ateneo after-amiel

ateneo is in a real bind.    atenista the 10-year old 4th grader amiel alcantara who was killed in campus.   atenista rin  the kid(s?) of theresa torres na nakadisgrasya kay amiel.

of course obligado ang ateneo na alalayan both the family of the victim and the family of the victimizer.   the family of the precious amiel because, hey, what a terribly painful death and what a painfully grievous loss, which could have been avoided if ateneo’s traffic & sundo system weren’t so messed up.   the hapless single mother and her kids because, okay, it was an accident, malinaw na hindi sinasadyang matapakan nang mariin ang accelerator at hindi agad nakuhang mag-preno.

the ateneo community is clearly on damage-control mode.    official statements ask for prayers and privacy for the affected families pending an investigation.   an atenista blog prays for healing and asks that the community

… take a conscious effort of going beyond the graphic details of his death. While the tragic circumstances force us to focus on this aspect of his death, we also like to form a more optimistic image in the minds of many of our young impressionable students.

but how can healing happen if the community is asked to gloss over the graphic details of amiel’s death on grounds that negative images are not good for impressionable minds?   that’s like shifting to denial mode, escaping from reality, hardly behavior worthy of a highly regarded educational institution.

amiel’s family should not be expected to forgive and forget for the sake of ateneo and the community.   “malalim ang sugat,” said pepe alcantara on anc.   for such a wound to heal, both ms. torres and ateneo must pay.   it doesn’t help that ms. torres is out on php 42,000 bail.

ms. torres has finally apologized, and rightly so, but that does not make her any less blameworthy for amiel’s death and she must suffer the consequences.   kawawa naman ang mga anak niya, yes, but it’s no excuse to let ms. torres off the hook.   that would send the wrong message all around.  ateneo will just have to help the torres family deal with the situation.

the fact is, if ms. torres had behaved like a mother should, attending to her kid/s instead of taking the driver’s seat, the accident would not have happened.   there is also talk that she had a cellphone  in hand just before she accidentally stepped on the gas — if true, then this is a good time as any for a law criminalizing texting or phoning when one is at the wheel, if only within campus for starters.

as for ateneo, parents have long been concerned about the children’s safety but the admin has been deaf to complaints and petitions.   now they gotta pay.   besides settling with the alcantaras, it’s time to give up lots of nice openspaces to parking lots and, maybe, as an atenista mom suggests, make that entire area in front of the grade school a pedestrian area.

no room for evasion or ambiguity here.    amiel’s tragic death must be faced squarely or there will be no healing, and no end to the bad karma.

help! need EDSA pics!

not too long ago i received email from alfred hardy, based in australia, offering me photographs he had taken of people power in manila in 1986 that “apart from exhibitions held at scottish libraries (edinburgh, glasgow) had spent most of their time in a dark cupboard.”   of course i said yes yes please, and at once he sent 35 color photos through dhl.   great stuff, mostly street scenes, some sky shots, brought me back to them days, thank you again, alfred hardy, i was  am  so touched.

it so happens that my techie son joel — who is why i blog, i mean if he didnt insist and make me kulit and make it really easy for me, tech-wise, all the way from holland, i wouldn’t be blogging — anyway, joel and i have been wanting to post updated versions of my EDSA books, except that we don’t have enough pictures.   and building up a photo file of the four days is no easy job, getting permission from professional photographers to use their photos gracing the many coffeetable books on EDSA is a major chore, kaya naman welcome na welcome talaga ang photos ni alfred, who also rightly points out:

But how many individual “amateur” (like many of mine!) photographs of People Power are lying around the Philippines never to see the light of day. Could be hundreds, some of them “classics” taken on $30 cameras. Can I suggest advert on your website… Could be worth a try before they (photos) disappear forever.

worth a try indeed.   ANY photos relevant to EDSA 1 are welcome.   street scenes, barricade scenes not just along EDSA but around malacanang, mendiola, malate, sta. mesa, around mbs channel 4, greenhills…   camp aguinaldo and camp crame events – the last stand, the defection, the many presscons, the move from aguinaldo to crame, the landing of sotelo’s gunships, the false alarm…   people stopping tanks sa ortigas…   riot police dispersing crowds in libis, entering camp aguinaldo, poised to bomb crame…    inside and outside radio veritas, inside and outside radyo bandido…   inside and outside the palace…    cory in cebu…   cory in EDSA….   inside and outside club filipino…   gate-crashing the palace…  dancing in the streets…

if like many bloggers and readers you were just a kid or still just a gleam in your mom’s eye in 86, then maybe your parents aunts uncles older sibs cousins family friends were EDSA veterans and have photos wasting away in some dark aparador, tell them here’s a chance to get them published on the internet, be a part of my EDSA online project, with full credits to the photographer who retains copyright, and gets zapped with lotsa link-love ;))

email me for address if you wanna send hard copies by snail mail.   puwede rin pa-pick up kay katrina kung di masyadong malayo ;)   puwede rin by email if your file is digital na.   please please help me… ika nga ng beatles ;)

enrile’s EDSA (update)

efren danao’s column today,JPE finally talks about EDSA 1, says enrile finally talked lengthily monday not just once but twice about unknown details of the events that led to the EDSA revolution, the first at the anniversary celebration of radio veritas, the second in a privilege speech on the senate floor.

danao’s account is admittedly limited but i dare say, except for some trivial details, enrile said nothing new, well, to me, at least, and to anyone who has read my books on EDSA, Chronology of a Revolution (published 1996) and Himagsikan sa EDSA — Walang Himala (2000).    still nothing new about the coup plot, such as the civilians who were/must have been behind it, how enrile’s ruling junta would have been different from marcos’ dictatorship, why he denied it time and again, and what cory promised in exchange for his support.

enrile’s EDSA

nagsalita na pala kahapon si enrile at that wreath-laying ceremony led by gma that he attended with honasan and the reformist gang to kick off the 4-day long edsa commemoration.  Enrile explains hurt over EDSA I rites, reports inquirer’s fe zamora.

Sounding humble and mellowed when he spoke at a wreath-laying ceremony at the Libingan ng mga Bayani (Heroes’ Cemetery) on Sunday, Enrile said that Feb. 25 “deserves the nation’s remembrance.”

He also noted that the previous Feb. 25 festivities had seemingly “glossed over” the role of the soldiers at EDSA I.

“I have long nursed a certain discomfiture at being paraded as an EDSA hero, while those who bravely dared to fight the hard battle with us seemed to have been forgotten, their idealism ignored, and even their heroic contribution belittled,” Enrile said.

in fairness, enrile is not just imagining it.   back in 2000, the EDSA people power commission that president estrada created “to propagate and perpetuate the spirit of EDSA” played politics with freedom awards and honored ninoy aquino, the filipino people, namfrel, foreign correspondents, and the mosquito press of marcos times but pointedly ignored the reformist rebel military led by enrile, ramos, and honasan whose defection and last stand in camp aguinaldo brought coryistas to edsa in the first place.   so talaga may karapatang magtampo sina enrile.

on the other hand, it is disappointing that enrile in turn is still glossing over WHY there were orders out for his arrest that saturday, february 22, 1986.

Early that morning, Enrile said he went to the Atrium building in Makati City with his daughter Katrina, primarily to rebut a newspaper headline that he had left the country with his family.

At the Atrium, Enrile received a call from then Finance Minister Bobby Ongpin whose security men-all members of the RAM-were being arrested.

Enrile said his military aide, then Capt. Noe Wong, also arrived with the chilling information that the RAM plot to oust Marcos had been discovered.

Wong also told him that RAM members Allen Querubin, Lt. Col. Marcelino “Jake” Malajacan, Maj. Saulito “Lito” Aromin, Capt. Ricardo”Dick” Morales and two others had been arrested and detained at the Presidential Security Command in Malacañang.

“I fully grasped the significance of the unfolding event. And so I went home hurriedly with my daughter to take my lunch,” Enrile recalled.

and so on and so forth about deciding to make a last stand rather than run and hide, etc. etc., old stories all.   but nothing more about the reformist coup plot set for february 23 which sought to topple marcos and install him, enrile, in malacanang.    the coup plot that he and honasan denied all through the four days in ’86 and continued to deny for 14 years, until 2000 when, irked by the edsa commission’s snub, enrile finally admitted in a radio interview that indeed he and his men had plotted a violent takeover of the marcos regime that was pre-empted by people power [philippine star 28 feb 2000 page 2].

meanwhile honasan is still talking about writing their own book about EDSA.   why not, indeed.   let’s hear more about that coup plot, who else was in on it, what was enrile’s agenda, how different would he have been from marcos.   and while they’re at it, make kuwento na rin sana about midnight of sunday feb 23 when cory summoned enrile and ramos to greenhills (feeling president na siya) and the two rebels came, but separately — what deals were made that night?   tell us, tell us, please.