellbeing. The majority party governs and the opposition parties oppose.

And MPs from all sides of the chamber submit themselves to their respective parties’

control and discipline. Fortunately or unfortunately, this is not in the Filipino character,

and it is even less so in the Filipino congressman’s character.

I believe that a shift to the parliamentary system is not encouraged by our political

history, traditions and mores. The conditions essential for its success -- namely, parties

and party programs that offer genuine choices, and a strong tradition of party loyalty and

discipline -- are not present. Our political parties do not offer us alternative policies, only

alternative personalities. Parliamentary government needs a stronger foundation than

that. And there is one more basic, indispensable requirement of parliamentary

government that is missing from our country. This is a permanent, protected and

untouchable civil service. Great Britain, Japan, France, West Germany have civil

services that are beyond the grasp and control of politics and politicians.

VI. Charter Change: We need to create a New Filipino

In a parliamentary democracy, prime ministers may come and go, political parties

may rise to power and fall, but those in the civil service stay on and on, protected and

secure and untouchable. They provide that stability and continuity, that unity of planning

and implementation that are necessary for a country’s plans and programs to move

forward and succeed. They are in all ranks of the civil service, from clerks to agency

heads, bureau directors to undersecretaries, owing allegiance to no party except the

country, immune from the vagaries and shifting fortunes of politics, the true guardians of

the people’s welfare. In contrast, in this country, the minute a new party comes to power,

the whole civil service is swept away, and an entirely new set of replacements is

156

installed. No one is safe or spared; even those who have passed the civil service exams

and are supposed to be secure, are thrown out. Also when a department secretary is

appointed -- and even if the one replaced comes from the same party -- he demands the

resignation of everyone: undersecretaries, assistant secretaries, bureau directors -- and

puts in his own people. In this way do ignorance, incompetence and inefficiency hold

sway. And this is a situation that parliamentary government, with its potential for swift

and unexpected changes and treacherous politics, can only exacerbate.

If the parliamentary system is not suitable for us, what should we do then?

l First, we retain the present system of presidential government, with a President

to be elected for a fixed term of six years with no option of reelection.

l Second, we abolish the Senate and establish a unicameral system, based on the

Lower House. The Senate is an expensive luxury we cannot afford. Elected by the

nation at large, our senators represent everyone and no one. They look down on the

Lower House because the congressmen are elected by limited constituencies and not by

the nation as a whole. Thus friction between the Senate and the Lower House is almost

inevitable, with the result that the legislative process is often slowed down, or side-

tracked, or brought completely to a standstill. The senators also believe they have the

right and the mandate to compete with the President, since they too like the President,

have been elected by all the people. Thus we have one genuine President and 24 fantasy

Presidents -- an intolerable burden not only on the executive department, which has to

humor their fantasies, but on the entire Filipino people.

l Third the term of our congressmen should be increased four years, with a

maximum of two reelections allowed, or a maximum of 12 years. This means that a

President, while he is in office, can gauge and assess public sentiment on the most

important issues facing the country, and to preserve, alter or modify his policies as that

public sentiment suggest.

In the end, the vital question is: “Will changing the structure, the system of our

government, solve all the problems that beset us today?” The answer is NO. I am

convinced that modifying our structure of government, perhaps along the lines I have

proposed will help relieve and solve, some of the problems confronting us. It may help

make government more efficient, more responsive, hopefully more honest.

157

But the tragic truth is that the problems and crises facing us are so complex, so

intractable, so overpowering that we need more than to overhaul our structure of

government. We need to overhaul our attitudes, our values, our habits, our

rationalizations, our political and cultural perspectives. We need to create a New

Filipino. How do we create the New Filipino? If I knew that, I would run for President.

July 26 to August 1, 2005, DWBR-fm

Note: The following is An Alternative Proposal for Charter Change in 5 installments, for

a Federal System with a Presidential Unicameral (on the national level), and a

Unicameral Parliamentary (on the local level) with the local governments allocated 80%

of the national tax revenue: by Hilarion M. Henares and Antonio C. Oppen, and written

by Hilarion M. Henares Jr., based on the following premises:

(1) It must be acceptable to the Senate, and pave the way to a Constituent

Assembly;

(2) It must minimize the harm that may be done by bad national leaders;

(3) It must develop local leaders, regardless of residency qualifications, capable

of becoming good national leaders;

(4) It must promote inter-regional competition to attract investments, and

decongest our cities;

(5) It must done at the least expense and with the least addition of elective

officials.

I. Dancing the Cha-Cha with Tony Oppen

Two weeks ago we featured a series of articles authored by former President

Ramos on his proposal to amend the 1987 Constitution by changing the form of

government from Presidential Bicameral to a Unicameral Parliamentary. Comes now

Antonio C. Oppen, a successful industrialist, agriculturist, and businessman with close

relationship to the Church hierarchy as a Knight of St. Gregory, who now proposes a

Presidential Unicameral Federal System of government with local governments having

the lion’s share of the national tax income – substantially different from the Cha-Cha

proposal of Ramos and Speaker Jose de Venecia.

158

Antonio Oppen is a great supporter of Fidel V. Ramos. It was Tony Oppen who

convinced Jaime Cardinal Sin to support Ramos after Ramos lost to Ramon Mitra in the

LDP political convention, a move that convinced Cory to endorse Ramos and ensure his

election as President in 1992. Between these two friends, there is room for honest

difference of opinion.

It is in their premise that they differ. Ramos wants a ideal system in which

maximum benefits may be provided by a good leader. Oppen wants a less-than-ideal

system in which minimum harm is inflicted by a bad leader. Ramos is an optimist,

Oppen is a pessimist.

And both are right. Ramos is right if our leaders are of the caliber of Lee Kwan

Yu, Mahathir, or Fidel V. Ramos himself. Oppen is right if our leaders are of the caliber

of Marcos or Erap Estrada, or some of the back-room operators that we have in the

Senate and the House. The Ramos Cha-Cha is an act of idealism. The Oppen Cha-Cha is

an act of realism.

Ramos proposes a centralized Unicameral Parliament to merge the functions of

the executive and legislative, avoiding the three way gridlock between the President, the

Senate and the House, and fast-tracking all the benefits a good leader may provide. On

the other hand, Oppen says, under a bad leader, this opens the way to a concentration for

power that bodes ill for the nation because it involves complete command of the

executive, legislative and military, as well as complete control the impeachment process

that holds a sword of Damocles over the Judiciary. Under a bad leader, all such powers

can be disastrous for the nation. I remember the attempt of House members to impeach

Chief Justice Hilario Davide on a charge of corruption. Just think if the Senate did not

exist and the House became the accuser, prosecutor, judge and jury of Justice Davide.

The Supreme Court will be in shambles under the assault of politicians. One does not

have to go back much to remember the time the House defended members who were gun-

runners, child molesters and electoral cheats.

What Oppen proposes is a Federal system that fragments the capacity of such bad

leaders to do harm to the nation. He does this by reducing the power of the central

government to constrict the flow of services to the people in the provinces, and keep the

hands of the legislators from their “pork barrel allotments.” He does this by devolving

159

the House of Representations to their respective provinces and giving them complete

control over public works and the building of schoolhouses. That way they do harm or

good only to their own constituents instead of the whole nation. That way, instead of

having an all powerful Prime Minister of a centralized government, we would have many

prime ministers, each responsible for his own province. The present Congressmen should

be asked, “Why be the satraps of one Prime Minister, when you can be prime minister of

your own province? Why be dependent on pork barrel allotments from the president,

when such funds plus more are at your complete disposal?” Under the Oppen proposal,

the present governor and provincial board shall be elected at large, and the present

Congressmen shall be elected by districts, to constitute the parliament of the province

which then will elect their provincial governor among themselves, who shall serve at

their pleasure till removed by a non-confidence vote.

II. Dancing the Cha-Cha with Tony Oppen, where Ramos and Oppen differ

There is another premise where Ramos and Oppen differ, and that is in the way

that they hope to accomplish their objectives. Ramos has adopted the Cha-Cha proposal

of the Lower House which the Senate strenuously objects to, and this may spell the

doom of the proposed Constituent Assembly. On the other hand, Oppen tries hard to

effect a compromise acceptable to both the Senate and the House, so that they may

constitute a Constituent Assembly that will pass upon the charter change.

The fastest way to effect a charter change is either by People’s Initiative or by

Constituent Assembly, which may be constituted with the consent of 75% of the Senate

and the 75% of the House voting separately. But people do not any more trust politicians

to draft the new charter, and the Senate and the House do not trust each other either. This

impasse must be breached. First the Consultative Constitutional Commission should

draft a Constitutional Amendment acceptable to both the Senate and the House. Then

three ways are open (1) ask the Congress to pass an enabling law for the people’s

initiative or (2) if the Congress refuses to do so, ask the Supreme Court to define the

means we may exercise our right to a people’s initiative, or (3) better still, convince the

House by itself to approve it by 75% majority vote, then pass it on to the Senate for

approval by 75% majority vote; and after resolving the differences in their versions

160

through a Conference Committee, after publication and public hearing, send it

directly to the people for ratification. In sum, Antonio Oppen proposes:

(1) to keep the President at the helm with one fixed six-year term, with no re-

election.

(2) to expand the Senate from 24 to 36 members with fixed terms of six years,

with 12 elected at large in Luzon, 12 elected at large in the Visayas and 12 elected at

large in Mindanao, to function as the Unicameral legislature on the national level (to

ensure that less populated Mindanao gets fair representation in the National Government,

like American states that have two senators each, no matter the population size);

(3) to decentralize and federalize the entire government to give the local

governments 80 percent of the national tax income after deducting the servicing of the

foreign debt, apportioned according to population size;

(4) to assign to the local government, jurisdiction over the building of

schoolhouses and infrastructures, labor laws, minimum wage rates, among others;

(5) to assign to the national government, jurisdiction over national defense,

foreign relations, the monetary system, external trade, collection of national taxes, among

others.

(6) to merge the present members of the Lower House and the provincial officials

to function as a parliament serving each province, with complete control over the budget

and performance, with no limits on their terms, and who will elect a provincial governor

among themselves, who will serve at their pleasure and who may be removed by a “loss

of confidence vote.”.

Allowing the incumbent President to finish her term, limiting her attention to

important national issues, will merit her support of this proposal. By retaining the

Presidential system, it will have the support of many in the Civil Society who object to

the parliamentary system that will allow the known “trapos” with a penchant for power,

to be a national leader without the direct consent of the people. It will have the support

of the Senators who will spend less in the three regions the will represent than they

would have if elected at large from the entire nation. And it will have the support of the

Congressmen and provincial officials who can look forward to being real leaders of

their own provinces, with unlimited funds.

161

III. Dancing the Cha-Cha with Tony Oppen, decentralizing to the local level

According to the Charter Change proposal of Antonio Oppen, much of the power

will be decentralized, and devolved to the local government units. To make this work the

national revenues from income tax and custom duties, after deducting the amount

needed to service foreign debt, will be shared 80% by the local government and 20%

by the national government. By allocating 80 percent of Income Taxes and Custom

Duties to the Federated local governments in proportion to their population, we get the

support of all Local Governments and leaders. We would distribute government

largesse more equitably among the people without the centralized control of the national

government.

The local governments shall be governed by a local assembly elected for a term

of six years, composed of the present governor and provincial council members elected

at large and present congressmen elected by well-defined congressional districts, and will

be headed by a governor elected among them who serves for a maximum of six years

unless terminated by a no-confidence vote, in which case, his successor serves the

remainder of his term.. There is no limit to re-election of the governor or the local

assemblymen. By making the new powerful Local Government a parliamentary form

of government, we make local officials more responsive to their people’s needs, make it

easier to replace or perpetuate them without limit to their re-election. This is tailor-

made for the present-day congressmen who will have no need of pork barrel

allocations, since they have a chance to get full control over funds allocated to their

province or region. Thus they can do considerably less harm to the entire nation than

they are doing now, and less harm than they are capable of doing under a national

parliament. By decentralizing the national government in favor of the federated local

Government Units, we answer the concerns of those of us who have already despaired of

ever getting good national leaders under the present presidential or under a new

parliamentary system.

This may have the support of Congressmen, who instead of voting their Speaker

as Prime Minister, can be prime ministers of their own region or their province if they

choose to be, with all the resources of their region under their complete control, with no

162

limit to re-election. On the other hand, Oppen warns the present traditional politicians

that they are unlikely to be made Prime Minister under a National Parliament. The Prime

Minister will probably be one with a penchant for monopoly and power, who has all the

cash resources and political clout to buy 150 members of Parliament. He can run on a

laundry ticket and beat any traditional politician for the Prime Ministership, and create a

political dynasty of his own that may last forever. As such, like Quezon with his

Unicameral Assembly, and like Marcos with his Batasan, he will have enough power to

control not only the executive and legislative, but also the judiciary and the armed forces.

If this not enough to scare the feces out of you, nothing will.

The local government units will initially be the present provinces, which will

subsequently be authorized and allowed to merge with other provinces (contiguous or

separated by a narrow inland sea), to form larger and more efficient units of

governance, up to the entire Regional entity to which they should belong. The merging

process must be undertaken purely on the initiative of the provinces themselves followed

by ratification by plebiscite by the electorate of the merging provinces themselves under

supervision of the Comelec. By initially designating the province as the Local

Government, we get the support of local officials who jealously guard their present

powers, and give each province the authority to merge with others through negotiations

(like the European Economic Community). To prevent gerrymandering, no province or

regional entity shall be split into smaller provinces.

All these will result in POLITICAL STABILITY and INVESTOR

CONFIDENCE .

IV. Dancing the Cha-Cha with Tony Oppen, no residency requirements

According to the proposal of Tony Oppen, the provincial government may opt to

remain in its present form, or opt to take the form of a parliament, a democratic choice on

the principle of self determination. The local governments shall be encouraged to

compete among themselves to attract business and investment, as a way of

decongesting the large cities of the Philippines. The National Capital Region is too large

and too complex to be considered one Local Government, and therefore must be treated

separately. Oppen suggests that each Metro-Manila city be governed by its own present

163

charter. However, all the congressmen of the National Capital Region, elected by

congressional districts, is constituted as a Metropolitan Assembly which will assume the

powers of the present Metro-Manila Development Authority, and will elect among

themselves a Metropolitan Governor who shall assume the powers of the present MMDA

Chairman.

Here is a feature of the Oppen proposal that will surprise you. The only

qualifications to run for any local post are the age requirements plus Philippine

citizenship. It is not necessary to be a resident of the region. This is the same as in

Great Britain where national leaders seek election in a “safe district” even though they

come from elsewhere. In the Philippines, the Ilonggo region or province may elect

Gloria Macapagal Arroyo as Governor, because of her experience as President. The

more regions elect one leader as their governor, the more he is qualified to run the entire

nation. By not limiting the Local Government leaders to residency requirements,

each Local Government may have the freedom to select more qualified leaders from

other regions. A good leader of national stature (like Lee Kwan Yu) may in time serve as

many regions as possible.

In other words, while it may be difficult to choose one good national leader to

lead the nation, it may be possible to develop good leaders among the provincial

governors. The example of Richard Gordon of Olongapo and Subic Bay comes readily to

mind.

The national government retains jurisdiction over national defense, foreign

relations, the monetary system, external trade, collection of national taxes and duties by

the BIR and the Customs Bureau, citizenship, civil rights, immigration, national and local

elections, property rights and copyrights; Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court. By

letting the national government have jurisdiction over a narrow range, we make it

leaner and more efficient.

The provincial governments have jurisdiction over regional branches of the

Appellate Court, regional trial courts, licensing of public utilities, land and sales taxes,

regional laws and programs, socio-economic planning, state finance, grants-in-aid to

local governments, labor laws and minimum wage rates: By letting the provincial

governments have jurisdiction over such a wide range, we make them more responsive

164

to their local culture and give them the means to compete with other regions for

business and investment, and to de-congest such overcrowded areas as Metro

Manila. Joint jurisdiction by both national and pr ovincial governments may be

exercised in the following areas: police and public safety, health, education, social

welfare, cultural development, sports development, environmental protection, energy,

tourism, roads and highways. Some national control of the provincial Police is necessary

to prevent warlordism and smuggling at the local level..

National Taxes to be distributed, after deducting for the servicing of foreign

loans, 80 percent to the provinces and 20 percent to the national government, are: Tariff

and Duties; Excise tax; Value added Tax; Percentage tax; Income tax; Estate tax; Donor’s

tax; Documentary stamp tax; Premium tax. Local taxes that belong to the provinces are

Amusement tax on movies; Real property tax; Business taxes, and those that may

imposed by the local governments.

V. Dancing the Cha-Cha with Tony Oppen, a new kind of leader,

The Proposal for Charter Change from President Ramos involves primarily a

change to a Parliamentary form of government. The proposal for Charter Change from

Antonio Oppen involves primarily a change to a Federal form of government.

Practically all the Federal Systems are Bicameral, but Oppen chooses to make it

Unicameral to avoid unnecessary gridlocks and to save on expenses. The difference

between the proposals of Ramos and Oppen is that Ramos, ever the optimist, assumes

there are good leaders who will rise to the challenge. Oppen, ever the pessimist, assumes

that our leaders will most probably be bad and abusive.

And both are right. If our leaders are of the caliber of Lee Kwan Yu, Mahathir, or

Fidel V. Ramos himself, we are better off with the Unicameral Parliament. If our leaders

are of the caliber of Marcos or Erap Estrada, or some of the back-room operators that we

have in the Senate and the House, we are better off with the Presidential Federal and

Local Parliament.

What Tony Oppen tries to accomplish is to expand the Senate to be the

unicameral National Assembly, and abolish the Lower House and make its members part

of the all-powerful unicameral Provincial Assembly, with no need of pork barrel

165

allocated by the National Government. Instead each provincial assembly shall have full

control of resources equivalent to their share of 80 percent of the national tax revenues,

distributed to the provinces according to their population. This involves the least cost of

transition, and no increase of officialdom.

By proposing that the ultimate power repose in the local governments which are

allowed to choose their leaders without residency requirements, we provide a venue for

the rise of good leaders better equipped to lead the nation. Let us just suppose that a

successful businessman of the stature of the late Antonio Floriendo and the political skills

of Alfonso Yuchengco, with vast experience in agriculture, gets elected as the Provincial

Governor of once-great province of Pangasinan, and he succeeds in making it once again

prosperous beyond compare, to the envy of other provinces. It is possible to predict that

other provinces may ask him also to serve them in the future and lead them to economic

prosperity. We see here a new type of economic leadership – a Lee Kwan Yu or a Deng

Xiaoping, fully tested in the grassroots instead of experimenting and learning his job at

the top of the pyramid. Perhaps at such a point in time we can begin to think of a real

National Parliamentary government, as Ramos now proposes, that will maximize benefits

to the people, under the guidance of a good leader.

So what is the idea behind the proposal of Antonio Oppen?

The idea is to decentralize the national government in favor of the local

governments which are closer and more responsive to the constituency that they serve.

The idea is to transfer the lion’s share of the national revenues to the local governments,

out of the centralized control of the national executive department and a legislature which

thrives on pork barrel allocations.

The idea is to encourage traditional politicians and other men of resources,

political clout and inordinate ambition, to carve their empires out of their own local

constituencies, instead of encroaching on the entire nation. The idea is to allow

experienced leaders like Fidel Ramos to be governor of any Region of his choice. The

idea is to allow the local government to get any leader of its choice. The idea is to

nurture a generation of future leaders capable of leading the nation. The idea is to

fragment terrorist, separatist and leftist threats, and establish a political stability that will

bolster the confidence of tourists, future senior retirees and business investors.

166

The idea is to ease the transition between new and old constitutions at the least

cost, by utilizing the present structure of government to serve future change, with the

least addition of public officials. The idea is to fast-track a charter change that is

acceptable to all.

October 31 to November 4, 2005, DWBR-fm

END OF BOOK