The Magsaysay boom, editorial for March 7. 1953

The Magsaysay boom
March 7, 1953
(Editorial)

THE Philippines is going wild about Ramon Magsaysay.

Newspaper correspondents’ reports, numerous telegrams and letters of congratulation have been endlessly pouring into Manila, hailing Magsaysay’s resignation from the Quirino cabinet. Magsaysay-for-President clubs are daily mushrooming in provincial capitals, chartered cities and municipalities, while labor, school, civic, social and youth organizations continue to vie with each other in endorsing Magsaysay’s candidacy for the highest position within the gift of the Filipino people. Even some of the Huks—whom Magsaysay and the armed forces of the Philippines tried hard to subdue during the two and a half years that he was secretary of national defense—have made known their Magsaysay-for-President stand.

There is no parallel in our political history to the case of Magsaysay. No Filipino official has as yet resigned from a government job and received so much spontaneous commendation as has this man from Zambales. In fact, no public official in our country has severed his connection with the government and been the recipient of so much praise for a job well done.

The simple explanation of the current Magsaysay-inspired rejoicing must be that the Filipino people as a whole, are fundamentally sound and that they know a good, faithful, and patriotic public servant when they see one. It is more than apparent that in Ramon Magsaysay they have seen one.

It is doubtful if any administration has received so much public condemnation for tolerance of official crookedness, corruption, inefficiency, and incompetence as the present. But despite the general damnation that has come from the people, Magsaysay (who was with the same administration for a long time) has been singled out as a shining exception. And rightly so. For during his time in office, not once was his name mentioned in the same breath with venality, abuse of power and other cardinal sins associated with many a Filipino public official today.

Magsaysay left the Quirino cabinet because life with Quirino had become a series of frustrations. Magsaysay said that he sought public confidence as his highest reward for the services he had rendered. But he realized that such confidence could not be won if he continued serving under the Quirino regime. Many people sincerely subscribe to this view.

Despite efforts were made this week to win back Magsaysay to the fold of the Liberal Party. Liberals who fear their party’s collapse now that Magsaysay—the party’s chief redeeming feature—is out, and won over by the Nacionalistas, this week planned and schemed to woo back the ex-defense secretary. But all attempts have proved futile. Senator Tomas Cabili, chief LP negotiator, has given up the idea of ever getting Magsaysay back. In a moment of despair, Cabili said this week: “They (referring to his fellow Liberals) have ignored the handwriting on the wall…and now, when it is too late, there is feverish effort to reach for a solution….”

Meanwhile, the Magsaysay boom keeps increasing. To try to stop it would be tantamount to the old story of sweeping back the ocean with a broom.

The NP Convention story, 1953

The NP convention story
April 18, 1953
by Leon O. Ty
Staff Member

RAMON Magsaysay is the new leader of the Opposition Party in the Philippines by virtue of his sensational winning of the presidential nomination in last Sunday’s convention at the Manila Hotel. The outcome of that convention cleared all doubts as to Senator Jose P. Laurel’s sincerity in personally endorsing Magsaysay as the NP presidential candidate next November.

Weeks before the convention, not a few people kept saying that Laurel was merely toying with Magsaysay and that when the proper time came, the Batangas lawmaker and other NP big shots would double-cross the former defense secretary, who, in the opinion of some, “is a political neophyte.”

The main purpose in inviting Magsaysay to the minority party was to remove “the only redeeming feature” of the Liberal Party, the pessimists explained. Once out of the Quirino cabinet, Magsaysay would then find himself out on a limb, politically speaking. And since any return to the Liberal Party would be impossible, the Nacionalistas would then be in a position to tell him what to do. They could, for instance, tell Magsaysay to run for senator, and the latter would have no choice but to accept the offer. Whether he liked it or not, he would have to accept anything his new political allies offered him as a prize for bolting his party and joining the Opposition.

But the pessimists were wrong, and the local political dopesters got their predictions all fouled up. For no member of the Nacionalista Party was more enthusiastic in seeing Magsaysay get nominated in last Sunday’s convention than Senator Laurel. The Batangas solon had never faltered in his endorsement of Ramon Magsaysay for the highest elective position in the government. Since that historic day last November when he challenged President Quirino to withdraw from the presidential contest—as he (Laurel), too, would withdraw and give way to Magsaysay—the Occupation leader had never stopped reiterating his support for the former defense secretary.

Laurel had repeatedly stated that Magsaysay was the ideal candidate against the Malacañan occupant. If the wish of every Nacionalista was to see Quirino defeated in November, he said, the only man who could get that wish fulfilled was Magsaysay.

The Batangas senator was probably never more inspired while speaking before a mammoth crowd than he was last Sunday morning at the Manila Hotel. His voice echoed with compelling force and sincerity as he delivered his nomination speech for the man of his choice. Finally, when Magsaysay stood on the rostrum to accept the deafening applause of the crowd estimated at three to four thousand, Laurel thundered:

“I give you this man of the masses, the spirit of Juan de la Cruz…the embodiment of Bonifacio and Del Pilar!”

Senator Claro Recto’s keynote address was a masterpiece of political denunciation. He started by saying that the keynote of the convention was “‘victory.”

Lashing out at the majority party, Recto, the master satirist, cried:

“The Quirino Liberals and their protégés have been emptying the public treasury and otherwise accumulating undeserved wealth in their safe-deposit boxes here and abroad by every means that could be devised by criminal ingenuity, through unlawful immigration schemes, blackmailing in deportation cases, RICPA and surplus property rackets, NARIC scandals, import control quotas, Buenavista-Tambobong estate deals, leonine steamship contracts, smuggling of every thing from Bangkok diamonds to potatoes, onions, and firecrackers, padded pay rolls, tax evasion and even copious tong collections.

“They call that ‘clean and honest government’!

“They surrendered to Kamlon and his gang of cutthroats; they have been frantically tying by plaintive radio calls to contact Taruc and bribe him into campaigning for the Liberal Party; they have utterly failed to curb criminality and gangsterism in our cities and towns.

“And they call that ‘strong and efficient government’!”

Senator Recto’s fiery assault upon the administration included “digs” at President Quirino’s “total economic mobilization program.” He also pointed out the causes behind the Communist aggression in the Philippines.

Recto’s keynote address was one of the most sarcastic pieces ever to come from the pen of the famous jurist and parliamentarian. (It must have hurt the Liberals very much because Secretary of Justice and acting head of the department of national defense Oscar Castelo violently hit back at the Nacionalista leaders the following day—April 13—with a threat of criminal prosecution he said he’d undertake in “due time” against two ranking Opposition leaders. Castelo also said that Laurel and Recto were making a puppet out of Magsaysay.)

End of a Trail

Last Sunday’s convention also spelled the death of Senator Camilo Osias’ political career. The most impartial observers in that Opposition powwow did not hesitate to say that the result of the presidential nomination contest—and especially the “unfortunate incidents” which marred Senator Cipriano Primicias’s nomination speech (for Senator Osias) and the La Union senator’s political swan song” which lasted for almost one and a half hours—disclosed a tragic but inescapable fact: Osias had reached the end of the political trail.

The way Osias was treated by the very Nacionalista leaders he had helped get elected in past elections was definitely heart-breaking. Senator Primicias, who had preceded Osias on the rostrum with what was supposed be a nomination speech, almost failed to say his piece because the pro-Magsaysay delegates and guests booed and hissed and indulged in practically every form of baboonery to disturb him. The crowd simply went uncontrollably wild.

This writer was with Senator Osias in his Manila Hotel room (No. 347) while Primicias was resorting, in vain, to every form of platform strategy and oratorical trick in order to get the rowdy crowd under control. As the crowd continued to laugh down Primicias and kept shouting Magsaysay’s name, Senator Osias started to get visibly impatient and restless. Now he would sit down, then stand up, and sit down again, as he listened to the radio broadcast in his room in order to keep track of the proceedings in the Fiesta Pavilion of the hotel.

There is no doubt that those were probably some of the most trying moments in Osias’s political career. As he sat beside the radio set, he kept closing his eyes, but at the same time biting his lip. Sometimes he would shake one leg, then another. In all the years that his writer has known Osias, in and outside the legislature, we have never seen him so troubled as he was last Sunday afternoon.

“Why don’t those rascals allow Primicias to speak?” complained some of Osias’s faithful political followers and friends who were with him in the room. “They are boosting Magsaysay!” others grumbled angrily. “We should ignore that convention!” “Is this democracy?” “Why should they do this to you, Mr. Senator?” “Shall we go down and start something violent?” demanded a hard-core Osias partisan from the provinces.

The La Union senator didn’t say anything. He continued listening to the broadcast, at times taking down notes of what he heard in the convention hall.

Some of his close advisers who had, by this time, gone up to his room—Congressman Miguel Rilloraza of La Union, Ex-Sen. Jose Ma. Veloso of Leyte, former Senator Alejo Mabanag and ex-Rep. Leonardo Festin of Romblon—consulted each other as to whether or not Senator Osias should go down and address the delegates. But Osias himself was determined to change the attitude of the howling crowd from hostility to sympathy.

“I’m going down and quiet them,” he vowed, when we asked him what he thought of the way the delegates were booing Senator Primicias.
Osias went down all right, perhaps hoping against hope that he might yet succeed in swaying the political tide in his favor.

As he proceeded to the Fiesta Pavilion, flanked by leaders and followers, shouts of “Mabuhay si Osias” rent the air. More shouts of “Mabuhay!”

At other times and under different circumstances, the La Union senator—an amiable man—would have readily acknowledged the applause. But at that time, he didn’t. His eyes were red and he pressed his lips tightly, probably in a firm resolve to control the hostile crowd on the convention floor.

Meeting of Rivals

As he ascended the rostrum where the NP leaders were seated, Osias did not forget to shake Laurel’s and Recto’s hands. In a sarcastic vein, he congratulated Laurel for the “magnificent nomination speech.” Presently Magsaysay stood up and extended a hand to his rival. Osias, who was at first hesitant to greet Magsaysay, finally extended his hand, too.

After that, he started his spirited address. During the first half-hour, the crowd, although uneasy, allowed him to recount his sacrifices for the Nacionalista Party. But when he began to attack Magsaysay, hoots and catcalls followed. The crowd became more unruly when he said indignantly:
“Let these disrupting elements in our party have a little consideration for those who sacrificed for the party.”

All in all, Osias was booed ten times during his almost one-and-half-hour speech. Hurt by the hostile attitude of the majority of the delegates, Osias shouted:

“You did not boo me when I was fighting for the Nacionalistas in the 1947, 1949, and 1951 elections! I implore you not to repeat such acts because we would be destroying democracy!”

More boos and hisses.

“I am aware of the situation, and I have faced tighter situations,” Osias pleaded. “But let us reason as gentlemen…. Do not believe you can cow me.”
Again, more boos and more hisses.

This time, Osias was truly rattled. He perspired profusely. Sensing that it was useless to plead with the crowd which openly shoed its antagonism to him, the exasperated senator started attacking Magsaysay for being inexperienced and, therefore, not prepared to shoulder the responsibilities attendant to the office of President.

If Osias had hoped to quiet down the crowd with this line of talk, he made a mistake because he only succeeded in making the pro-Magsaysay delegates more angry. His sarcastic references to Senators Laurel and Recto also infuriated most of the delegates. Osias bitterly deplored the fact that instead of being neutral in the fight between him and Magsaysay, the leaders of the party showed by their words and deeds their partiality to his rival. Osias even recalled the dark days of the Japanese occupation when he accompanied Dr. Laurel to Japan and suffered with him in a Japanese prison.

Desperate Proposal

Senator Osias tried very trick he knew to quiet a hostile crowd but he failed completely in drawing the sympathy of the NP delegates that afternoon. He even showed a photostatic copy of a letter written to him by the late Archbishop Michael O’Doherty, to prove that he was acceptable to the local Catholic population. In addition he showed another photostat of a plenary dispensation given him by the Pope during his last visit to Rome. But none of these proved effective in swaying the crowd to his side.

As a last resort, Senator Osias challenged Magsaysay to withdraw from the presidential race as he (Osias) would also withdraw. The two of them and Senate President Rodriguez would then constitute a committee to select a “compromise candidate.” The idea behind Osias’ proposal was “to preserve unity in the party,” he said.

Instead of cheers, a chorus of boos greeted his desperate proposition.

The La Union senator did not, however, lose his bearings completely. Before concluding his speech (which would have been effective had he limited it to half an hour, instead of almost one and a half hours) he reminded the crowd that he would not bolt the party in case he lost the nomination.

“My second name is Nacionalista,” he said, and the delegates like it. “Bolting the party is not in the vocabulary of Osias… I am a Nacionalista by instinct, by training, and by conviction.”

This portion was received with loud cheers.

Magsaysay’s speech, in sharp contrast to that of Senator Osias, was surprisingly brief. He consumed not more than two and a half minutes, but the tumultuous ovation which followed lasted about five minutes.

In his straightforward and simple way, Magsaysay said, in part:

“I am a man of action… I am not a speechmaker. I do not believe in words but in deeds…I am giving myself unreservedly unto the hands of this convention.”

A Jaycee official who was at our side made the following comment on Magsaysay’s brief address:

“Monching (Ramon) is wise…He knows his limitations. He might have committed errors had he spoken at length… Not being a good speaker, he might have flopped and created a bad impression among the delegates. But he knew when to stop, unlike Osi (Osias).”

The candidates for vice-presidential nomination—Senators Carlos Garcia, Jose Casten Zulueta, and Arsenio Lacson, Manila city mayor, spoke briefly. Lacson declined the nomination. Garcia’s speech was even shorter than that of Magsaysay. Zulueta spoke in English but he did not feel “at home” in it. So he switched to Spanish, and he became quite eloquent.

A total of 754 delegates participated in the secret balloting. Magsaysay polled 705 votes while Osias obtained only 49. Garcia polled 598 votes, as against Zulueta’s 149. After the 450th ballot in favor of Magsaysay was read, his victory was conceded. At 10:20 that night, Magsaysay’s nomination was announced over the radio throughout the country.

Magsaysay’s wife, the former Luz Banzon of Bataan, and his aged mother, were at the Manila Hotel—Room No. 301—to hear the exciting news of his victory. When asked what she thought of her son’s chances in the coming election, the old lady replied:

“It’s in the hands of God.”

The La Union delegation did not take part in the voting. After Senator Osias proposed the creation of a committee to name a “compromise candidate” the delegates from the senator’s province decided to ignore the results of the convention.

Salutations

Magsaysay’s acceptance speech was a model. Following is what he said in accepting his party’s nomination:

“I accept your nomination. I accept it with humility. The honor you have conferred on me, and the responsibility that goes with it, overwhelm me. Alone, I could never be worthy of the honor nor equal to the responsibility. This could only be possible with full support of you, the members of the party, the faith of the people, and the guidance of God.

“To all of you, my deepest gratitude. I thank the grand old man of the Nacionalista Party, Senator Rodriguez, for his fairness and understanding.

“I thank that great patriot and Nacionalista, Senator Laurel, for his self-effacing and noble act of sponsoring my nomination.

“I thank that brilliant thinker and statesman, Senator Recto, for his unselfish encouragement and support.

“And I wish to salute that faithful Nacionalista, Senator Osias, whose aspirations for the nomination were just and sincere. I offer my hand in continued comradeship, to him and all his loyal supporters.

“My thoughts go out tonight to that venerable co-founder of the Nacionalista Party, Don Sergio Osmeña, who manifested his deep concern for our party’s welfare, by sending his own son, Ramon, to represent him in this convention.

“My thanks also go to the tireless leaders of our party, senators and congressmen, governors, provincial board members, mayors, councilors, and chosen delegates for placing their confidence in me.

“With this convention over, we now embark on our great crusade. Of course, our immediate objective is to win—to bring about a complete change in the administration of this country. This will require a total Nacionalista victory in November, and to achieve this victory we must all work together and exert ourselves to the utmost.

“I do not have many promises to make. I can only promise to carry out faithfully and to the letter the provisions of the platform of the Nacionalista Party. If elected, I will administer the affairs of this country as they should be administered—primarily for the welfare of the people—and by methods sanctioned by our constitution. I shall carry out the will of the people within the limits of constitutional executive power, cooperating and in perfect harmony with both houses of Congress, which, after November, I am certain, shall be controlled by the Nacionalista Party.

“My first concern, as should be the concern of every Nacionalista, is the welfare of our people.

“But I shall never forget that I owe, next to my duty to my God and my country, a duty to my party—to consider carefully the counsel of our established party leaders, to attend promptly to the problems, both national and local, of our fellow Nacionalistas, and, in general, to see to it that the men who have sacrificed and fought under the Nacionalista banner to place me at the head of our government, in order to establish a clean and honest administration, shall not be forgotten in the hour of victory.

“I humbly ask God this day to grant me the strength, the courage, and the life to carry out the mission with which you have entrusted me. With His help, and with the active cooperation of all of you, I know that we shall win, and that we shall restore to our country and our people what they fully deserve—an efficient, honest, and God-fearing administration, a government worthy of the sacrifices of our heroes and the respect of all mankind. Goodnight—and God bless you all.”

The President’s Week, 1954

January 9, 1954
The President’s week

Thursday, Dec. 31, 1953 — On his first day in office, President Ramon Magsaysay rose from bed at 4:30 a.m. and motored to Cavite to observe the peace and order situation there.  He visited the families of the victims in the murders committed by goons in that province last election day. The President told newsmen later in the day that he could not sleep the previous night after having received a report that the goons pardoned by ex-President Quirino last week were boisterously celebrating and many peaceful citizens had fled to Manila. He said that he had sent a battalion of the armed forces to Cavite to protect the civilian population.

During the day, the President also directed Enrique Quema, a Malacañan assistant to go to Ilocos Sur where terrorists were reportedly still on the rampage; ordered an investigation of poll terrorism in San Manuel, Pangasinan, wherethere had been a plot to assassinate him during the campaign; appointed Manuel Manahan as chief of his complaints and action commission and directed him to start sweeping out grafters from the government and prosecuting criminal elements in the country. He also took a hand in the Monroy murder case by ordering Justice Secretary Pedro Tuason to confer with Mayor A. H. Lacson on ways and means of securing the prosecution of those responsible for the killing of Manuel P. Monroy on June 15, 1953.

Friday, Jan. 1 — The common people turned out en masse to attend President and Mrs. Magsaysay’s first  “at home” in Malacañan today. Men, women and children, many of them barefooted, many others in slippers or in bakya, streamed through the palace gates, milled around the President and shook hands with him, and then walked in and out of the rooms. Although the reception was scheduled to start at 10 a.m., the people started gathering at 7:30. It was supposed to close at 5 p.m., but the people stayed till much later.

Protocol Officer Manuel Zamora said that around 80,000 people entered the palace grounds. The visitors drank 19,200 bottles of softdrinks and ate 10,000 sandwiches.

A feature of the President’s “at home” was the exchange of toasts between the chief executive and the diplomatic corps. For the first time, the President offered his toast with a cup of basi, the Ilocano drink, and some of the diplomats followed suit.

New look in Malacañang, December 3, 1955

New look in Malacañang
December 3, 1955
by  Leon O. Ty

The days when Malacañang occupants and members of  their families used public funds as well as government  properties for personal benefit are gone. That practice has  been completely outlawed by the present incumbent. Since he  took his oath of office, Mr. Magsaysay and the members of  his family have seen to it that personal expenses are paid  out of their private funds.

PERHAPS you have wondered whether the former Malacañang occupants—from Manuel L. Quezon to Elpidio Quirino—paid their personal expenses and those of the immediate members of their families out of private or public funds.

Since matters of this nature have never been made public in the past, we taxpayers can only guess and speculate. Although in one particular case — that of an ex-President’s favorite daughter — we remember now that when she had color pictures taken of herself by a friend of ours, the photographer was paid with a treasury warrant. There was no doubt that the amount, about a hundred pesos, came from the public coffers. That was downright misuse of the people’s money.

Sometime after Elpidio Quirino assumed the presidency, following the death of Manuel Acuña Roxas, charge after charge was filed by certain congressmen against the Apo. One of the accusations was that he had used public funds for the unwarranted purchase of a fabulous bed said to have cost Juan de la Cruz no less than P5,000), a P500 urinal for his granddaughter, and for the payment of piano lessons for his daughter and a lot of other things intended for his personal comfort or the benefit of members of his family.

It cannot be easily denied that after these things were made public, many Filipino citizens began to look upon the Malacañang occupant and the members of his family with a certain degree of disaffection. Maybe we are not very far from the truth when we say that unwise use of the people’s money may have been one of the causes behind the eventual downfall of the Liberal Party.

What about the present occupant of Malacañang? Is he as reckless with the taxpayer’s money as one of his predecessors?

For the first time, in the long history of Malacañang and those who have tenanted it, the uncensored story of the people living there now can be told. This writer was surprised to find that the President was only too glad to give all the facts we wanted, in connection with this article.

We decided to write this article after Chief of Staff Jesus Vargas asked us this question:

“Did you know that the President paid the Philippine Air Force for the use of that plane Pagasa which took us to Tacloban last October 20 on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the landing of the American liberation forces there?”

“No fooling, did he really pay?” we inquired somewhat skeptically.

“He did,” General Vargas assured us. “He paid exactly P1,642.57 out of his personal funds for that trip to Tacloban and back to Manila on the same day.”

“But it was an official trip,” we argued. “Why should the President pay for it out of his own money?”

“Better asked the President himself,” the army boss suggested.

So, we saw RM and asked him if what General Vargas had told us was really true. We could hardly believe it for the simple reason that that trip to Tacloban City last October 20 was, in our opinion, definitely official. The President had been invited to deliver the main speech at the commemoration ceremonies of the landing of the American forces of liberation in that locality. To us, it was an official trip.

But Mr. Magsaysay had other ideas. He said:

“If I had delivered only that speech during their commemoration ceremony while we were in Tacloban, that would have been a purely official trip. But don’t you remember that I also spoke before the Lion’s Club of Tacloban and followed that with another speech before provincial and municipal officials and public school teachers of Leyte? I talked politics in that last speech. Lest I be accused of using a government airplane for electioneering, I had to see to it that the air force was fully paid for the use of that plane we took to Leyte.”

We reminded Mr. Magsaysay of an incident in the past during a fiesta or celebration in Vigan several years ago, when no less than half a dozen air force planes were used to ferry back and forth—from Manila to Ilocos Sur and back — “distinguished visitors” of the former President. That veritable junket to Vigan became so scandalous, as readers will probably recall, that Cipriano Primicias, while still a member of the House, and several Nacionalistas in that chamber, delivered fiery privileged speeches denouncing it. We are positive that the Philippine Air Force did not collect one centavo from the then Malacañang occupant — from his private funds — for the use of those government planes.

“But that was the Old Look,” President Magsaysay said, smiling. “We have inaugurated a New Look in our administration. That practice of utilizing government property for private use belongs to the past. I know how our people detested it. They will despise me if I continue that practice. So, no more of that. In this administration, we’ll show our people that the things they bought with their money will be used for their benefit.”

Every now and then, the President invites friends to breakfast or lunch with him in the Palace. But no one can accuse him of using part of his discretionary funds, P100,000 annually, to entertain his cronies. He pays for the food consumed by his guests.

When an aide told us about this, we couldn’t help but laugh. We thought he was pulling our leg. But he was not. There are many cash vouchers in the hands of the Malacañang auditor to show that Juan de la Cruz does not shoulder the cost of Mr. Magsaysay’s personal hospitality or generosity, much less that of the members of his family.

Whenever his daughters hold parties either in the Palace or elsewhere, every centavo of expense is paid out of the President’s pocket.

Teresita, the eldest daughter, had her picture taken by a local photographer late last year. The bill was P72. That amount was not paid with a treasury warrant because the money came from the personal funds of Mr. and Mrs. Magsaysay.

Vouchers

There is a magnificent life size painting by Fernando Amorsolo of the First Lady now adorning the President’s bedroom. The painter sent a bill for P1,200. But when payment was due, he knocked off the P200. If you think that the cost of that painting was charged to the Chief Executive’s discretionary fund, you are wrong again.

What practically surprised us this week was to learn that even the newspapers and magazines in the Palace are paid out of the President’s personal funds. There are vouchers showing payments to the various Manila daily papers in the name of Mrs. Magsaysay.

To us, this particular phase of the official behavior of the President’s and his lady definitely gives a NEW LOOK to government circles. It is decidedly a NEW LOOK because we personally know of certain government big shots who not only subscribe for newspapers and magazines for use of their homes but also throw lavish parties from time to time at Juan de la Cruz’s expense. As everyone knows, there are government officials who have used and grossly misused, say, jeeps and cars assigned to them by virtue of the positions they hold. They might take a leaf from the book of Ramon Magsaysay.

No Secret

Every once in a while, the First Lady and the children go to Baguio. Once they are there, the President calls them up by long distance telephone at least once a day. The telephone tolls are personally paid for by him, not by Juan de la Cruz.

It is no secret that many of those who stand high in the councils of our government take advantage of their positions. In the past, we have known of at least a couple of high officials who had private buildings constructed costing thousands of pesos. The constructor put up the buildings on the strength of the bigwigs’ promises that they would pay every centavo of the entire amount stated in the contracts. But after these edifices were finished, the government officials conveniently forgot all about their financial obligations. It is refreshing to note that the Magsaysays have not yet constructed a house since they moved into the Palace.

Then there are some topflight officials who pay no food, laundry, clothing and other bills because they regularly get these things from various “admirers” mostly businessmen, of course, “for free.”

In strong contrast are the Magsaysays. The hundreds of vouchers that we looked over before writing this article showed that the President’s clothes—except probably those he has received as gifts from intimate friends _ have been paid for. There are scores of vouchers for kodak films for Mila and Junior. Even the pencils that the President’s children use in school are paid out of their private funds. Radio repairs are charged against either the President or the First Lady. Photographs that Mrs. Magsaysay gives to friends are paid for, as the filed vouchers will readily show. A number of pictures of the First Lady and her daughters taken at Malacañang Park and aboard the yacht some time ago were also paid for by them, when they could have asked the official Malacañang photographer to take the pictures.

One of the vouchers we examined showed that Mrs. Magsaysay had paid for calling cards ordered from the Bureau of Printing, Scrapbooks and albums, also made in that bureau, had likewise been paid for to the last centavo with the President’s own money.

There is a motor pool in Malacañang where all the vehicles in the Palace are repaired. Needless to mention, that motor pool has a ready supply of tires, auto spare parts and all sorts of things needed to fix a car. But take note of this: whenever junior  Ramon Magsaysay’s car needs a new tire, he buys it outside, and his parents pay for it. If the auto radio gets out of order, Junior takes it to a private shop and the cost of the service is borne by his father.

No individual can look over the hundreds of vouchers that we have examined without being completely and absolutely convinced that truly the Magsaysays have introduced a NEW morale tone, a NEW code of official behavior, a NEW LOOK in the Palace of the Filipino people.

If only the rest of Philippine officialdom would follow in the footsteps of our President! Or, is it asking too much of many of our government bigwigs to be at least fundamentally honest?

If, editorial, August 23, 1986

August 23,1986

IF

If they had sent a limousine to the airport instead of a van, Marcos and Imelda would still be in Malacanang. The Conjugal Dictatorship, as the author of the book with that title caleed the regime, would still be in dictatorial power – to imprison, torture, murder whoever opposed the Monstrous Duo while the looting of the nation went on. The author of the book now lies in an unknown grave but Marcos and Imelda would be living horribly on.

Why the van? To take the body of Ninoy after his execution at the airport to a military camp where it would be dumped by his killers on the cement floor. (Why killers, not killer? Because he was killed by all those who plotted his assassination, not just by the soldier or officer who fired the shot. Only a conspiracy made possible the “salvaging”.) And so it came to pass.

But just think what would have happened to Ninoy – if he had been taken safely from the plane and escorted to a waiting limousine and brought to Malacañang. There Marcos and Imelda would be waiting to welcome him! Ninoy would have gone unsuspectingly and fallen into the trap. He would be alive today but politically dead. There would have been no millions accompanying his body for kilometers and kilometers to its grave, in outrage and grief at what they had done to him. No mass demonstrations against the dictatorship. No fearless confrontation of its clubs, guns and gas. No ceaseless cry for justice for Ninoy – and all the other victims of the regime. No People Power that drove the Two into headlong flight with their awful family and retainers and no such freedom as the Filipino people now enjoy.

Ninoy would be still alive but politically dead. And dead, politically and economically, would be the Filipino people with the exception of Marcos and his KBL Gang. (They would still be looting and killing together.) But why would Ninoy be politically dead?

He had been warned by Malacañang before his departure for Manila that there was a conspiracy to kill him if he went back. If Marcos et.al. had knowledge of such a conspiracy, why did they not go after the conspirators? Imelda had previously warned Ninoy that if he went back, there were those “loyal” to Marcos and her whom they could not control and who would, presumably, do him grievous harm. Kill him, in short. She offered him money to stay away. Afterward, she was quoted by Newsweek magazine as saying: “If ninoy comes back, he’s dead.” How could she have been so certain of his death? How, if she and her husband were not set to kill him on his return?

Ninoy decided to return, anyway. He brushed aside all advice, Filipino and American, not to go back. He would bring peace and democracy back to a suffering people. He gave the Communists five years to seize power if the Marcos dictatorship went on in its usual way. Then, blood would flow. He would seek a meeting with Marcos, talk to him about the need for a peaceful; and orderly restoration of democracy in their and our country, forestalling a Communist take-over. Think of the Filipino people, in God’s name, and of his Marcos’s – place in Philippine history!

“I believe that there is some good in Marcos, and it is to that good that I shall address myself,” Ninoy said to the Free Press editor, who argued against his return in a long talk in New York, shortly before Ninoy went, fearlessly and hopefully, to meet his appointment with death in Manila.

Ninoy’s naivette cost him his life. He believed there was some good in Marcos! Yet, though there was nothing good in Marcos, there was, surely, without killing him. Perhaps, Marcos was too sick at the time to make the final, fatal decision on what to do with ninoy. He was too sick thn, perhaps, and besides, he was surely too clever, too smart a politician to do such a stupid thing as to order Ninoy’s killing; he would have foreseen the cosequences, being so clever, so smart. So went a column of the American political “pundit” Max Lerner. On what basis, on what evidence of Marcos’s innocence, the American wise guy rendered the verdict acquiting Marcos, it is difficult to ascertain. Who is so clever as never to make mistakes? Marcos politically infallible? Why the rush to verdict? Why not just keep one’s mouth shut? But Marcos was sick at the time, perhaps, near death. Could he have ordered the killing of Ninoy?

If Marcos was well enough, however, to order Ninoy killed, would he have done so, considering his alleged intelligence? He was able to terrorize and rob the Filipino people as he pleased, to the extent he wanted, and he never ceased wanting. This is intelligence? This is what those who collaborated with his regime called brilliance, turning away from those who opposed his regime. Isn’t the better part of valor prudence in the face of such a master intellect? Al Capone ruled Chicago for years and there was nothing the U.S. government could do all that time except, finally, get him for income tax evasion. Capone ruled – robbing and killing at will – so, he, like Marcos, was brilliant? Anybody could be “brilliant” – with a gun.

So, Marcos was brilliant – at the start. He did not have a gun, then: martial law enforced by the Armed Forces of the Philippines with his Number 1 hood, Ver, as chief-of-staff. Then, martial law! Brilliant he was, okay, or just cunning, unprincipled, a thinking son of bitch? All right, brilliant Marcos was. But the intellect deteriorates not meeting real challenge. The gun makes all challenge ineffectual. The mind becomes dull. Absolute power does not only corrupt absolutely, it stupefies. There is no need for intelligence when the guns serves. The blade of themind rusts. Absolute power brings absolute stupidity. Such is the lesson of all dictatorships. Except the Communist challenge to contend with, and so remains as sharp as ever. Marcos, if in control when Ninoy was killed, had become just plain stupid.

Anyway, if Marcos did not order Ninoy killed, he must have at least considered that option when Ninoy announced his return. Marcos had a military mind and a commander considers all the options that may be taken in case of an enemy attack. And Ninoy was enemy. A political enemy. The most formidable one. Tanada and other Opposition leaders had been reduced to political impotence and pleading with Ninoy to come back and bring the opposition back to effective life. What should be done with Ninoy? The options before the Marcos regime were: house arrest for ninoy upon arrival; solitary confinement in prison again; freedom – to lead the Opposition against the regime and then shot while campaigning, blaming the Communists for it, or while allegedly trying to escape from prison if he should be so held by the government. If, though allowed to live and campaign freely against Marcos, he should prove ineffective, not much of a threat, then, let him live.

These were the options of Malacañang on what to do with Ninoy. There was another option obviously not considered. What? Hell, welcome him! He’d be dead politically, and Marcos and Imelda could live happily with that. Before Ninoy’s arrival, the Liberal Party leadership held a council during which a top Liberal leader said with the utmost conviction:

“I am betting my last peso that Ninoy has made a deal with Marcos!”

If Marcos or, if Marcos was too sick at the time to be consulted, Imelda had ordered Ver to send a limousine to bring Ninoy from the airport to Malacañang, instead of having him shot there and his body taken to a military camp in a van, Ninoy, with his faith in the goodness of human beings beyond understanding, would have gone trustingly to the palace. And there he would have been met Imelda, not to mention Marcos if he could get up from his bed, assuming he was sick, and not only welcomed but even – anything is possible – embraced by the Two. Television and press cameras would, of course, record the touching scene: Ninoy, grinning boyishly – the Free Press editor always thought of him, because of the difference in their ages, as a kid, knowing the world, he thought, more than Ninoy in his innocence did – and the cameras clicking and exposing him to future ignominy. For the general conclusion would have been that Ninoy had, as the Liberal leader had bet, made a deal with the enemy of the People and would serve that enemy’s purposes thenceforth, surrendering manhood and principles for peace for himself and his family. For an end to exile, the worst fate for one who loves his country, who would never be at home anywhere else.

Ninoy having thus apparently surrendered, having thus made peace with the Enemy, what else could the Filipino people have done but do the same? Peace without liberty, peace without dignity, peace without honor – peace at any price! The peace of the grave.

But they killed Ninoy.

The Conscience of the Filipino: The Sacrifice (1986)

The Conscience of the Filipino: The Sacrifice
by Teodoro M. Locsin

“WHEN my blindfold was removed, I found myself inside a newly painted room, roughly four by five meters. The windows were barred and covered with plywood panels from the outside. A space of six inches had been left between the panels and the window frame to allow a slight ventilation. A bright daylight neon tube on the ceiling was on day and night. There was no electric switch and the door had no knob, only locks on the outside. Except from an iron bed without a mattress, the room was completely bare. No chairs, no table, nothing.

“I was stripped naked. My wedding ring, watch, eyeglass, shoes, clothes were all taken away. Later, a guard in civilian clothes brought a bed pan and told me I would be allowed to go to the bathroom once a day in the morning, to shower, brush my teeth and wash my clothes. In case of emergency, I must call a guard. I was issued two jockey briefs and two T-shirts which I alternated every other day. The guard held on to my toothbrush and toothpaste and I had to ask for them in the morning. Apparently the intention was to make me really feel helpless and dependent on everything on the guards. . . Diokno, who was brought in with me and locked up in an adjoining cell, later told me that he had gone through the same thing.

“They took my eyeglasses away and I suffered terrible headaches. For the first three or four days, I expected my guards were the ‘Monkeys’ who were licensed to kill. Suspecting they put drugs in my meager ration, I refused to touch it. I subsisted on six crackers and water for the rest of my stay. I became so depressed and despondent. I was haunted by the thought of my family. . .”

He came to question the justice of God. A friend had told him that God never slept. But what if He’s taken a siesta, Ninoy thought, “and when He finally wakes up, I’ll be gone?”

That was early in 1973 when he and Diokno, blindfolded and handcuffed, were taken by a helicopter emblazoned with the Presidential Seal to Fort Magsaysay in Nueva Ecija and kept in solitary confinement in adjoining sweatboxes. To let the other know he was still alive, they would occasionally sin to each other. Neither could carry a tune.

After 30 days, he and Diokno were whisked out of their cells and returned to Fort Bonifacio. There they endured again solitary confinement, broken only by rare visits by their families. After a year or more, Diokno was released. Ninoy stated on in prison — for a total of seven and a half years.

“I would watch a line of ants go down the wall of my cell and another line going up and I would make a mental bet on which line, when the two met, would give way. I tried to befriend a mouse that ventured into my cell. When I felt my mind giving way, I would do a hundred pushups and then take a shower and I would be myself again.”

Every year in prison is a year thrown away out of the limited span of man’s life; it is the death penalty by installment: life without freedom is in life, Ninoy decided to fast and, if not given his freedom, die. His death would be on Marcos’s head. A terminal cry for justice, it would be an ultimate act of life.

On the 38th day of his hunger strike, his mother pleaded with him:

“My son, are you trying to outdo our Lord?”

Only one argument convinced him to break his fast and leave the divine record intact. He was told that the government would not let him die. A few more days of fasting would inflict irreparable damage on his brain and then the government would force-feed him. But he would be a vegetable by then. The government would be blameless.

It was during his hunger strike that he was made to stand trial before a military commission for all kinds of crime against the regime. I remember him, at one session, being lifted by two guards to the stage. He sat there and listened, without saying a word, as a government witness, a Huk commander, raged at him for being a Huk-coddler. Ninoy, he sputtered angrily, had helped him — yes, him, a Huk commander—when he was in need. Previously, another government witness had also accused Ninoy of helping the rebels. He was a man whom Ninoy had brought bleeding from gunshot wounds to a hospital in Manila. “The classic Filipino,” Ninoy said of this witness.

During the fast, one of Ninoy’s lawyers went to the newspapers and asked them to print Ninoy’s answer to the charges against him, charges those newspapers were playing up. Their answer was “no”. He asked if Ninoy’s answer could appear as an ad, which would be paid for, of course. The answer was still “no”. Later, the regime would accuse the American press of breach of journalistic ethics for “one-sided” reporting of the conduct of the regime.

When masses were being said for Ninoy during his hunger strike, only a hundred or so would attend. Nobody else seemed to care.
Now he was going back to all that.

“I am going home,” he said to me shortly before his departure from the United States for Manila.
“What for?”

He would seek an appointment with Marcos, he said. (He would get no further than the tarmac.)

“Have you thought of what would happen to you?”

We discussed the possibilities: arrest on arrival, followed by imprisonment again or house arrest or execution. Perhaps, freedom — who knows? I asked him if he seriously believed that he would be set free — to campaign in the coming elections against the regime, or as one of the Opposition candidates?
I reminded him of his conviction by the military court for murder which bears the death penalty.

“I don’t think they’ll shoot me. As for that conviction—if I were guilty, would I be going home? My return would be the best proof of my innocence. How could they shoot me then?”

I asked him what good his return would do. His arrival would be made a non-event by the government. He would be either imprisoned or kept under house arrest—in either case , isolated and neutralized. What could he hope to do when he got back?

“I’ll go to Marcos, if he’ll see me. I’ll appeal to his sense of history, of his place in it. He would not be publishing all those books of his if he did not care for the judgment of history, if he did not want to look good in it. And that would be possible, I’ll tell him, only if there was an orderly restoration of democracy and freedom for our people. Otherwise, there would be only revolution and terrible suffering. I give the moderate opposition five years to restore democracy, after that there will be only the Communists as an alternative to Marcos or his successor. I’ll offer my services to him, but my price is freedom for our people.”

“Do you seriously think,” I asked, “that if you are able to see him, he will listen to you?”

“I can only try. If he is as sick as they say he is, then, more than ever, I must talk to him. If he dies suddenly, there will be a brutal struggle for power. Orderly succession is possibly only under a democratic regime. He must set up a system to make such succession possible before he goes. I must talk to him if I can. Who know, he may listen. He will know he is talking to a man who does not care for life and its comforts and must be telling him the disinterested truth. On the 38th day of my hunger strike, I though I was as good as dead. A dead man. I have regarded the years that followed as a second life that I should be able to give up. I have already lived and died and I am ready to go. I cannot spend that extra life here in American just living well, while our people are suffering. I must go home.”

He was hopeful.

“Maybe Marcos will listen to me. He would not want to appear in our history as a man who took away the liberties of our people and gave them only suffering in return. I am making a bet that there is good in him, deep inside him, and I shall talk to that.”

“Have you ever thought of the record.”

“I must take the chance. Think of the good that will come to our people if he listens to me. What have I got to lose? My freedom? He can have it. I’ll do anything, I’ll be his servant, but my price is freedom for our people..”

Freedom wasn’t the only thing he could lose, I reminded him.

“I have died, I told you. This is a second life I can give up. Besides, if they shoot me, they’ll make me a hero. What would Rizal have been if the Spaniards had not brought him back and shot him? Just another exile like me to the end of his life. To the end of my life. But if they make that mistake…”

“I’d rather have a live friend than a dead hero,” I said, then asked myself what I was doing arguing with a man in determined pursuit of his destiny whatever that might be.

He talked about his meeting with Mrs. Marcos, of her warning that there were people loyal to them whom they could not control and who might kill him. Financial help was offered if he did not go home. He politely said nothing. As for the loyalists . . .

“So be it,” Ninoy said.

“What will you ask Marcos if you do get to see him?”

“I’ll propose a caretaker government to be set up composed of independent and respected men so that free and honest elections could be held and democracy finally restored.”

“Do you think he will agree to that? Do you know what that would mean?”

“Yes. First, he must step down. Resign. He has had so many years of power! Now, he can resign. He can retire from public office to the thanks of a grateful people that will forget what it had suffered in its joy at being free again. We are a forgiving people. What a graceful exit that would be from power. He’ll go with honor.”

Was it this identification that moved millions of Filipinos to follow Ninoy’s body to its simple grave? Hundreds of thousands lined the long road to Tarlac when his body was brought to his hometown, before the funeral in Manila. When the cortege passed Clark Air Force Base, American fighter pilots revved their engines in tribute.

This massive  outpouring of people and emotion had as much to do with what Filipinos had become once more, as with the national incredulity over the official version of the murder.

Soon after the imposition of martial law, a high American official reportedly described the Filipino people as composed of 40 million cowards and one son of a bitch. Otherwise, they should have risen as one against the destroyer of their liberties, the American must have reasoned. Yet, six million Jews went like sheep to the slaughter, stopping only to bicker over an extra crumb of bread that might keep one alive an extra day. The Nicaraguans swallowed 40 years of indignity and official thievery from the Somozas before putting an end to their rule. And the Poles, to date, have done nothing but picket. The Hungarians, after a brief spasms of prideful revolt, have traded the hope of liberty for that extra roll of toilet paper in the Soviet showcase of a consumer society.

The Filipino people rose in revolt against Spanish rule again and again through 350 years until the Revolution had cornered the last Spaniards in Manila. Then they fought the Americans, who had suddenly snatched the freedom that was almost in their grasp. Ten percent of the Filipino people died in that war. When the Japanese drove out the Americans, the Filipinos fought the Japanese.

Then came martial law, if not with American fore-knowledge and approval, definitely with American support after the event. First, submission. (Cowardice?) Resignation. (Not the Communists, for sure.) Almost 11 years after that, August 21, 1983, and Ninoy’s body bleeding on the tarmac.

The Filipino people are themselves again. And it took less than 11 years for a nation of “cowards” to be the men and women they are now.

So he went home, with these words:

“According to Gandhi, the willing sacrifice of the innocent is the most powerful answer to insolent tyranny that has yet been conceived by God and man.”

Before boarding the plane from Taipei for Manila, he said to a television crew that was accompanying him on that fatal day:

“You have to be ready with your hand camera because this action can come very fast. In a matter of three, four minutes it could be all over and I may not be able to talk to you again. Now I am taking precautions. I have my bulletproof vest. But if they hit me in the head there’s nothing we can do.”

Then he gave a gold Swiss watch he prized to his brother-in-law.

“I think it’s victory if we just land,” he said as the plane came in on final approach.

And a victory it was, if death is ever a victory.

He had come home to Filipinos rejoicing at the economic privileges and political offices that the death of Filipino liberty had procured for them. To a people weakly submissive to authority whatever it be. The arrest of thousands of their countrymen and imprisonment for months, years, without charge or trial, had failed to move them. The torture inflicted on so many was ignored. “No one, but no one has been tortured,” Marcos said. But Amnesty International reported a state of terror at 84 prisons where interrogation was marked by use of “fists, kicks, karate blows, beating (with) rifle butts, heavy wooden clubs, and family-sized soft-drinks bottles. . . the pounding of heads against walls or furniture, the burning of genitals and pubic hair with the flame of a cigarette lighter, falanga (beating the soles of the feet), and the so-called ‘lying-on-air’ torture.” The last consists of being made to lie rigid with one’s head on the end of one bed and the feet on that of another then the body beaten or kicked when it sagged from weakness or exhaustion.

“When we start to feel the pain of those who have been victimized by tyranny,” Ninoy said, “it’s only then we can liberate ourselves… The feeling right now is ‘Fred was tortured, thank God it’s Fred, not me.’ That’s the tragic part. Society is atomized. Until the Filipino nation can feel the loss of one life as if it was their own, we’ll never liberate ourselves.”

Benigno S. Aquino, Jr. Man of the Year, 1971

January 8, 1972

Man of the Year
by Teodoro L. Locsin, Jr.

There was rice shortage again. Prices were never higher. Unemployment was appalling, lawlessness reigned. Justice was compartmentalized, with one law for the rich and powerful, another law, a sterner one, for the poor and  weak. Graft and corruption in the government was more rampant than ever. Demonstrators against the administration were shot at by government troops as if they were game and the President shed crocodile tears. Lip service was paid to reform while chaos if not revolution threatened. Who could challenge the regime? It seemed irresistible, controlling as it did not only Congress but the local governments. How could the Opposition hope to win against the Marcos candidates in the senatorial election? Their victory would be taken as a national endorsement of the Marcos idea of government—and his perpetuation in power. Who would lead the resistance? The privileges of the writ of habeas corpus had been suspended and martial law continually mentioned if not actually threatened. Democracy was going down, down, down. Who would stop the fall? He would be the Man of the Year.

IN a conversation which took place about a week before the Plaza Miranda bombing incident on 21 August 1971, Sen. Benigno Aquino, Jr., said to this writer:

“President Marcos has threatened again to charge me with subversion. It’s a bluff, but who knows?”

“Can he have forgotten so quickly how the Yuyitung affair backfired on him?” one said. But then, one thought, Marcos is not a machine weighing dispassionately the chances of success in this or that adventure but a vain and ambitious man with a great deal of power.

“A very dangerous man,” said Ninoy. He went on to say that he had a feeling of something big about to happen.

Some Ilocano politicians were in the room, among them the young Chavit Singson. They were reporting the steep rise of violent incidents in the North. Army-trained professional killers had been unleashed on the population of Northern and Central Luzon in preparation for the elections in November. They spoke in particular of a certain “Major” whose expertise in the art of assassination had earned him a license to kill. This assassin did not have to answer for his deeds to anyone and could kill at his own discretion. He had done a fine job in the North and was moving south. According to the latest reports then, he was operating in Mountain Province. Soon, they said, he would be in Manila.

They looked apprehensive and had come to Ninoy to see what he could do for them. “Nothing,” Ninoy answered them. He had neither the money nor the muscle to help them with. But he wanted to know for certain if they would stick it out with the Opposition to the end or succumb to the threats of the authorities. So long as they identified with the Opposition they were marked men. He would not hold it against them personally if they backed out at that moment but he did not want to waste time with anyone who would have a change of heart later on. A little reluctantly they all agreed to stick it out to the end. “You are dead men on leave,” Ninoy said. They nodded their heads in acknowledgment of the fact.

“If Singson makes it in Ilocos Sur and Dy in Isabela, I don’t care if we lose everywhere else,” said Ninoy. “Our cause will have been vindicated. These are the two spots most cruelly oppressed by the Marcos military machine. If we win in them, then we know we have pierced his armor. That’s consolation enough.”

That far back, Ninoy Aquino was already drawing the lineaments of the persona he would assume after the Plaza Miranda bombing and the President’s suspension of the privileges of the writ of habeas corpus, when the country tottered on the brink of dictatorship: that of the resistance-hero. Within a week Ninoy would serve as the symbol of democratic man confronted with forces that seek to suppress his individuality and freedom.

Expressing his forboding that the forces of reaction and dictatorship were ready and eager to break out in a wave of repression that would sweep away all our rights and liberties, frankly, he said, he did not know how anyone could meet, with the hope of overcoming, the threat to the Republic.

“The secret is not to be afraid,” one said. Not that one knew for certain that courage overcomes all obstacles but that to be brave and defiant is the only way consonant with human dignity to face tyranny.

A week later two fragmentation bombs were tossed onto the stage of the Liberal Party’s proclamation rally held in Plaza Miranda. Nine persons were killed and 95 others were wounded. The leadership of the Liberal Party could have been wiped out that fateful night of 21 August. Not one politician was killed but many of those who stood on the stage were seriously hurt. One lost a foot and, for a week or so, Sergio Osmeña, Jr., and Senator Salonga fought for their lives on operating tables.

Upon hearing of the tragic event the first thought that occurred to one was that this was the perfect pretext to liquidate Philippine democracy “in the interest of order and security.” The question of who perpetrated the crime seemed irrelevant in the light of the knowledge that only the government had the power to use the incident to its own advantage.

One could suspect the Communists. How often had one heard them declaim that in the confrontation between capital and labor, between the bourgeoisie and the common people, discussion is futile and serves only as an intellectual sport for the upper class, peaceful reform is a pipe dream and society’s contradictions can only be resolved through bloody revolution! The Communist argument is logical enough. There may be other ways to improve social conditions but the Communist way has an impressive record of success. But what one should do is not necessarily what one would do—especially when the conditions are far from favorable. In the present context, a total breakdown of social order could only favor the “fascists”—if one may be allowed to use that term, with its strict historical associations, to designate all who are hostile to and have no use for the democratic way of life, holding it too inefficient—meaning to say, it breeds a climate that is not always healthy for rich thieves.

The Left is noisy but basically powerless. Were it not for the protection afforded it by the liberal bourgeoisie, the Left would be either dead, in jail or scratching out a bare existence in the mountains. It has neither the talent nor the muscle to command popular respect and obedience. It cannot, therefore, impose its kind of order on the country should anarchy break out and a power vacuum appear. Since constant self-criticism is the hallmark of the Marxist movement, no doubt the Left in this country is fully conscious of its limitations. What to do about them is the question.

The rumor that Ninoy Aquino had masterminded the bombing to rid himself of rivals for his party’s nomination for Presidential candidate spread swiftly throughout the country. The press in time discredited that rumor but what was puzzling then was the celebrity with which the story spread. The bombing and the rumor seemed connected, parts of one clever scheme whose aim was to destroy the Opposition. The Opposition was bombed and the Opposition was to be blamed.

On Monday, 23 August, President Marcos made the announcement that he had as of midnight, Saturday, suspended the privileges of the writ of habeas corpus. The reason for this extraordinary measure, he said, was that there was a Maoist rebellion in progress.

Twenty persons had been arrested and were being detained in Camp Crame. All but one of them could not by any stretch of the imagination be described as Maoist. That was an oversight on the part of the President none made a note of the. His suspension of the writ had stunned the nation. The people felt, anyway, that is was not a question of whether he was rationally justified in the action he had taken. The power at his disposal could “justify” anything he did. The question was how far could he go, how far would he go. Hardly anyone believed the President’s words, but everyone paid heed to his power. From the outset it was a contest of nerves between the power of tyranny and the courage without arms of democratic men.

From noon onwards, on the day of the President’s announcement, the hours passed slowly in deathly calm. It was like a foretaste of life under a dictatorship: a life of quiet fear. A little longer the nation might have becomed accustomed to the situation, so easy is it to acquire the habit of obedience!

Suddenly the tense calm was broken. The voluble and tireless Ninoy Aquino began his counter-offensive and the spell of fascism was broken. Wherever he appeared, he carried a submachine gun at a time when no one outside the Administration would have dared be seen with one.

At the Manila Medical Center, the milling crowd at the entrance parted to admit the rotund frame of Senator Aquino come to check up on the condition of his colleagues. He passed by the government troops without even glancing at them, tight-lipped and looking confident of his ability to stand up to the Administration.

It was that picture that crystallized the people’s timid resentment against the Marcos Administration into an unshakeable determination to resist. The people fixed their eyes on Ninoy. If he got away with defying the President, how much better would they—the whole nation—fare!

The Administration caught on fast. Before it could expect the nation to submit, it would have to break the will of Senator Aquino. An object lesson would have to be made of him.

On Tuesday, President Marcos went on television. He laid the blame for the bombing of the LP rally on the Communists, who were planning, he said, to stage a revolution, of which the first act was the bombing incident at Plaza Miranda. He charged Senator Aquino with lending support to the  Communist insurgent movement. He had “reliable” information that Ninoy Aquino had frequently met with such Huk field commanders as Dante, Mallari, Alibasbas, Freddie and Ligaya. He brought out a carbine with telescopic sight and a nickel-plated grease gun, which, he claimed, had been given by Ninoy to Huk commanders.

President Marcos presented two men, Max Llorente and Hernan Ilagan, who had been, he said, close friends of Senator Aquino until they discovered what he was really up to. Neither of them spoke a word all the time they were on TV. They just stood before the cameras with blank expressions until the President motioned for them to go away.

The evidence against Senator Aquino, he said, was overwhelming. It was only because he had hitherto “erred on the side of generosity” that he had not yet arrested the senator. But his tone suggested that that was a fault he would soon correct.

A raid on a Communist camp in Tarlac had uncovered a master plan to raze Manila and kidnap or assassinate prominent persons, the President went on. The bombing in Plaza Miranda was merely the prelude to a wave of Red Terror and a general civil war. He warned the radicals that the armed forces could cope with any situation they might create. He asked them to abandon the rest of their master plan, since it had no hope of succeeding, anyway. To avoid a costly confrontation between the Communists and the army, he would not hesitate to declare martial law and crush the insurgents before they had time to stage their planned insurrection.

Once more the Administration had the psychological advantage. People started losing heart. It was rumored that before the night was over, Senator Aquino would be arrested. After him, it would be only a question of time and accommodations in the stockades before all persistent critics of the Administration were in their turn arrested.

Later that night, Ninoy Aquino appeared on Channel 13. For once he looked serious. Opposite him, Juan Ponce Enrile, secretary of national defense, sat, grinning.

“I have been charged,” said Ninoy Aquino, “with the most serious crime against the Filipino people by President Marcos. I have, he has charged, subverted the state and planned the overthrow of the government in a conspiracy with the Communists. I have armed and funded the Huks, he told a press-TV-radio conference earlier tonight. And he hoisted before the people what he asserted was military intelligence information to nail down these charges.

“I say to him now: these are devious lies. I deny them flatly.

“He also hauled up arms I supposedly gave to the Huks. These, I charge him back, are his fabrications. Likewise, he brought before the TV cameras two supposed witnesses against me, one a longtime friend. I tell him: I will confront his witnesses.

“I say his charges are fabrications. And I challenge him to prove they are not.

“I say these are part of a sinister plot to obliterate the Opposition. And his very act is my proof. I say his motive is, far from securing the security of the people and the Republic, rather to secure the politics of his Party. This—again—is proven by his unholy timing.

“He says he has had the goods on me—that I have armed, funded and comforted the enemies of the state since 1965 and 1966. Why did he wait until tonight to unwrap the bill?

“I say that where the black bombers failed to wipe out the Opposition at Plaza Miranda, he would now succeed. This is his motive.

“I tell him: Mr. President, don’t do me any favors. Do your duty—and file your charges against me.

“Your duty is clear. And don’t forget your oath to apply the law evenly—if harshly. I know Lady Justice has worn a peek-a-boo since you came to power, but let Justice be blind once again in my case and let Justice take her full course in the charges you have leveled against me.

“I demand, in fact, Mr. President, that you bring to court—and prove that I am guilty or be shown as the biggest liar in Philippine political life.

“I ask him to charge me formally so he and I can meet before the bar of Philippine justice.

“If I am guilty, I will pay for my alleged crimes.

“If I am innocent, he must face the people and account for the lies, the plots, the smears he has so freely and ruthlessly waged against me. But if this is the price I must now pay for having abided unflinchingly with the faith you have put in me, I say: So be it. It is a privilege, not a sacrifice.”

Aquino stood up. Enrile squeezed his arm and gave him a reassuring smile, as though to say it was all a game, a show, and no real harm would come to him. But Ninoy’s dark expression did not change. If the President was in earnest, he did not like being threatened. If the whole thing was a ploy to save the President from having to make embarrassing explanations concerning the bombing incident and the measures he had adopted, he did not like being used. He walked out of the room without saying a word. We drove to his house in his car.

“Jesus Christ!” he said, shaking his head in disbelief. “Imagine the canard he is trying to foist. Ako pa ang nag-bomba together with the New People’s Army.”

On the night of the bombing he had not been on stage with the other Liberals. He was at a goddaughter’s despedida de soltera. His absence had lent some credence to the speculation that he had planned the bombing.

“Christ’s sake, this guy is really determined to send me to jail,” he said.

He leaned back in the seat. The ordeal there was over. He looked contented. Now there was no more having to choose. He had flung the President’s threat back in the man’s complacent face and he was happy with his decision. All that remained was for the authorities to pick him up.

“So what? So one or two years in a stockade. At least I’ll died with my boots on.”

Had he plans of escaping into the hills? I asked.

“Ha, oblige him? Nah, I’ll stick it out here.”

If they came for him, what would he do?

“Aba, I’ll go. Christ’s sake! And tell your father not to forget the pocketbooks when he’s brought in, too. I’ll bring in the Philippine Reports and resume my law studies in jail and when I come out, take the bar. This is the only chance I’ll have.”

At this we started laughing.

“ ‘I erred on the side of generosity,’ did you hear that? Boy oh boy, what a shit of bluffer. He’s thrown everything at me, but I’m numb. I told you that even before all this, at the Inter-continental. I’m really numb.”

I asked him about the two witnesses Marcos had presented.

If one added up all the time he had seen Hernan Ilagan, it would amount to three hours, he said. As for Max Llorente, he saved the man’s life once and his skin several times over. This was how the man repaid him!

“The classic Filipino,” said Ninoy. It was a favorite phrase of his. He had used it in previous conversations to describe Filipinos who lived off the fat of the land but refused to pay for any of it.

I asked him about the affidavits made by other witnesses implicating him in the crime of subversion.

“All his witnesses are dead, anyway. Putang ina. Hahahaha. Naku linabas ang mga baril, ayong mga lahat na…. Hahahaha. Jesus, what a farce! Aye, God! Goddamned this guy, he’s good, this Marcos. He almost convinced me I’m a Huk.”

Every day from then on the Marcos Administration hurled a new charge or threat at the senator, who exposed every charge as a lie and met each threat with smiling nonchalance. And yet the threats were real enough. One night the PC ringed his house to frighten his family. Members of the medical staff of the Central Azucarrera de Tarlac were picked up and questioned by the PC, who tried to force them into signing affidavits implicating Ninoy with the Huks. Houseboys and cooks were also arrested. His brother-in-law, Antolin Oreta, Jr., was “invited” by the army and then detained.

That he had had dealings with the Huks, Ninoy did not deny.

“What can I do about that? I have lived in Tarlac where the Huks operate most. The point I’m driving at with my frequent mention of Huks is that as governor of Tarlac I tried to arrive at a condition of peace that was not reached through bloodshed. In my six years of governorship, I don’t think there were more than 21 Huk killings. It was not until Mr. Marcos arrived on the scene that these things began to escalate. From 1966 up the present about 1,500 have been killed. My policy as governor had been to let everyone come to my office and talk things over: Huk and non-Huk, Nacionalista and Liberal. I believed that was the only way I could maintain peace in the province. I told the Huks, ‘This is a free country. So long as you don’t kill anyone this is a free country for you. You can speak against me, attack me in the barrios. Go ahead. I believe in our democracy. You have the right to air your views. If the people should ultimately prefer your system to the one I espouse, who am I to oppose the people?’

“The Army calls this co-existence.

“I call it survival. Moreover I have extreme faith in our democratic way of life. I firmly believe that exposed to both the democratic and Communist ideologies, the people will opt for democracy.

“When the Huks complained about bad roads, I immediately repaired them. When the Huks said a landowner was abusive, I immediately approached the landowner, and if the Huks were speaking the truth, I asked him to mend his ways. The landowners have called me a radical but all I did was ask them, ‘Which would you prefer? To negotiate with the Huks or get your head chopped off?

“The Army called it co-existence. Well, they can call it anything they want, but the Army was happy then. There was peace.”

As for his frequent meetings with the Huks, he had arranged these meetings not to solicit Huks support for his candidates but, on the contrary, to ask the Huks not to interfere in Tarlac politics. One such meeting had been at the request of Danding Cojuangco, the President’s right hand man, who was then running for governor, according to Ninoy.

To deprive the Liberals of support from any sector, the Marcos Administration continued its smear campaign against the spokesman for the Liberal Party. The charge of Communism dangling over Aquino’s head kept the Chinese, for one, from giving him any aid. The memory of the fate of the Yuyitung brothers was still fresh in their minds. To deny the Liberals American support, President Marcos invited a New York Times correspondent to interview him. He repeated his charges against Ninoy and said that if the Communists fielded a candidate in 1973, meaning Ninoy Aquino, he would be compelled to field his wife, Imelda, as his party’s candidate for President.

In answer, Ninoy said that eight years of Marcos are enough and to inflict six more years of Imelda on the country would be unthinkable! Addressing himself to the President, Ninoy said:

“If Mr. Marcos is fielding his wife in ’73 just to stop Ninoy Aquino, I’m telling him now, I’m not running. Keep your wife home, Mr. Marcos, do not tire her out with a gruelling campaign. I would like to spare her the hardship. I will not run in 1973, so long as Imelda’s doesn’t run either. Let Imelda and I make a blood compact, vowing not to run in 1973 as Presidential candidates.”

Asked to comment on Ninoy’s proposal, President Marcos answered:

“I refuse to comment on a speech by a comedian.”

Ninoy Aquino’s audacity and defiance bore fruit on November 8. The Liberal senatorial candidates swept the elections. In Ilocos Sur, Singson won as governor and in Isabela, despite the presence of Task Force Lawin, Dy won as well. Ninoy’s cause had, indeed, been vindicated. Even the poorest and most downtrodden emulated the example he had set. In Tarlac, the barrio folk themselves went out to protect the ballots they had cast, forming long processions to escort the ballot boxes to the municipalities. The senator had given a new lease on life to the democratic idea, which cynics had dismissed as an empty catchphrase incapable of firing anyone’s imagination, let alone convincing anyone to risk his life for it. The “people’s victory,” as Ninoy called it, of November 8 proved them wrong.

Because he stood for the people’s will to resist tyranny, drawing upon himself all the fury of its wrath without flinching, Sen. Benigno Aquino, Jr., did more than anybody else to make that victory possible and is, therefore, the Man of the Year 1971 in the Philippines.

Ninoy speaking, August 23, 1986

August 23, 1986
by Teodoro L. Locsin, Jr.

Ninoy Speaking:

“If this is the price I must now pay… so be it. It is a privilege, not a sacrifice”

“I have been charged, “with the most serious crime against the Filipino people by President Marcos. I have, he has charged, subverted the state and planned the overthrow of the government in a conspiracy.

“I demand, in fact, Mr. President, that you bring me to court – and prove that I am guilty or be shown as the biggest liar in Philippine political life.
“I ask him to charge me formally so he and I can meet before the bar of Philippine justice.

“If I am guilty, I will pay for my alleged crimes.

“if I am innocent, he must face the people and account for the lies, the plots, the smears he has so freely and ruthlessly waged against me. But if this is the price I must now pay for having abided unflinchingly with the faith you have put in me, I say: So be it. it is a privelege, not a sacrifice.”

Aquino stood up. Enrile squeezed his arm and gave him a reassuring smile, as though to say it was all a game, a show, and no real harm would come to him. But Ninoy’s dark expression did not change. If the President was in earnest, he did not like being threatened. If the whole thing was a ploy to save the President from having to make embarrassing explanations concerning the bombing incident and the measures he had adopted, he did not like being used. He walked out of the room without saying a word. We drove to his house in his car.

“Jesus Christ!” he said, shaking his head in disbelief. “Imagine the canard he is trying to foist. Ako pa ang nagbomba together with the New People’s Army.”

“At least, I’ll die with my boots on”

On the night of the bombing he had not been on stage with other Liberals. He was at a goddaughter’s despedida de soltera. His absence had lent some credence to the speculation that he had planned the bombing.

“Christ’s sake, this guy is really determined to send me to jail,” he said.

He leaned back in the seat. The ordeal was over. He looked contented. Now there was no more having to choose. He had flung the Presiden’s threat back in the man’s complacent face and he was happy with his decision. All that remained was for the authorities to pick him up.

“So what? So one or two years in a stockade. At least I’ll die with my boots on.”

Had he plans of escaping into the hills? I asked.

“Ha, oblige him? Nah, I’ll stick it out here.”

If they came for him, what would he do?

“Aba, I’ll go. Christ’s sake! And tell your father not to forget the pocketbooks when he’s brought in, too. I’ll bring in the Philippine Reports and resume my law studies in jail and when I come out, take the bar. This is the only chance I’ll have.”

At this we started laughing.

“ ‘I erred on the side of generosity, ‘ did you hear that? Boy oh boy, what a shit of a bluffer. He’s thrown everything at me, but I’m numb.”

I asked him about the two witnesses Marcos had presented.

If one added up all the time he had seen Hernan Ilagan, it would amount to three hours, he said. As for Max Llorente, he saved the man’s life once and his skin several times over. This was how the man repaid him!

“The classic Filipino, “ said Ninoy. It was favorite phrase of his. He had used it in previous conversations to describe Filipinos who lived off the fat of the land but refused to pay for any of it.

“The Army,” I said, “can cope with the population, I think.”

“I agree, but for how long?”

“The youth movement is divided. Don’t you think that is a defect?”

“No. it is harder to crush a movement. Everyone is a leader. So if anyone gets bumped off, the movement does not crumble, which is what usually happens to tightly knit organizations. As it is, the movement is like jelly. You grad it and it slips between your fingers. Everyone is expendable.”

“How long do you think this phenomenon of dissent will last? I was thinking, Marcos has not really used even a fraction of the power he commands to stifle dissent. What if he were to mow down the students, like they did in Mexico? Perhaps they wouldn’t show up in the streets again. As it is, the students are killed haphazardly and, therefore, no one is afraid. Death comes as it usually does, when your time is up. But behind the deaths in the streets, no one really thinks there is conscious malevolence. But if it were known that the government intends to slaughter the students should they take to the streets again in a riotious manner, would that not cow the students? Especially if the government demonstrated in a bloody massacre that it meant business?”

“Perhaps, but it won’t happen like that,” said Aquino. “I agree that Marcos has used restraint. Any other man would have sent paratroops to recapture that radio station from which the students broadcast insults at President Marcos. They called him “magnanakaw” and a host of other things. That is his strength. He has not put a single student, journalist or politician in jail or had anyone killed who is prominent. He knows that the violent death of a prominent personality will be blamed on him.”

“And who will cast the blame and what does he care if he will not be punished?” I said.

“I know what you mean. The people are inert. I get more than 300 letters a day encouraging me, but I know that in a showdown, none will come forward to risk his life with me. But they will feel it deeply when one who has fought for them is hurt or killed because of it.”

“And what will they do? Will they avenge their champion?”

“I don’t know and we shouldn’t care. What they will do is none of our concern. Our role is to fight for the people. Whether they will show gratitude or not, immediately, later or never, should not enter into our calculations. That is our fate, to fight for what is right. Your father told me about how long the Free Press had been fighting and as far as he could see, nothing much had improved.”

“And you think that he had missed the point of all his endeavors?” I said. “The point is in the effort?” The outcome is irrelevant?”

He was up on his feet, with the portfolio in his hands.

“I’ll be late,” he said. Then he was out of the room. No introduction, no farewell. I had only half risen from my chair. I looked at the clock, the time had passed quickly. We had spoken for two and half hours. Most of what he had told me is unprintable. But the important part, I felt, was the last part. Could it be that a new breed of politician has come into being? I had given up all hope. I would have been satisfied if the next crop of politicians were bigger crooks than the present ones, so long as they were witty, refined and candid. But now, I wonder. Has one been too ready to throw in the towel?

“Honesty is becoming a fad” – that stuck in my memory. I always thought, why steal money when being honest will bring one glory? Isn’t money acquired to buy glory? Honesty in a position of power is the fastest way to fame. Why were there crooks who stole more than they would ever need if they lived twice over and then moaned that they had lost their good names? Hadn’t it ever occurred to them that if they did not steal so much, they could have both comfort and an honorable name? Perhaps, it finally has.

Addressing Senate President Gil Puyat, Aquino said:

“Mr. President, I would now like to enter these words into our records: Should I be assassinated, my blood would be on the hands of those who set me up for the kill.

“I do not know what fate awaits me, Mr. President. For the last five years, I have discharged my duty as God and my conscience have shown me the way. I have vowed, that here in the Senate, the ideals of our just and free society will be upheld – and only after we shall have perished, will thy be tampled upon.

“Rizal was truly prophetic when he said: ‘There are no tyrants where there are no slaves.’ And it is my conviction that tyranny will not rule the land so long as there are no slaves in this chamber.

“Mr. President, I am only human. And I must confess my disenchantment and near-despair. I see the cherished fundamental institutions of our country crumbling before us – to give way to the personal designs of a determined couple.

“I am seeing the collapse of our economy, of our monetary system, as the price that must be paid to perpetuate this family rule.

“I see the people in the hills. Their armed ranks are swelling, choosing a life of the hunted out of sheer despair.

“Our students and the young are out on the streets – in protest against the stifling environment.

“All these communal sufferings, Mr. President, so that one man and his wife can perpetuate themselves in power!

“Mr. President, allow this hmble representative to reiterate his commitment to the cherished ideals of our just and democratic society designed for us by our founding fathers.

“To Mr. Marcos, I say this: I am against you, yes; against the Republic, no!

“my fidelity is to the Constitution, not to your administration – and while I refuse you my loyalty, I give it unswervingly to the people, the Republic, the government.

“And in behalf of our people, agonized and terrified as they are, I ask you: do not mistake their disillusion for rebellion and their frustrations for subversion. Call off, Mr. President, your campaign of fear against them!

“I do not believe in communism, Maoism or any other ism repugnant to our own Filipinism. I love and I owe allegiance to our Republic – and to no other!” said Aquino.

Quezon and the Church, August 19, 1954

Quezon and the church
By Frederic S. Marquardt

The Bible was near his bed.

JOSE Rizal and Manuel L. Quezon were both born into the Catholic religion. Both were educated in church schools. Both spend many of their adult years outside the church. But that’s the end of the parallel religious experiences of the two leading Philippine heroes. While historians differ as to whether Rizal reasserted his faith in the church, there is no doubt that Manuel Quezon died a Catholic.

There was an altar in the room in which death came to Quezon at Saranac Lake on August 1, 1944. A frequently read Bible was near his bed. Quezon took almost daily communion from his personal chaplain, the Rev. Francisco J. Ortiz, S.J., during his long illness. He and the members of his family said the rosary together every night.

Quezon’s was no death bed conversion, or more accurately reconversion. For the last 14 years of his life he was a practicing Catholic. But for the previous 25 years he had nothing to do with the church. It was during this earlier period that he was married in a civil ceremony in Hong Kong, later repeating the vows before a priest almost an afterthought. During his break with the church he was the Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of the Philippines, an order generally regarded as anti-clerical. The Supreme Council of the Scottish Rite Masons in Washington, D.C., elected him to the 33rd degree, highest honor in Masonry. Caballero and Concepcion, in their biography on Quezon, date this event as October 23, 1929.

Less than a year later Quezon was back in the Catholic fold. Time, the American newsmagazine, reported in its issue of December 9, 1935: “Catholic-born Manuel Quezon retracted Masonry on his 52nd birthday, 1930, aboard the s.s. Empress of Japan, in the presence of Most Rev. Michael J. O’Doherty, Archbishop of Manila. Two years later he demitted (i.e. resigned) from his lodge.”

In his autobiography, The Good Fight, Quezon was amazingly sketchy about his religious experiences. It should be noted, of course, that the book was unfinished at the time of Quezon’s death, and was published posthumously after his friends and relatives had done some work on the manuscript. He was a sick man when he dictated the book, and he had no opportunity to put it in final shape. As the head of a government in exile, he was taking a high-level part in the struggle that would leave scars on his country for years to come. There was little time for reflection or research. Still, Quezon did indicate in his book one of the events that may have led him away from the church.

Describing his part in the Philippine Revolution, Quezon told how he came down with a bad case of malaria while serving on General Mascardo’s staff. The illness probably occurred in 1900, although the date is not definitely established. “I spent a month in the house of Cabesang Doro’s friend in Navotas”, wrote Quezon, undoubtedly referring to the town in Rizal province. “This old man had amassed so much money from the fishing business that he had been able to send his son to be educated in Europe. While convalescing at his house, I read books which left in my mind some doubt as to the certainty of the existence of hell as taught by my friar teachers—doubts which in after years contributed to my leaving for a long time the Catholic faith and joining the Masonic Order. I returned to the old church after my children had grown up.”

The foregoing pithy reference doesn’t throw much light on Quezon’s religious experience, but it is all he chose to include in his autobiography.

I have been able to find no published record of Quezon’s beliefs during the years when he was outside the church. However, I once examined an unpublished autobiography of the late Teodoro M. Kalaw, who had a distinguished career in Philippine politics during the first half of the American regime. In the manuscript (Chapter X) was a letter from Quezon to Kalaw. As nearly as I could ascertain, it must have bee written about 1915, when Quezon was representing the Philippines as resident commissioner in Washington. In the letter, written in Spanish, Quezon said:

“You know that I am a free thinker. I do not believe matrimony is an indissoluble tie, just as I do not see the necessity of any religion for any people and nation. Science should be, and has to be, the Religion of the future. This Religion will make the man of tomorrow more perfect, morally speaking, than the religious man of today, because the believer of our day is synonymous with the ignorant. To believe is ‘to see what we have not seen’; in other words to have faith in whatever hoaxes some people, who consider themselves semi-divine, preach and practice. Nevertheless, even when such are my honest convictions regarding divorce and religion, I still consider it very inopportune to pass the Divorce Law now.

“Because of the trouble between (Archbishop of Manila) Harty and the YMCA, Harty has written to American Catholics attacking our Government. For the first time the Catholics here are (word indecipherable) if it is good for Catholicism to have the American government in the Philippines. It is very convenient for us to let them ponder over this, while at the same time we show them what good Catholics we are. The Catholic vote may yet give us our independence.”

There seems to be an inconsistency in Quezon’s referring to himself as a “free thinker,” and then suggesting “we show them what good Catholics we are”. One can only surmise that Quezon was speaking ironically in the latter instance. As a matter of fact, Quezon was wrong if he thought the Catholic vote in the United States would bring about independence. Only a few years after this letter to Kalaw was written, the same Archbishop Harty sent a cablegram to the predominantly Catholic New York delegation in the House of Representatives urging he delegates to vote against immediate independence.

If Quezon didn’t write much about his experiences with the Catholic Church, he showed no reluctance in discussing them. On October 21, 1937, I made extensive notes of a press conference President Quezon had held the preceding Sunday in his study in Malacañan Palace. The conference lasted two hours. Originally called because the President wanted to discuss a forthcoming legislative message, the conference soon branched out into discussion of nearly everything under the sun, including religion. Other correspondents present were Walter Robb of the Chicago Daily News, Ray Cronin of The Associated Press, Dick Wilson of the United Press, Dave Boguslav, then editor of the Manila Tribune, now The Manila Times. I was associated editor of the Philippines Free Press, and correspondent for the International News Service.

I had always been curious about Quezon’s return to the church, and I kept the conversation on this subject as long as I could. The President was speaking “off the record”, so his statements were not published at the time. His story went like this, according to the notes made at the time and still in my possession.

“I first considered re-entering the church for the sake of my children. My wife was a very devout Catholic, and as the children grew older I knew they would wonder why she was so religious when I was apparently lacking in religion. And I was afraid they might, believing me to be more intelligent than their mother, follow in my footsteps without giving the question of religion serious thought.

“So I asked Father Villalonga, former head of the Jesuit Order in the Philippines, if he would give me some instruction in the Catholic religion.

“Father Villalonga, whom I had known for years, came out to see me and the first thing he wanted to do was say mass, I said to him, ‘Never mind the mass. Tell me why I should re-enter my faith.’

“He talked to me for a while, and then he sent me a book, saying it would instruct me in the Catholic religion. Well, I read the book, and one of the portions in it told about a good-for-nothing Spaniard who sailed from Spain for the Philippines. Before he left his home his mother gave him a Medal, bearing the likeness of the Virgin of the Rosary, and once a day this fellow would say a ‘Hail Mary’ to the Medal. The rest of the time he was the worst possible sort of a rake, committing all the crimes imaginable.

“When the boat he was on passed Mariveles, a storm came up and the man was shipwrecked. By dint of great effort, he managed to swim ashore to Cavite but he was so exhausted by the time he reached there that he fell down on the beach and died.

“The next day the people in Manila noticed that the Virgin of the Rosary in the chapel of the Dominican Church had dust on it. And do you know what the conclusion of the story was? That the Virgin in Manila, made of wood, had walked all the way to Cavite to help this sinful man into Heaven, merely because he had said one ‘Hail Mary’ a day!

“When I read that story, and considered that the Catholic Church expected grown-up, intelligent men to believe it, I decided that I had better stay outside the church.

“So I did nothing until once, when I was returning to Manila from the United States, I found myself on board the same boat with Archbishop Michael J. O’Doherty. I was chatting with the Archbishop one day when he asked me why I did not return to the church, pointing out that my children were growing up and that I owed it to them, if for no other reason, to again become a practicing Catholic.

“I said to the Archbishop, ‘I personally would like to return to the church. But I can’t join an organization which expects me to believe that a wooden image walked all the way from Manila to Cavite to help a sinner get into Heaven.’ Then I told him the entire story which I had read in the book.

“The Archbishop laughed and said, ‘Well, I don’t believe that story either, but I’m still a member of the church. It wasn’t long before he convinced me that I could rejoin the church without insulting my own intelligence. As I recall it, he said a mass on that occasion.”

I was anxious to find out Quezon’s attitude toward Masonry. So I pressed him on this subject. His statement, also taken from my notes of October 21, 1937, follows:

“I didn’t actually resign from the Masonic order until several months later, and I never denounced Masonry. There is a formal form which those returning to the church from the Masonic lodge are supposed to sign, but I refused to sign it. Instead, I wrote the Archbishop a personal note saying that I understood that I could not be readmitted to the Catholic Church so long as I remained a Mason for that reason I was resigning from Masonry.”

The “personal note” from Quezon to Archbishop O’Doherty is included in Sol Gwekoh’s Quezon, His Life and Career. The original was in Spanish, says Gwekoh, and was witnessed by Mrs. Quezon. It was dated August 18, 1930, which is one day off from the 52nd birthday mentioned in Times’s account. Since he was crossing the Pacific at the time, it is possible that Quezon was confused by the International Date Line.

In the document cited by Gwekoh, this statement is attributed to Quezon: “I abandon Masonry and I abandon it forever, not only because this is a condition sine qua non for a Catholic, but because the religious beliefs that I now sincerely profess, are in direct opposition to certain Masonic theories. I shall never again belong to any society condemned by the church. I deplore with all my heart having spent the best years of my life in complete forgetfulness of my God and outside His church.”

Not long after the press conference at which President Quezon spoke so freely of his religious experiences, I asked him if he would authorize publication of the facts that led to his readmission to the church. I pointed out the doubts that always arose regarding Rizal’s religious beliefs, and suggested that Quezon prevent all speculation in his own case by writing an article for the 1937 Christmas issue of the FREE PRESS, repeating what he had told us at the press conference.

The President thought about my request, then turned it down. It is only now, 10 years after his death, that I fell free to publish this personal version of Manuel Quezon’s religious beliefs. In his note to me, dated November 18, 1937, President Quezon said:

“I have been thinking over the question you submitted to me yesterday and I have come to the conclusion that it would not be proper for me at this time to write such an article. It is of no concern to the public what my religion is and why I belong to that church. The separation of church and state is fundamental constitutional mandate and people may suspect some ulterior motive in my writing such article.

‘Therefore I will not write the article you’ve suggested.”

The important thing about President Quezon’s letter, it seems to me, was his concern over the separation of church and state. The issue of religious education in the public schools was a live one. Only a veto by President Quezon prevented the enactment of a law that would have permitted religious education in the schools during regular time.

Despite the President’s veto, the bishops of Cebu announced their intention to continue the fight for religious education in the public schools. President Quezon then made a blistering statement ending all speculation as to where he stood on the question of separation of church and state.

“It should be unnecessary to remind the ecclesiastical authorities in the Philippines”, said Quezon, “that the separation of Church and State in this country is a reality and not a mere theory, and that as far as our people are concerned, it is forever settled that this separation will be maintained as one of the cardinal tenets of our government. They should realize, therefore, that any attempts on their part to interfere with matters that are within the province of government will not be tolerated. If the said ecclesiastical authorities desire to have the government respect their rights and afford them every kind of protection in the free exercise of their religion, they must not only abide by the laws and lawful orders of the government, but they must also acknowledge and respect the principle of the separation of church and state.”

If President Quezon’s message to the bishops was the highlight of his intensely religious period, his letter to Teodoro Kalaw was a similar highlight of his years as a free-thinker. When he was almost literally at war with the church, he advised Kalaw against any breakdown in the sanctity of marriage. And when he had again become a practicing Catholic, he warned a congregation of bishops to keep their hands off political affairs. Both events illustrate the essential balance that is a requisite of true statesmanship.

The strangest dictator, 1942

The strangest dictator
by Fritz Marquardt

FOR Manuel Luis Quezon y Molina, small, explosive, tubercular President of the Philippines, life came full cycle during the Battle of Bataan. From the rocky eminences of Corregidor, when there were no air raids or artillery bombardments going on, he could look out onto the blood-drenched peninsula where he himself had been a sick, battle-weary soldier fighting against impossible odds. That had been forty years earlier, and he had finally surrendered to an American soldier named Roy Squires and Bingham. But the fight never went out of Quezon, in 1901 or in 1942. After the first defeat he rose to be the undisputed leader of his people in their struggle for independence, and after the second defeat to see his country given all the honors and prerogatives of an independent nation.
When his doctors finally told him that his health could not bear up much longer under the strain of living in the foul air of Corregidor’s tunnels, he went down to Cebu and finally slipped through the Japs’ hands and reached Mindanao, after a fearsome night ride in one of Lieutenant John Bulkeley’s P-T boats. From Mindanao he flew to Australia, and then went on to the United States to establish something utterly new under the sun, an American-sponsored government in exile.

The war robbed Quezon of his home and made him a president without a country, but it gave him the one thing he had fought for all his life—recognition of the Philippines as an independent nation. All possible military honors were bestowed upon him when he landed in San Francisco, and a special train carried him across the country.

In Washington he was the object of reception that must have thrilled him to the core, for down at the station to meet him were President Roosevelt and every former Governor General and High Commissioner available, including Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson, Major General Dwight F. Davis, Supreme Court Justice Frank Murphy, Manpower Administrator Paul V. McNutt, and High Commissioner Francis B. Sayre. It was a splendid tribute to Don Manuel, and an even finer one to the Filipinos who had fought so well on Bataan.

Perhaps an even greater day for Quezon and the Filipinos occurred a few weeks later, for the independence of the Philippines as a political entity was virtually recognized when Quezon signed the United Nations agreement and became a member of the Pacific War Council.

Terrible as the war had been, it had given him one pledge which he could never have secured without it. As Manila was about to die, President Roosevelt broadcast a speech to the Philippines in which he said, “I give to the freedom will be redeemed and their independence established and protected. The entire resources in men and materials of the United States stand behind that pledge.” Other presidents had promised that the Philippines would eventually be given their independence, but never before had a responsible American official gone s