Category: enrile

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.

amazing enrile #cj trial

17 days into the trial and senate president and presiding chair juan ponce enrile, at 88, continues to astound.  he has not faltered in any way, not in the smallest detail of the case, or procedure, or language.  rather he has risen to the occasion with the full force of his long experience as lawyer, businessman, tax expert, corporate law expert, legislator, and politician.  that the trial so far continues to be credible to thinking filipinos is to enrile’s credit, and no one else’s.

oh yes, he was also marcos’s martial law architect and administrator and crony, and he was also behind one or two of the coup plots that sought to topple cory in the late eighties, and, yes, he was one of the politicians, along with miriam and honasan and lacson and sotto, who goaded the edsa tres crowd into storming malacanang in late april 2001.  and he’s been arrested twice, for the 1989 coup attempt and for the may 2001 rebellion.

that’s all a little hard to forget, and so i don’t even try.  instead i’m watching and listening to enrile, and enjoying the greatest performance of his life, thinking along the lines of, you’re only as good as your last show, your last book, your last movie, your last act.  which is not to say, let’s forget the past, rather, let not the past render us blind to something great that he is doing today, something no one, but no one, else has the smarts for.

my lola concha was 88, too, when she started writing her memoirs, and she was at it for some two years.  senator enrile should be good for many more years.  i hope he finishes his memoirs and that it’s a tell-all of a most colorful and significant political life, bar none.

enrile’s planets

fascinated by the man i looked up the ephemeris for the year 1924.  on feb 14 the sun was in aquarius, the moon in gemini, mercury on the cusp of capricorn-aquarius, venus in aries, mars and jupiter conjuct in sagittarius, saturn in scorpio, uranus in pisces, neptune in leo, pluto in cancer.

without a birthtime i wouldn’t hazard any kind of serious reading, but the signs aquarius and gemini, both air signs, and sagittarius, fire sign, are worth noting.  gemini gives a curious mind, and communication skills.  sagitt gives a philosophical mind, and passion for life and learning.  aquarius, the sun sign, the essential spirit, in its highest sense means a capacity to see the weaknesses of institutions and to seek new ways of doing things for a happier humanity.

better late than never.  what matters is, enrile is where he is now, and we are all the better for it.

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read armida siguion-reyna on her brother JPE So here we are
christian v. esguerra’s Trial superstars super old, sharp, amazing
and interaksyon‘s JPE at 88: At home in the heart of history

senators holding-up RH bill

RH interpellation cancelled again today.  excuse ni senator sotto last monday, when it was also cancelled, kesyo hindi daw handa ang mga dapat mag-interpellate, so it’s out of his hands, or something to that effect.

ah so, kaya si senate president enrile pa rin ang nakasalang last tuesday and wednesday, kasi siya lang ang handa, at hindi pa raw siya tapos.  ano ba yan.  so bakit hindi itinuloy today as scheduled para matapos na si enrile?  at bakit hindi i-extend ang sessions para matapos na si enrile?  at kung hindi handa ang iba pang senador na naka-sked na mag-interpellate pagkatapos ni enrile, bakit hindi puwedeng they lose their chance, forever keep their silence, and allow the bill to be voted upon finally?  the senate is being run like an old boys’ club, and so openly and shamelessly at that.

reproductive health has been on the agenda of congress since 1998, pero lagi na lang nauudlot, never mind that 7 out of 10 filipinos want it.  bakit nga ba ang minority ang nasusunod?

here’s a facebook exchange with sylvia mayuga a.k.a. sylvia morningstar some minutes ago.

Stuart Santiago via bethangsioco on tweeter. FYI: Senate RH bill interpellation today is cancelled per Tito Sotto’s office. BOO!

Sylvia Morningstar BOO? O BOBO?

Stuart Santiago parang hindi bobo, sylvs, more like deliberately knowingly craftily delaying the progress of interpellations so that it never comes to a vote, so BOO!

Sylvia Morningstar Sige. Sabay tayo – BOO, TITO SOTTO!

Stuart Santiago and BOO, ENRILE! and BOO! to all interpellators na hindi handa kuno (this was sotto’s excuse last monday)!

Sylvia Morningstar Matay ko mang isipin, Angie, hindi ko maintindihan ang trip ng mga senadores na ‘to. Hindi naman sila masasabing maka-relihiyon, at alam din nilang hindi na ganoon kalakas ang mga obispo sa taong bayang pabor sa RH (70% daw ang support). E bakit sila nagpapaka-gago, sa palagay mo?

Stuart Santiago ito ang sey ni senator osmena: “There is definitely a very strong group lobbying against it. I cannot blame those who want to remain under the radar,” he said.

Stuart Santiago para bagang kay mideo, di man ganoong kalaki ang blind followers ng mga obispo, sila pa rin ang nasunod, di ba? it almost seems like the bishops have something on these senators, something unimaginable that does not necessarily have anything to do with RH…

Sylvia Morningstar Ha! Pera o babae? Or both?

Stuart Santiago pera, babae, america?

Sylvia Morningstar Sus, ginoo. Ano naman ang mapapala ng America sa pagdami natin? Labor force? Oversea military cannon fodder in case of a war with China? Or just another stupid unguided missile from the CIA?

Stuart Santiago haha. might not have anything to do with population ek. maybe some trade or debt or ex-deals we know nothing about, kaya rin hindi matuloytuloy ang FOI ?

Sylvia Morningstar Hmm. Makapagtanong nga.

Sylvia Morningstar Matagal nang basket case ang Konggreso. Unti-unting na ring nawawala ang credibility ng Senado. On the defensive na ang Supreme Court. Si Noy, now you believe him, now you don’t. Sa madali’t sabi, the nation is adrift.

Stuart Santiago RH might be tipping point?

Sylvia Morningstar Or a trigger to a series of tipping points…

 

burying marcos

in the matter of the marcos burial, i don’t know na whom or what to believe.  did vp binay really recommend to the president that marcos be buried in ilocos with full military honors?

philstar‘s marichu villanueva is all the way in las vegas but her inside info on the reported binay proposal gives me pause.

If we are to believe reports from Manila, Binay allegedly recommended to P-Noy that Marcos’ remains be interred in his hometown in Batac, Ilocos Norte. There, Marcos will be given instead full military honors for his service as a soldier during World War II despite questions on the medals awarded to him for bravery and heroism.

…Binay’s spokesman Joey Salgado immediately issued an official disclaimer on the contents of the OVP report. Salgado noted that talks on a possible military burial for Marcos originated from the Palace and not from Binay, and neither from any OVP officials involved in the study.

can’t wait to hear from the vp himself what’s what.  can’t wait for some investigative journalist to find out exactly what’s going on.   if the military burial is a palace idea, bakit hindi aminin?  just testing the waters?  makes me think that the unnamed sources are actually from the three-headed hydra.  hello?  hello?  hello?  and what does that say about the president’s “bias” against an honorable burial for marcos?  that it’s not non-negotiable pala?  he’s willing to be overruled kuno?  ano ba yan.  ito man lang, di niya kayang panindigan?

needless to say i agree with senator rene saguisag who was on strictly politics the other night and who is vehemently against a burial for the dictator with any kind of honors.  marcos may have done some good during his long unconstitutional reign but he did a lot more bad.  and for pro-marcos forces to continue to try and re-write martial law and EDSA history and whitewash the marcos image in aid of son bongbong’s presidential ambitions (he should stop denying it dahil obvious naman) is just an insult, plain and simple, to the intelligence of straight thinking filipinos.

which brings me to peter wallace, the australian businessman who has a column in the manila standard, whose take on the marcos burial drew a critical rejoinder from no less than senate president juan ponce enrile.

this is what wallace wrote, may 27:

As to Ferdinand Marcos, I cannot for the life of me understand why there’s any discussion at all about where to bury Marcos. The man was a despot, a mass murderer and torturer, a plunderer, a philanderer (Dovie Beams), and I don’t know what else. If he was a war hero, and recent evidence seems to strongly debunk this, it is completely negated by his subsequent actions.

President Aquino, if he’s truly the moral, honest man he claims (and I certainly believe is) has a no-brainer here. You don’t pass it to anyone else to decide. It’s a simple presidential decision: NO.

googled but couldn’t find enrile’s response — apparently sent to manila standard — except as tweeted by bongbong chum bong daza, and quoted/cited by fellow standard columnist emil jurado on may 31:

…Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, reacting to the comments of Wallace, said:

“President Marcos is dead. He cannot defend himself against scurrilous attacks against him. I have not known him to have sent people to a Siberian concentration camp like Stalin, or to extermination camps such as Auschwitz like Hitler, or to killing fields like Pol Pot, or to mass graves like Saddam Hussein.

“And so, as one who served in his regime for many years and as his secretary, later minister of national defense for almost 16 years, I would like to seek Wallace’s clarification about what he said about Marcos being a mass murderer and torturer.”

…I respect Wallace’s opinion on the issue, but I agree with Enrile who said “I hope Wallace will agree with me that we have to be fair to President Marcos no matter what our individual opinion might be. We also have to be fair to his readers.”

so far wallace hasn’t responded, as jurado points out, rather happily? in yesterday’s column.  na-intimidate kaya?  o ayaw lang pumatol?

but because silence would give pro-marcos forces the impression that the senate prez is right, let me pitch in my two cents.

take note that enrile challenges only the part about marcos being a “mass murderer and torturer.”  so the despot, plunderer, philanderer, dubious war hero accusations stand, and do not need substantiating here.  as for the murder and torture, they were not  on the same scale as those perpetrated by stalin, hitler, the khmer rouge, and hussein but they were nonetheless criminally condemnably iniquitous.

i happen to have access to the  historian alfred w. mccoy‘s latest book on the philippines: POLICING AMERICA’S EMPIRE: The United States, The Philippines, and the Rise of the Surveillance State (2009) yet unavailable in our bookstores.  in the chapter “Martial Law Terror” subheading “State Terror” page 403, he writes:

Initially, Marcos’s military had relied on the legal formalities of arrest and detention to suppress dissent. In issuing Proclamation 1081 to declare martial law in September 1972, Marcos had invoked Article VII of the 1935 Constitution providing that the president “in case of invasion, insurrection, or rebellion . . . may suspend the privileges of the writ of habeas corpus, or place the Philippines . . . under martial law.” In his next paragraph Marcos issued a sweeping order that all suspects arrested from crimes against public order “be kept under detention until otherwise ordered released by me.” (1) In the weeks following this declaration, the regime rounded up some fifty thousand alleged subversives. Although the number of those officially detained fell to six thousand by May 1975, the police continued to make arrests without warrants. Armed with a blanket Arrest Search and Seizure Order (ASSO) or Presidential Commitment Order (PCO), they routinely confined suspects in extralegal “safe houses” for “tactical interrogations”. (2)

During the last years of Marcos’s rule, the police grew increasingly brutal, making torture and salvaging standard procedure against both poltiical dissidents and petty criminals. Recent graduates of the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) who joined the constabulary were socialized into a permissive ethos of torture, corruption, and impunity. With unchecked legal authority, limitless funds, and immersion in both psychological and physical torture, a cohort of privileged police commanders formed in the upper ranks of the elite PC anti-subversion squads, the Metrocom Intelligence Service Group (MISG) and Fifth Constabulary Security Unit (CSU). Over time martial law transformed the top police into an empowered elite engaged in systemic human rights abuses and syndicated gambling, drugs, or smuggling. Under Marcos military murder was the apex of a pyramid of terror with 3,257 killed, an estimated 35,000 tortured, and some 70,000 arrested. To subdue the population with terror, some 2,520 victims, an overwhelming 77 percent of Filipinos who died, were salvaged, that is, tortured and killed with the scarred remains dumped for display. (3)

mccoy goes into detail further on, but duties call.  maybe later…

sources:

(1) Joseph Ralston Hayden, The Philippines: A Study in National Development (New York, 1955) 833; Republic of the Philippines, Supreme Court, Martial Law and the New Society in the Philippines (Manila, 1977), 1878-79.

(2) Amnesty International, Report of an Amnesty International Mission to the Republic of the Philippines, 11-28 November 1981 (London, 1982), 1-9, 56-66.

(3) New York Times, 11/10/86; Richard J. Kessler, Rebellion and Repression in the Philippines (New Haven, 1989), 137. To reach the figure 3,527 killed under Marcos, Kessler’s enumeration for 1975-85 is supplemented by adding 93 more “extrajudicial killings” in 1984 from data in Rev. La Verne D. Mercado and Sr. Mariani Dimaranan’s Philippines: Testimonies on Human Rights Violations (Geneva, 1986), 89.