The Unbelievable Irwin Ver (updated)

Being reposted on Facebook is Esquire magazine’s 2017 essay “Strange Bedfellows: A Martial Law Love Story” by Aurora N. Almendral. It’s about the romance of the author’s mom, Gemma Nemenzo (sister of Francisco “Dodong” Nemenzo, high-ranking communist in the ’60s and ’70s) and former colonel Irwin Ver (son of Marcos’s AFP chief of staff Gen. Fabian Ver in the time of martial law).

No offense meant to Gemma, whom I met in 1983, Sesame days  (she was the media liaison of the Philippine Sesame Street Project), but Irwin Ver’s pronouncements about Ninoy Aquino and the dictator Ferdinand Marcos are nakaka-offend, being clearly of a piece with Bongbong Marcos’s flippant dismissal of anything negative about his father. In effect, Irwin and Bongbong paint their fathers innocent of any crimes and unjustly ousted by the people.

ON NINOY’S KILLING 1983 | “No, I don’t think he was involved”

Irwin’s story is that, like his father the general, he was at home when Ninoy was shot.

He was watching TV when his father barged into his quarters dressed in pambahay, to tell him something had happened at the airport.

“If he knew that something like that would happen,” Irwin said, to me, to my mother, to my mother’s friends and family, to everyone who has asked him, “he would have been in uniform. He would have been at his office, monitoring the situation. But he was as shocked as the rest of us. No, I don’t think he was involved.”

But But But. According to the Agrava Fact-Finding Board, at around 1:30 PM, AVSECOM commander Gen. Luther Custodio  “reported the incident [read assassination] by telephone to General Fabian Ver who was at the time in his office at Malacañang Park.”

There is no doubt that Gen. Ver was monitoring the situation. Two days previously, August 19, his order to Custodio was to “return Aquino to his point of origin on board the same aircraft he took in coming in.” He must have realized after that there was no way China Air Lines could simply immediately turn around and fly Ninoy back to Taipei. Early on the morning of August 21, he revised his instructions, ordered Custodio to: “Arrest Aquino and turn him over to the Military Security Command in Fort Bonifacio.”

That the general was nakapambahay lang, as Irwin claims, means nothing. It was a Sunday, after all, and his office was right next to his home in Malacañang Park (correct me if i’m wrong). How he was dressed, or not, has no bearing on whether or not he was monitoring the situation. Unless it was deliberate, if true, to give the impression, in case the shit hit the fan, that he was off-duty and completely uninformed and uninvolved and innocent, or something silly like that.

In November 1984 the Agrava Board’s Majority Report (that so displeased the dictator) unequivocally named Fabian Ver (and 25 others) indictable for the “military conspiracy in the premeditated killing” of Ninoy Aquino.

ON MARCOS IN THE TIME OF EDSA 1985 | “He did not want to kill his own people”

Irwin’s kuwento is that he was at the Palace sometime after Marcos’s high-noon oath-taking.

The same day, Colonel Irwin Ver, head of the presidential guard, favored son of General Fabian Ver, Marcos’s most loyal aide and Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces, was at Malacañang Palace. Irwin saluted Marcos, who was still dressed in the barong he wore for the cameras. Despite the oath-taking performance, Marcos seemed to have already accepted defeat. Irwin had not. Our position is still defensible, Irwin reported, ready to fight off an attack from the rebels. “No,” Marcos said. He did not want to kill his own people. Irwin recalled seeing the sadness in Marcos’s eyes, and for a moment he feared that he himself might cry.

Drama queens. Question is, what were they so sad about?  Were they sad about not killing their own people? Or were they sad because their officers were defying orders to kill the people.

Surely Irwin Ver remembers the very eventful morning of February 24, Day 3 of the four-day EDSA uprising. By then, Enrile and RAM had left Camp Aguinaldo and joined Ramos in Camp Crame.

Early that morning, according to Alfred McCoy [Veritas Special Edition, Oct 1986], Fabian Ver gave the signal for an all-out attack on Camp Crame by riot police using tear gas, Marine artillery, helicopter gunships, and low level jet bombers.

Riot police teargassed the human barricades in Libis / Santolan and cleared the way so that two battalions of Marines led by Col. Braulio Balbas were able to enter Camp Aguinaldo, from there to take positions within sight of Camp Crame.

Meanwhile, Sikorsky gunships were ordered to fly to Camp Crame and bomb two helicopters parked there to prevent Enrile and Ramos from escaping by air. Instead Col. Antonio Sotelo led the 15th Strike Wing’s seven gunships bristling with rockets and cannon to Camp Crame and defected wholesale.

CAMP AGUINALDO ► Looking down from the high ground of Aguinaldo’s golf course, Balbas had awesome firepower “boresighted” on the rebel headquarters only 200 meters away: 3 howitzers, 28 mortars, 6 rocket launchers, 6 machine guns, and 1000 rifles. [McCoy]

CAMP AGUINALDO, 9:00 AM ► General Josephus Ramas gave Balbas and his Marines the “kill order.” With his artillery ready to fire at pointblank range, Balbas lied to Ramas. “We are still positioning the cannons and we are looking for maps.” Ramas: “The President is on the other line waiting for compliance!” [McCoy]

CAMP AGUINALDO, 9:20 AM ► Ramas again barked the command through the radio: “Colonel, fire your howitzers now!” Balbas replied, “Sir, I am still positioning the cannons.” [Cecilio T. Arillo. Breakaway. 1986. page 77]

At some point Balbas radioed Tadiar, made certain that the order had been cleared with / by  Marcos. But even so, the Marines could see that even Camp Crame’s grounds were teeming with people.  Balbas just could not order his men to fire. “We will be hurting a lot of civilians,” he said to Tadiar.

Just about then, over at the Palace, a Sikorsky gunship sent by rebel chief Fidel Ramos to rattle not harm the Marcoses, fired six rockets on the Palace grounds. Damage was negligible but the Marcoses and the generals freaked out.

CAMP AGUINALDO ► Balbas got a “frantic call” from Col. Irwin Ver, Commander of the Palace Guard, ordering a “full attack” on the rebels. Lying boldly, Ver said the Palace was hit and they suffered 10 casualties. [McCoy]

Yes, Irwin Ver himself, who would have us believe that Marcos did not have the heart to kill his own people.

That Malacanang presscon where Marcos tells Ver that his order was NOT to attack Crame? That was pure palabas. As in moro-moro. Dramarama sa umaga. The dictator saying one thing and doing the opposite. Messing up the narrative, as always.

ON FABIAN VER & MARTIAL LAW | “It felt like a war situation”

As a son, Irwin is loyal to his father’s memory and defends his reputation. … He knows there were many regrettable abuses of power at the lower levels of government, but insists that Marcos never ordered foot soldiers to commit arrests, torture, and disappearances. “It felt like a war situation, a combat situation. We were both on the offensive and the defensive. It is not uncommon that would happen,” said Irwin, “that some soldiers would act on their own.”

True. Marcos had nothing to do with foot soldiers, but he had everything to do with the generals who lorded it over the police and military forces, the Rolex 12—topped by Ver, Enrile, and Danding–in particular, who implemented his orders and  benefitted greatly (got rich) in / over the 14 years of martial law.

General Ver became the fall guy for the Marcoses. He went into hiding and spent his life on the run, using fake passports and assumed identities, in part because he could not afford defense lawyers for the cases the American and Philippine governments were mounting against him. He died without seeing his family again.

… In the accounting of misdeeds after the fall of Marcos, General Ver was associated with the corruption that came with unfettered power—and his sons have inherited an on-going case for plunder.

Irwin would have us believe that his Dad didn’t share any secrets with the family. Like, who was the mastermind of the Ninoy murder?

Irwin believes his father did find out, but he took the knowledge to his grave. “It’s better you don’t know,” General Ver told him, “You’re still in your military career.”

And yet Irwin Ver has stories that make me wonder. Take this one about Marcos and Ninoy in Inquirer‘s “Marcos: ‘My best successor is Ninoy'” by Fe Zamora back in August 2008:

On at least four occasions before May 8, 1980, Marcos sent his most trusted officer, AFP Chief of Staff Gen. Fabian C. Ver, to deliver a note to Aquino at his detention cell in Fort Bonifacio. On the last two visits, Ver asked his son, Col. Irwin Ver, commander of the Presidential Guards, to join him.

Ver told his son they were to bring a letter to the detained senator. The younger Ver expressed surprise; he thought all along that Marcos and Aquino hated each other’s guts. Ver explained that Marcos actually admired Aquino, that Marcos even saw him as “brilliant enough to be president someday.”

Selective sharing? Propaganda? Anything to help along the story that Marcos could not have ordered Ninoy killed because he admired Ninoy, Ninoy was his friend? Anything to help Bongbong get elected in 2022? Anything to bring back the happy days when the Marcoses reigned supreme and the Vers, too, in their own fashion?

I wonder how the Nemenzos really feel about that. #NeverAgain #NeverForget

*

Sources

“Strange Bedfellows: A Martial Law Love Story” by Aurora N. Almendral. Esquire Magazine. Sept 22 2017. https://www.esquiremag.ph/long-reads/notes-and-essays/strange-bedfellows-a-martial-law-love-story-a1999-20170922-lfrm3

Reports of the Fact-Finding Board on the Assassination of Senator Benigno S. Aquino Jr. Mr. & Ms. Publishing Co. 1984. pp 205, 40.

Veritas Special Edition. “Coup!” by Alfred McCoy, Marian Wilkinson, Gwen Robinson. Oct 1986. http://edsarevolution.com/chronology/day3.php

Chronology of a Revolution 1986. Vol. 1 of DUET FOR EDSA. Published by Eggie Apostol (1996). Edited by Lorna Kalaw-Tirol.  http://edsarevolution.com/chronology/

 

Bongbong Marcos should apologize for his father

ANTONIO CONTRERAS

INDEED, children should not inherit their parents’ sins. But in reality, we do. In a culture where debt of gratitude is inherited, even debts, whether financial or moral, are bequeathed by deceased parents to their offspring. We cannot take pride in the accomplishments of our parents, without balancing it with a sense of remorse, and the duty to ask forgiveness from those they may have offended.

I once argued against the act of asking for forgiveness for our parents’ actions, simply because I was a firm believer of a kind of ethics where you can only be held liable or responsible for the things that you had control over, or that in which you had an active participation. But upon much deeper reflection, I soon realized that this is a very Western construct, where responsibility and rights are very much defined within an individualistic ethos.

This is not what happens in our communitarian culture where family honor is considered to be a well-revered institution, that in some cultural groups, clan wars erupt to defend it. Thus, preserving honor is not a mere individual construct, and becomes a family duty.

It is in this context that former senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. should apologize for the sins of his father, the late President Ferdinand Marcos Sr.

At the outset, it must be emphasized that the Marcos family has always been pleading for a fair and objective treatment. They appeal to our sense of balance as we pass judgment on the complex period which Marcos Sr. had presided over, including the dark years of martial law. In fact, it is precisely because of such fairness and objectivity that Bongbong Marcos should not gloss over such complexity, by denying that everything was bright and sunny.

I lived through that period, and while I know that there were benefits that came out, there were also black memories that darkened the period of his father’s rule. To be objective is to take stock of both the positive and the negative. Bongbong Marcos cannot remind us of the good things that his father did without recognizing the bad things that happened during his term in office. After all, Marcos Sr. was not perfect as he was human, and he had his flaws. He was also not in total control of the actions of his people, but as president he bore the responsibility of being in command.

I know of people who disappeared in the dark of night, brothers in the student organization I joined. I have been told stories of torture. Indeed, these are people who may have rebelled against the state and joined the communist insurgency that threatened to make the Philippines into one of the Asian dominoes that faced the risk of falling, as the communist ideology was wreaking havoc and bringing death and destruction as it engaged in its expansionist project.

Nevertheless, there are rules of war which state parties are duty bound to uphold. While I do not expect rebels to uphold the law, what distinguished the state agents from them is the commitment to act within the boundaries of civilized combat, that inhuman punishments are prohibited, and that rights even of people who committed crimes against the government should be respected and protected. Thus, when state agents commit these atrocities, government leaders are duty bound to apologize and take responsibility.

There have been allegations of corruption, and the amassing of hidden wealth. I have always depended on the courts to adjudicate and determine the veracity of such allegations, and it is a given fact that sans the partisan agenda of those who hounded the Marcos family, independent courts both here and abroad have made judicial determination of the veracity of some of those claims.

If only for these, then it is in order for Bongbong to act honorably by recognizing that there were instances where laws of reasonable engagement against dissidents were violated and that there were instances where the courts established that indeed there were economic crimes committed. There is a preponderance of things that warrant, at the very least, a display of sincere remorse and contrition.

But instead, Bongbong has doubled down by refusing to apologize. He boldly declared that he is thankful that he is a Marcos, even congratulating himself for choosing his parents very well. Of course, no one is telling him not to be thankful for having been born into a very privileged family. And while he actually didn’t choose his parents, he can actually choose how to honor them.

As children, we do not control the actions of our parents. And while we owe so much to them, there are many parts of their lives that we are not familiar with or that were probably hidden from us. We are not privy to all the lies they told, every transgression they made, and every sin they committed. There is nothing dishonorable if we apologize for these. And it becomes a duty when we somewhat knew, and we tolerated it, and worse, we benefited from it.

For me, that is the biggest honor a son can perform on behalf of an imperfectly human parent — to bear the burden of an apology which the parents were denied of asking when they were still alive.

There is one other compelling reason why Bongbong should sincerely apologize. He is a presidential candidate offering himself to the people. If we believe surveys, scientific and otherwise, he has a chance of being the next president of the Republic. He has a solid base of support. He has nothing to lose if he apologizes. He may not convince many of those who have an intense dislike for him and his family, but he may just create more space to unify this toxically divided country by changing his narrative and redeem it in the eyes of those who are still open to changing their minds.

 

Why are oil prices rising, and what we can we do about it?

Overpriced gasoline and diesel, for instance, gave oil firms an estimated P38.47 billion (US$757.13 million) in additional income, of which P4.62 billion ($90.93 million) went to the government as value-added tax (VAT).

By ARNOLD PADILLA
Bulatlat.com

MANILA – Since the start of the year, local pump prices have increased significantly. The government, as always, explains this as the operation of global market forces. Remember that the government deregulated the oil industry, and the country imports almost all its petroleum needs. As such, local price adjustments merely reflect the movement of international oil prices and fluctuations in the peso-dollar exchange rates. At least, that is what government and the oil firms want us to believe.

P4-5 overpricing at the pump this year

But this explanation is not as straightforward as it appears to be. Pump price adjustments do not reflect global price movements. As of the first week of October, the price of gasoline in the Mean of Platts Singapore (MOPS) has gone up by about P11.49 ($0.23) per liter. Meanwhile, the pump price of gasoline as of Oct. 5 has jumped by P16.55 $(0.33) per liter – P5.06 ($0.10) higher than MOPS. The same thing is true with diesel. MOPS diesel increased by around ?10.86 per liter while the pump price of diesel surged by P15.00 ($0.30)– a difference of P4.14 ($0.087) per liter.

MOPS is the benchmark that the country uses for local petroleum products, according to the Department of Energy (DOE). It is “the daily average of all trading transactions of diesel and gasoline as assessed and summarized by Standard and Poor’s Platts, a Singapore-based market wire service.”

The difference between the adjustments in MOPS and actual price changes at the pump is a form of overpricing that has thrived under the Oil Deregulation Law. This 25-year-old law allows oil companies to implement automatic price adjustments based on global price movements.

By implementing higher price hikes or lower rollbacks than international price adjustments, oil firms and the government can collect billions of pesos in extra profits and taxes. Overpriced gasoline and diesel, for instance, gave them an estimated P38.47 billion (US$757.13 million) in additional income, of which P4.62 billion ($90.93 million) went to the government as value-added tax (VAT). This exploitation of the consumers by the oil companies and government becomes even more reprehensible amid the pandemic that has massively wiped away jobs and incomes.

 READ ON...

Grace #Halalan2022

Katrina Stuart Santiago

Talking 2022 means talking about the elephant in the room that is Grace Poe.

It is clear to anyone who has a sense of how elections are won and lost, who has as starting point Duterte-Marcos’s massive propaganda machinery, who looks at surveys critically vis a vis one’s own political biases, that the only way to win this is to bring together the business sector, the middle classes, and the mass vote behind one candidate.

It was clear, since the 2019 Senatorial election results, that this would be Grace.

And no, you’re not talking to a Grace Poe fan. Search through this site and my social media accounts and you’ll see that I have had the worst opinions of her in terms of where she stands on oligarchs, at the same time that I have been impressed by how she takes the side of the transport sector and commuters in the Senate inquiries she’s led. This doesn’t make me two-faced. It makes HER a Senator, and it makes me a citizen who agrees as much as I might disagree with the people in power.

But that IS the thing isn’t it? The right to vote is tied to a sense of our responsibility to nation, not to the people we vote into positions of power. We are not their fans, or their followers; positions of power aren’t Facebook Pages or Twitter accounts. This is about citizenship and about having a sense of what nation needs at any given point, relative to the decisions that our leaders make for us, in our names, using our funds, regardless of whether we voted for them or not.

No one seems to see this anymore, and this is no surprise. Duterte propaganda has pushed even the most sane, most rational among us to turn to fanaticism and troll discourse, which is easy to fall prey to on social media, where people across Left to Liberal leanings have enjoyed deeper echo chambers. Yes, you will get leaders, from VP Leni to Makabayan talking about uniting the opposition, but none of that matters when their actors are first to engage in divisive, DDS-like behavior on public platforms.

Liberal actors throw around labels like “enabler” and “trapo” forgetting that we can list down as many from the Liberal side who are both, but more importantly failing to realize that this WILL NOT TRANSLATE to votes for VP Leni. It also only reminds us of the Liberals’ false purity politics and the moral highground that defined the elitism of the PNoy years.

The Liberals and the Ka Leody side have also discredited “winnability” as an important part of choosing a candidate on our side. This is silly. Yes, winnability and surveys shouldn’t play such an important part in who is encouraged to run. But are rules going to change just because you put up a losing candidate? Of course not. In fact putting up a candidate that is sure to lose serves Duterte-Marcos and no one else. Putting up a losing candidate is playing right into the hands of Duterte-Marcos, because they are experts at playing this electoral game and using the rules to their advantage.

You want to change the rules, you work on changing it six years before the next Presidential election. There’s no changing it with eight months to go.

Troll discourse, divisive behavior, discrediting winnability, and refusing to work from election data and facts, have been what we’ve lived with all of 2021. It was clear to me in May that unity was impossible, not with this set of actors that were leading the way, and no matter 1Sambayan trying to hide its liberal convictions (anyone with half a brain could tell this was a liberal formation from a mile away).

The social media noise and clutter, the culture of cancelling and trolling on our side, has led us to this point. It has led us to Lacson-Sotto, two (dirty?) old men who are classier, dignified versions of Duterte, both conservative, both militaristic, both representative of a misogyny that we have had enough of the past six years. It has led us to Isko Moreno who, for all the good he has done in Manila and despite good speeches, sounds like nothing more but budget Duterte-Marcos in impromptu interviews: the masa I’m-Juan-dela-Cruz rhetoric ala Duterte with no depth or vision, combined with the clean, good looking, educated voice ala Marcos. Kuya Germs would be proud of this performance.

It has led us to this point when no one wants to admit anymore, that our biggest chances of winning 2022 versus Duterte-Marcos-Pacquiao would be to have a Grace Poe run. She who is conservative enough (Cojuangco-supported enough) to get business sector support; she who is kolehiyala enough to get the middle class vote; and she who is FPJ, Susan Roces, and Ang Probinsyano enough to get the masa vote. She who has shown us her mettle with how she has dealt with the Duterte government’s disrespect of our transport works and jeepney drivers. She who was only one of two people (the other was Senator Nancy Binay) who didn’t do a Duterte fist when the 2019 Senatorial winners were proclaimed.

She who is in surveys regardless of whether she campaigns or not.

If the goal is to beat Duterte-Marcos-Pacquiao. If the goal is a unity that goes beyond our echo chambers, that goes beyond our social class, that goes beyond our notions of who deserves this. If our focus is on who will win this with us who will not just be controlled by politicians and business (Pacquiao), that will not just sell our resources to China and kill us (Duterte), that will not just continue a legacy of violence and plunder (Marcos), that will not just be a variation of the misogyny and violence of Duterte (Isko-Lacson-Sotto), that will actually allow us our democratic rights to dialogue, protest, and freedoms back.

If the goal is to WIN this, so that we can finally really defeat the tyrants among us, Grace Poe is our saving grace.

Anyone else is a losing proposition, some more murderous than others. ***