Category: edsa

Enrile’s memoir, and defamation

by radikalchick

on pages 648 to 650 of Juan Ponce Enrile, A Memoir (2012) Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile (and his editor Nelson Navarro and publisher ABS-CBN Publishing) falsely accuse my mother Angela Stuart-Santiago of writing “unpardonable falsehood” that was “meant intentionally and maliciously to tarnish <Enrile’s> name and <his> role in the 1986 EDSA Revolution. <Stuart-Santiago’s book> intended to portray me as a disresputable, despicable and a double-crosser.” <bad english not mine> (page 649).

does this count as defamation and libel?

read on…

 

The Edsa Shrine

A WASTED OPPORTUNITY
An Opinion
By Godofredo U. Stuart, Jr., MD

I wasn’t here in 1986, but i watched it in television fragments, mesmerized, gripped and shivering in elation. I have relived it many times, through my sister Angela Stuart-Santiago’s writings of those historic days, and later, again, transplanted by a magic carpet of story-telling, page by page, uploading the English and Tagalog versions of her Edsa Works onto the web site: The Original People Power Revolution and Walang Himala! Himagsikan sa Edsa. I heard the tanks. Watched the swelling masses of people. The political defections. The rapidly multiplying cast of characters. The improbable convergence of disparate elements and events, fueled by years of festering anger and frustration, with the lumpen proletariat providing noise and number, marching into the crescendo of that historic crossroad in EDSA. Four days that galvanized the nation and transfixed the world. The culmination of the rivalry between Marcos and Ninoy, climaxing non-violently with the ouster of a dictator and the end of his regime of oppression and terror.

And in its wake, the birth of people power.

Years before, when Ninoy was assassinated, I found catharsis in doing a small collage artwork which I titled: WHERE ARE THE HEROES? In those four EDSA days, the hero came to life.

Seek no more, the hero. There they were. There it was, the collective hero: the masa.

Alas, it was too grand, too sublime, too extraordinary a victory to attribute to the populace. In the epilogue, everyone started dipping their fingers into the hero-bowl. Attributions and claims came from all fronts: CIA (of course, always in the cast, real or imagined), the high-end political defectors and military rebels (without us, it couldn’t have happened), the burgis-power-elites (only because we allowed it to happen). In the end, the miracle brokers won. With nuns standing their grounds on advancing tanks, a Cardinal power-player, the bloodless coup, and a populace steeped in religiosity – it was no hard-sell. The Miracle of Edsa.

A few years later, they built the Edsa Shrine.

Personally, I was greatly disappointed. And it lingers. Hey, I’m no miracle-hater. I like miracles. I like the inevitable clash of the debunkers and the faithful, the desperate application of quantum physics and singularities by the miracle slayers to the unabashed piety and adoration of the worshipers. And I’m no anti-Marian zealot either. Although I have became the nominal-situational Catholic, my roots are severely Catholic. I can still recite half the mass in Latin. I have a reassuring accumulation of plenary indulgences for my thanalogical needs and was avidly Pro-venial sin and Pro-purgatory for my certain detour needs on the way to heaven’s gates. Whenever the opportunity, I take Tiaong rural villagers to the Lady of Manaog shrine to invoke Her help in ridding them of their dastardly addictions and aberrant and sinful ways of life.

And with this affirmation of my Catholic roots, my point is:

Read the rest here

enrile & EDSA #cj trial

22 feb 2012.  day 22.  at the end of questions for the prosecution, senator alan peter cayetano reminded of feb 22 1986 and thanked the presiding judge juan ponce enrile “for what he did” then, or something like that.  enrile brushed him off: “that’s all in the past…” and at once went back to the task at hand.

it’s quite ironic that of all the highlights in his political life, it is EDSA — the one that made him a people power hero — that enrile does not really like to remember or celebrate.  very disappointed in the cory administration, he supported coup attempts post-EDSA and openly expressed regret about giving way to cory in ’86.

but, really, in feb ’86, given people power’s clear clamor for cory to replace marcos, enrile had no choice but to stand aside and let cory take her oath as president.  the people would have settled for no one else; besides, they had no idea, didn’t have a clue, that enrile considered himself better qualified to run a government.  and because he had denied marcos’s accusation of a failed coup plot, and people had bought into cardinal sin’s assurance that the military rebels were “our friends”, it was easy for the people to wax romantic and think that he and ramos had defected to support cory’s cause.  like knights in shining armor.

what if enrile had not denied the coup plot.  what if he had told the truth at the feb 22 presscon — that the plan was to install a revolutionary council that would include cory and cardinal sin.  how would that have changed the outcome?  i guess it would have meant a divided people: cory would have rejected all talk of power-sharing with the military that arrested and jailed her husband for 7 years.  and a people divided would have been to marcos’s advantage.

it bears pointing out that in EDSA the conflict was no longer between marcos and cory — panalo na si cory by the 7th day of the crony boycott, marcos would have folded, EDSA or no EDSA.  the conflict was between cory and enrile.  cory who wanted nothing to do with enrile; enrile who didn’t think much of cory’s leadership skills, if any.  but it was out of their hands.  it was the people — by their sheer presence, in huge numbers, stopping tanks and braving death, unarmed — who were in control, and they wanted cory in the place of marcos, and they wanted enrile and ramos and RAM in the place of ver and the generals, and that decided the matter.  cory and enrile were simply forced to negotiate and to reconcile their differences.

unfortunately the reconciliation was short-lived.  too soon the people dispersed, the power dissipated, and the differences re-surfaced and proved irreconcileable.  perhaps if the people had been aware, informed, of the dynamics and issues between the two, and if they had remained vigilant and on people-power mode post-EDSA, maybe then, cory and enrile would have gotten the hang of reconciliation over time, and the nation would probably be in a better place.

still and all, EDSA was fantastic, an extraordinary event, a timeless lesson on how to effect change non-violently.  enrile should not regret EDSA.  if he had not given way to cory, if he had contested cory’s claim to the presidency instead, he would probably not be senate president and presiding judge of the senate impeachment court today.

post EDSA: what happened to gen. tadiar

last feb 28, after reading doronila’s and de quiros’s inquirer columns of the day, i wrote a letter to the editor saying that they were only partly right, attributing EDSA to the courage of the people on the streets; the same with former president fvr who attributed it to the split military.   i pointed out that they neglected to give credit to the loyalist marines general artemio tadiar and colonel braulio balbas who were given the kill-order but defied their superiors.   i said they were the unsung heroes of EDSA and they were more heroic than the soldiers who defected and then hid behind the skirts of nuns and other civilians.

inquirer published it eight days later with the title Edsa I’s unsung heroes more heroic than defectors.   three days later i got an email from glenn tadiar, son of gen. tadiar, thanking me for the kind words and relating what happened to his father post-EDSA.   i asked if i could post his response in my blog and he said yes, but on second thought i suggested he send it first to the inquirer, they just might publish it, and i would post it then.   it’s been 16 days, and inquirer might never publish it – medyo di na uli uso ang EDSA stories — so here it is.   thanks again, glenn.

Dear Ms. Stuart-Santiago,

I would like to thank you for your kind words regarding my father”s actions in your letter that appeared in the Philippine Daily Inquirer on March 09, 2011. Twenty five years ago on this date, my father was at our assigned quarters in Fort Bonifacio on the tenth or eleventh day of his house arrest, ordered by then General Ramos. His decision to not follow the orders given to him on the second day of the Edsa Revolution, the decision to not throw in his lot with the rebels, the decision to continue serving President Marcos in a defensive manner, the decision to order Col. Balbas back to Fort Bonifacio on the third day all must have sat heavily in his mind as he contemplated what appeared to be the end of his professional military career.

For me, it was heartbreaking to see him so but what solace or comfort could a 17 year old son offer him during those dark times? What followed was eight months of house arrest punctuated by investigations by the PCGG hatchet men due to my father’s perceived close ties with President Marcos. Did they find anything out of the ordinary? Apparently not for he was later on given a new posting as the Deputy Commander, Subic Naval Base Command in October. He knew deep down that his career was essentially over since this posting was a dead end in the AFP. One thing I love about him was, despite being given a basket of lemons, instead of being sour or bitter about it, he went on to make lemonade and enjoyed his six years at this post interacting with his counterparts in the US Armed Forces, playing regular golf games many times a week at the world class golf course in Binictican and looking out for the welfare of all those assigned to his command.

When he was promoted to Brigadier General in 1984, he was one of the youngest Generals in the AFP. By the time of his retirement in December 1992, he was one of the oldest Brigadier Generals having served the longest time “in grade”. If he had any bitterness or disappointment that many officers junior to him went on to higher positions and rank than himself, he did not show it but what man would not have a little something in his heart? One thing he could be proud of was that he was the only officer of flag rank promoted by Marcos to have survived the purges of the Aquino administration. They could find nothing.

Thank you again for pointing out something that most have already forgotten. My dad was a hero.

God bless you and yours.

Respectfully yours,

Glenn Tadiar