Our aims, outlined: January 20,1907

January 20, 1907, Sunday

Our aims outlined

No class, creed, or party axes to grind

Square deal for all

THE Philippines Free Press has been founded for the purpose of bringing into closer harmony the forces best calculated to achieve real progress in these islands. Our hopes of success are based merely on the merit of the policy we are determined to pursue and on our usefulness as a news vehicle.

When Babel tower was in the first stages of erection, there was (according to the writer in the good book) a decided unity of purpose among the people of the world of that time. The Great Architect decided that a little less unity would fit the bill, and by divers tongues the disunion was accomplished. Be that as it may, language variance among mankind has certainly kept the world in a continual state of cordial discord. From Finland to the Philippines, from Panama to Peking, it is just the little difference in man’s way of saying: “Top of the morning to you!” that is mainly responsible for the barriers builded between men, for the bickerings between chancellories

• • •

Through Justice, Progress!

Strict Justice at the hands of the American administration is all that is sought by the Filipino people. And through justice, alone, can real progress be won. You cannot make bricks without straw, and you cannot rear the cross of a permanent peace upon soil scarred by the sword of strife without the co-operation of a people really free, confident, and content. These are the three great necessities, and the greatest of these is confidence. It may be achieved by the acts (not words) of the governing body.

• • •

A clean-cut policy for the guidance of the representatives of American power in the Philippines was defined at the start by the highest authority in the United States. And the cry “lack of policy” would never have been raised if some of our insular policy-pill-rollers had not lost the prescription and pounded in the mortar nostrums of their own devising. “None so blind as those who will not see,” of which sort has been the blindness of the policy-puzzled Philippine senator. The humor of it is one could not call it color-blindness.

• • •

The archbishop of Manila has recommended to the pope the appointment of a coadjutor or assistant, and he is credited with the desire that the mitre be placed on the brow of a Filipino priest. We do not intend to mix in denominational matters. At the same time, we may, perhaps, be permitted the remark that in this matter as in others, the attitude of Monsignor Harty displays considerable sound sense. Filipino Catholics are entitled to have one of the able and zealous priests of their own race placed “close to the throne.” A glance at the early chapters in the history of christianity points a moral that the churches sometimes forget. The cult of the Great Jew is today the faith of the Gentile world. Mighty was Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles!

• • •

“Our lack of a policy in the Philippines, while communicating a feeling of uncertainty to the Philippine commissioners, who are performing their duties to the extent permitted them with sincere purpose, has had unhappy result in the appointment of a great herd of subordinate American officials in Manila, and to some extent in other cities, who are distinctly hostile to the Filipino. No definite mission or policy has been imported to these subordinates from the government. Our government has no policy. As a consequence, these men are simply “holding down their jobs.” They do not associate with nor care to know the Filipinos. There is to-day a distinctly anti-Filipino American element in Manila. Secretary Taft referred to this fact last winter before the New York chamber of commerce. I have heard high government officials, while passing the time in a Manila club, refer in terms of the utmost contempt, and incidentally vilely, to the Filipinos. The salaries of these men are paid by the very people they detest. Such a spirit does not exist, for instance, among the British or Dutch subordinates in India or in Java. Those countries have clear-cut policies, whether good or ill, which are well known. Many merchants, businessmen and officers of constructing companies state that the commission, while permitted little constructive power, exercises autocratic authority in inhibitory measures.”

The above is an extract from an article contributed to The World Today by Hamilton Wright, the young American “special” who looked over the Philippine field a few months ago. In the main Wright’s deductions are right, and his reference to the anti-Filipino attitude of some of our officials is unfortunately within the truth. Yet, we are not suffering from “lack of a policy.” On the contrary, we would diagnose our ailment as one of too much physic and too many conflicting physicians.

End

Junket Fever, editorial, July 24, 1954

Junket fever
July 24, 1954

MANY people are beginning to note with alarm the increasing frequency of so-called “official trips” by high-ranking officials. If these traveling worthies spent their own funds and not the taxpayers’ money, nobody protest. The trouble, however, is that often their gallivanting in foreign countries is at the taxpayers’ cost.

Particularly exasperating is it when they take along with them on “official trips” members of their families. And there have been, as everyone knows, a number of such instances.

Since the present administration took over, certain provincial governors, congressmen and senators—not to mention private individuals in the good graces of the powers that be—have gone abroad. In the case of a couple of governors, the public is still in the dark as to what they accomplished during their recent trip to Japan. As regards the lawmakers, Representative Diosdado Macapagal is authority for this statement (during the regular session): “12 days were declared as a recess. . . during which the House leaders went on a junket to Hong Kong. . . .They could not wait for the session to end to have their junket. What was worse was that they announced that they went to Hong Kong at their own expense when the records of the House show that their 12-day vacation was at the expense of the people.”

The Pampanga congressman went on to say that “whereas the past administration—during the Japanese peace conference in San Francisco, where the Philippines had a vital stake because of the reparations issues—the Philippine delegation consisted only of seven persons, in the recent Geneva Conference where we have no voice, the government sent a delegation of 17 members! The delegates, according to a Manila editor who covered the conference, spent most of their time sightseeing in Paris and other nearby tourist attractions at public expense because they had nothing to do in Geneva!”

There is a plan afoot to send a delegation to the United States to work for revision of the Bell Trade Act. Composed of senators and congressmen and “an unlimited number of technical assistants,” the entourage will be provided with funds amounting to no less than half a million pesos. In this case, of course, the amount is negligible, IF the delegation brings home the bacon.

But so far as the Filipino people know, most of the junketeers are empty-handed upon their return except for so-called reports which nobody cares to listen to. They also bring home vouchers and fat expense accounts. And, of course, luxury goods from the capitals of Europe, America, and Asia.

Lacson’s defiance, editorial, July 18, 1953

Lacson’s defiance
July 18, 1953

MANILANS who saw scout and armored trucks menacingly rumble through the streets of the city last Monday evening, with mounted machine guns manned by soldiers in full battle regalia, at once thought that either the Huks had swooped down on the city or a foreign enemy had just landed. Many a city resident was truly scared by the presence of the battle wagons, with soldiers who were armed to the teeth, as they rolled grimly through the metropolis.

But there was no Huk invasion. Nor was there an invasion to be repelled. They were merely soldiers from Camp Murphy who were responding to a frantic call from their boss—Secretary of Justice and National Defense Oscar Castelo, who was at the Shellborne Hotel.

Why did Mr. Castelo call for the army and the constabulary at that time of the night? And why so many men in arms and in battle uniform?

According to the secretary, his life was being threatened by City Mayor Arsenio Lacson and his men, numbering about 40. They were right around the premises of the Shellborne, the secretary said, lying in ambush for him. Castelo felt certain that Lacson was out to murder him that night. Hence, the SOS to Camp Murphy—which was promptly and adequately answered.

But Mayor Lacson vehemently denied Castelo’s allegation, said he was not at the Shellborne, but in another adjacent place, waiting, for a call from somebody to make arrangements with Florentino “Scarface” Suarez who was going to “spill the beans” that night on the Monroy murder. Suarez’ confession was going to be tape-recorded by the mayor, in the presence of newspapermen, newsphotographers and members of the police department.

The armed forces were merely obeying Castelo’s order to arrest Lacson. But the city mayor defied the secretary’s order because the arresting officer had no warrant of arrest. “Mr. Castelo should come and personally arrest me and I’ll break his neck,” Lacson is said to have told newsmen in a moment of excitement.

If Secretary Castelo’s real purpose was merely to have Lacson arrested, why didn’t he do the usual thing under the circumstances: call for a squad of Manila policemen (of whom we have a number) and order the cops to nab the city mayors? And since he is the secretary of justice, although on leave, why didn’t he first secure a warrant of arrest from any of the many Manila judges before ordering the arrest of Lacson? It becomes obvious that in summoning the army and the constabulary to “pinch” the mayor of Manila, Mr. Castelo was trying to impress all and sundry that being the biggest boss of the army, the men in that organization were at his beck and call, and that any time he could summon a battalion to parade before people he wants properly “impressed.”

Unfortunately, he met one who refused to be impressed—Mayor Arsenio H. Lacson.

T.R. Editorial for January 27, 1907

January 27, 1907, Sunday

T.R.

WE are not disposed to look for faults in the sayings and doings of our officials. The FREE PRESS is not in the least anxious to win the cheap plaudits with which thoughtless people frequently laud the carping critic. We seek the respect of those who think calmly and dispassionately, and we try to be just. Thus, we willingly affirm that Governor General Smith has started out well in his tenure of office. His motives are above reproach: and he is a plain talker. He has accomplished much in a very short time. Some of his speeches have been admirable—that address at the Quill Club dinner was particularly good. So much in deserved approbation—now for the other side of the medallion. Smith is a man, and a man (like a woman) can talk too much. When a man talks too much he frequently becomes garrulous, and garrulousness in an executive is a parlous thing—a decidedly perilous thing.

“Speech” said M. de Tallyrand, “was given to man that he might conceal his thoughts.”

When the beasts of the field and the birds of the air were at war, and the war became barren of battles through the inability of the carabao to fly and the unwillingness of the dove to peck at the tiger’s tail, the rival armies chose the bat as go-between—for the recorded reason that the bat was dumb. The wise Philip of France once remarked that his greatest regret was that his realm was so short in deaf-mutes that he was hard put to find suitable ambassadors.

No disrespect to General Smith, who is an excellent man and a governor in earnest—but we believe he would have done better in the north country if he had closed his ears against some of the soothing ditties of the revenue-spenders and refrained from intoning them with variations while playing the Piper up-country in Luzon.

“The Piper”—that is not a bad title for our little insular serio-comedy. Chief piper, little pipers, and lesser pipers.

It is not General Smith’s fault that he is cast for the little role, and, after all, it is, at best, an ungrateful part: but it is, in great measure, his fault that there are so many little pipers and lesser pipers crowding the stage that there is hardly room in the auditorium for the people who are paying the freight, that a great deal of the music is execrable, and the libretto so massacred that its author would never recognize it.

We are told by the highest authority that the government is “flat broke.” “It has no money to speak of, now, and it will have less than that (nothing from nothing leaves nothing) next year”—what a sorrowful confession for a modern government to be forced to make! Yet, it is partly true—the central government has so many high-salaried official ornaments on its hands that it has not a copper centavo for necessary, urgently needed works. We are short on teachers for the public schools, road builders, and others of the rank and file, and long on expensive chair warmers. That is why the cupboard is bare.

Once in a while, an economy wave strikes the administration, officials of the mandarin class go a-head-hunting; cut out some hundred-dollar clerks, stop a few leaks at the bottom of the governmental bark and—raise their own salaries.

There’s the rub. It is against reason to expect the higher officials of the Philippine Islands to cut down their own salaries. The economies at the top will have to be ordered by the governor general, or by Washington on the advice of a special commission sent out for that purpose. There lies Smith’s opportunity, and the alternative.

That the governor general is not over-paid will be generally admitted. Equally, there is agreement that the government is absurdly top-heavy—that it is but another teat added to a long-suffering and over-milked cow.

Parade of the people’s “finest.” Editorial for April 14, 1907

April 14, 1907, Sunday

The parade of the people’s “Finest.

["The most noticeable feature of the Philippines—the one that jars—is the absurdly numerous army of highly-paid officials. About every second American you meet is working for the government and he will tell you, candidly enough, that all he cares about the islands is to make enough in savings out of his salary to give him a stake back home. There are exceptions, but they are few. And this army of officials is maintained by taxation wrung from a people impoverished by a series of misfortunes in which almost every known destructive element has been combined—taxation that has throttled industrial enterprise, paralyzed the agriculturalist, and sent soaring the cost at the market stall of the food of the poorer classes. I have been forced to the conclusion that the Philippines are suffering from too much government; and it is not in the interest of American prestige that this state of things should continue"—An American Tourist in the Philippines."]

Numerous complaints were uttered during last week by civil government employees granted leave of absence, but unable to secure transportation to the United States. Many of these men and women have been serving the government in out-of the-way places in the Philippines, and they have looked forward to their leave as an opportunity of joining for a brief space the old folks at home. Instead, they find themselves paying hotel rates they can ill afford in Manila, because the Pacific liners are all booked-up away ahead, and the civil government’s toy transports cannot make the distance.

The Magsaysay boom, editorial, March 7, 1953

The Magsaysay boom
March 7, 1953

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 Reason Why? Editorial, Febryary 5, 1972

February 5, 1972

The Reason Why?

A PUPIL once asked Confucius: “If the Prince of Mei appointed you head of the government, to what would you first set you mind?”

Confucius replied: “To call people and things by their names, that is by their correct denomination, to see that the terminology was exact.”

The pupil could not believe his own ears. His master’s reply seemed beside the point.

Noting his incredulity, the master said: “You are a  blank. An intelligent man hesitates to talk of what he doesn’t understand, he feels embarrassment.

“If the terminology be not exact, if it fit not the thing, the governmental instructions will not explicit, if the instructions aren’t clear and the names don’t fit, you cannot conduct business properly.

“If business is not properly run, the rites and music will not be honoured, if the rites and music be not honoured, penalties and punishments will not achieve their intended effects, if penalties and punishments do not produce equity and justice, the people won’t know where to put their feet or what to lay hold of or to whom they should stretch out their hands.

“That is why an intelligent man cares for his terminology and gives instructions that fit. When his orders are clear and explicit they can be put into effect.”

The gist of what the philosopher said is that good government is founded on respect for the truth.

Every new year the President of the Republic addresses Congress and the people with what is known as his State-of-the-Nation message. An envisioned by the legislators who thought of this rite, the President is expected to give an accurate description of the situation in his country during the preceding year and his suggestions to improve that situation in the coming year. Congress is expected to learn from the contents of his message and frame laws that are relevant to the conditions he has described. That, at any rate, is how it should go in a responsible democracy.

If the President’s message does not reflect reality, especially if this is done purposely then the whole purpose of the rite is frustrated. The President is supposed to describe accurately the state of the nation, speaking plainly and holding nothing back that could contribute to his auditors’ understanding of the matters he had discussed. Congress, then, takes it up from there. That is the general idea of this rite where the President delivers a message before both Houses of Congress, addressed to the nation. The reality is something else.

Our Presidents, on these occasions, have inflated their achievements—or claimed imaginary ones—and glossed over their mistakes. They paint a bright picture of the previous year and a still brighter one of the coming one. How they have the cheek to do this before the people who have suffered so much from their mistakes is one of the intriguing mysteries of politics.

LAST week, President Marcos delivered his seventh State-of-the-Nation message at the opening of Congress. The day before, his arch-foe, Sen. Benigno Aquino, Jr., issued a statement to the press which began by asking whether this year, 1972, President Marcos would again exasperate the people with his usual empty rhetoric or would he, for once, do as he has never done on this solemn occasion for the past seven years of the Administration, that is, speak the truth plainly and give the people a true description of the sorry state of the nation?

In 1966, said Senator Aquino, Marcos described the nation as “in crisis and tragedy” and swore to “Make This Nation Great Again.” The people believed him and pinned their hopes on his promise.

In 1967, he rallied the people around his standard for “The Epic of Nation Building.” The people renewed their faith in him.

In 1968, he announced that he would forge the people into “A Nation of Achievers.” He would, of course, be the No. 1 Achiever. By this time the people began to suspect to be the No. 1 Deceiver.

In 1969, his catchphrase was “The New Filipinism: The Turning Point.” A turning point it was all right for “the new Filipinos”—Marcos cronies who became millionaires overnight.

In 1970, he offered “a new heart, a new spirit” and promised to “raise the nation to a bold, new future.” But the nation had had its fill of his promises and vomited out its surfeit of frustration and anger in a student revolt. That was the response to his call for unity. His own troops acted brutally. The only feelings he generated were mounting hatred for him and grief for those who fell in the riots that followed far into the summer of that year.

In 1971, he went on to proclaim, apparently, oblivious of the “credibility gap” that yawned at his feet, “A Democratic Revolution.”

(This led Senator Aquino, among other concerned citizens, to suspect that something “tragic” had happened within the President’s person, probably as a result of his overlong sojourn in the Palace. There were times when one felt it was more charitable to commiserate with the President on his condition than to attack him for his mistakes.)

When the President offered to lead the nation, no one followed, said the senator, except his tuta, who were rejected by the electorate with a sweeping gesture of contempt on November 8, 1971.

The people gave him a taste of a genuine if non-violent revolution.

When the President delivers his State-of-the-Nation message, said the senator, we shall be able to measure his candor by noting how closely his message sticks to the following facts about the Philippine situation:

The President is a man much hated and not in the least respected or loved by his people.

The people: 5% privileged; 95% ill-clad, ill-fed, ill-housed, ill-placed.

The economy: in chaos, and the peso, not floating but steadily sinking.

The officialdom: thoroughly corrupt and brazen in its depredations on the public treasury.

The Republic: its international image the worst ever and its government ostracized by its neighbors. For all his charm, the foreign secretary has not succeeded in getting them to come to an Asian summit conference Mr. Marcos desperately want to host.

The public mood: angry, bitter, vituperative, desperate, because the people have realized that they have reached the end of their tether, they have lost all faith; the President and the country seem beyond redemption.

“In a word, the state of the Filipino nation in 1972 is dismaying.”

So went Senator Aquino’s own report on the state of the nation.

The President complaints of an undeserved “credibility gap” between him and his people. If he would only look at the difference between what he promised the people and what they have been getting in the past seven years of his Administration, the existence of the “gap” would not baffle him so much.

Here in the words of Senator Aquino, are what the President promised the people and what the people got:

“Promise No. 1: To bring down high prices and raise incomes.

“What there is: The consumer price index (1955:100) has risen to 235.5, against 149.1 when he assumed office; a full 21% increase in one year. This is way above the 10% critical inflation limit set by the Central Bank charter, while the peso’s purchasing power has constricted to a bare 42 centavos of what is bought in 1955.

“In June 1970, the Minimum Wage Law increased the base rates for non-agricultural workers from P6.00 to P8.00 and the agricultural workers’ from P3.50 to P4.75. But he devalued the peso, de facto, and the workers are worse off than where they were.

“Promise No. 2: To stop the shortage of rice.

“What there is: We imported 460,000 metric tons in 1971, we are importing ‘a minimum of 350,000 metric tons’ this year (Mr. Marcos’s original bid: 837,000 metric tons) and, likely, will be asked to import again in 1973, the result of willful diffusing of the rice self-sufficiency program to take on the First Lady’s image-building vegetable gardening project, crafted for propaganda purposes as ‘The Green Revolution.’

“Promise No. 3: To reduce graft and corruption to a minimum.

“What there is: An Administration swathed in scandalous multimillion-peso and multimillion-dollar deals. Well-etched in the public’s mind are, as Speaker Villareal once listed, the P60 million Namarco-Aguilar, $34 million public works equipment, P80 million Aidsisa-PNB, Nawasa pipes, ACA fertilizer, Lepanto shares, Benguet-Bahamas deals. Involved: the Marcos cronies.

“Graft, corruption and evildoing rather than being curbed, have essayed into new fields, with the protection racket among the latest. The gambling casinos on Roxas Boulevard enjoy powerful protection and, reports have it, yield P1 million monthly to people high in the government. Vice-President Fernando Lopez, a leading Nacionalista, recently gave the dimension: ‘tong’ in government loans, he said, is ‘anything from 20 to 30 per cent.’

“I estimate graft and corruption in the ruling circles today come up to a minimum 3% of  GNP. That’s about P1 billion per annum!

“Promise No. 4: To punish those who have enriched themselves in office.

“What there is: Tuta who have built fortunes on the peso devaluation, the money markets, the oil speculations.

“Promise No. 5: To stop smuggling.

“What there is: The Walton Report is revealing. Corruption exists, it says, in an ‘all-encompassing and all-embracing manner in all of the country’s 22 ports, and losses on technical smuggling alone amounted to a conservative P1.5 billion annually.’

“Only a few days ago, Mr. Marcos reshuffled key men of integrity out of their posts—like Collector Salvador Mascardo from the M.I.A., where he had been doing a back-breaking job for over 10 years—and put his own men in. The Supreme Court has just put Mr. Marcos’s replacement for Collector Mascardo in M.I.A.—Mr. Artemio Agoncillo—on the block for unexplained wealth!

“Promise No. 6: To speed up land reform.

“What there is: In 1969, Sen. Juan R. Liwag complained that despite the fact more than P250 million had been spent, only 5% of the objectives of land reform had been realized. The situation is no better today.

“Promise No. 7: To create more jobs.

“What there is: Our unemployed number about one million, 8.5% of our total labor force of 13.2 million, while another five million are underemployed. You have here a staggering index of the poverty level of Filipino society, 1972.

“Promise No. 8: To restore peace and order.

“What there is: These nagging questions: Who bombed Plaza Miranda? Where are they? How did it happen in the first place?

“These questions, too: Where are the murderers of Congressman Floro Crisologo? Of Mayor James Gordon? Of Vice-Governor Nicolas Feliciano? Of Governor Juan Alberto?

What about the Lapiang Malaya, Jabidah, Tarlac, Cotabato and Lanao massacres?

“These all happened since 1969, when Mr. Marcos came to office. What there is, in truth, is: crime and criminality on the gallop!

“A PC situationer—given the House of Representatives Committee on Public Order and Security—shows it:

“1. Criminal cases solved dropped from 85% in 1969 to 56% in 1971.

“2. Reported killings totalled 10,945 in 1969-71.

“3. Common crimes—thefts and robberies—shot up from 19,086 in 1969 to 22,360 in 1971.

“4. There is an increase in the number of politically motivated crimes.

“Mr. Marcos has spawned an Age of Violence in our country!

“Promise No. 9: To pursue honest tax collection.

“What there is: The Bureau of Internal Revenue is able to collect only 45% of all taxes due the government. It can do a better job, I hold, if Mr. Marcos runs after his tax-evading cronies.

“Promise No. 10: To reduce the national budget to spending for essential services.

“What there is: Government overspending is a Marcos hallmark. And this has been dictated more by political rather than economic considerations.

“When the Marcos machinery recklessly spent P900 million in the 1969 elections, the money supply went up by 19.4%. We are now suffering from this fiscal irresponsibility.

“The budgetary deficit incurred in the six years of Mr. Marcos has reached a staggering total of close to P3 billion. This is three times-plus the total accumulated deficits suffered in the nine years of the Garcia and Macapagal presidencies. This is more than double the accumulated government deficits since our independence in 1946.

“Today, the public debt is almost P12 billion. In simplistic terms, this means: the debt of every Filipino man, woman and child is about P317 per head. This is almost half the annual per capita income of the Filipino.

“President Marcos sends to Congress so many requests for projects that he knows fully well cannot be programmed for lack of funds. Now, the department of national defense wants about P1.2 billion. This means the armed forces under President Marcos will get 25% of the budget.

“And what do we give the Department of Labor? We give labor: 0.4%.

“What do we give our state universities and colleges? We give them 1%.

“What do we give social welfare? We give this: 0.4%.

“What do we give agriculture and natural resources? We allocate: 4.4%.

“The national defense budget—since Mr. Marcos—has gone up by 51 per cent. And what about all those intelligence and other funds of Mr. Marcos? Is that essential services-oriented budgeting?

“Promise No. 11: No nepotism.

“What there is: An uncle of Mrs. Imelda R. Marcos, Eduardo Romualdez, is ambassador to the United States. Kokoy Romualdez, Imelda’s  brother, is governor of Leyte and special presidential ambassador. Dr. Pacifico Marcos, the President’s brother, is chairman of the Medicare Commission. His uncle, Juan Manuel, is secretary of foreign affairs. And a cousin is the new PC chief.

“Add to these: a sister of the President is governor of Ilocos Norte, a Romualdez nephew is commercial attaché in Vancouver, Canada, a presidential sister-in-law is employed in the Central Bank. There are many, many more.

“Promise No. 12: No new taxes.

“What there is: Mr. Marcos wants to impose the most massive array of taxes in postwar history, As of November 1971, 49 tax bills had been reported out by the House of Representatives Way and Means Committee. I understand there are 78 more tax bills pending in the House.

“Promise No. 13: Rule of law.

“What there is: Dozens of university professors, students and mass media people clamped in jail after Mr. Marcos suspended the privileges of the writ of habeas corpus—only to have them released much later.

“He played with the law freely!

“Promise No. 14: No persecution of political enemies.

“What there is: Ask Vice-President Lopez, his so-called oligarchic enemy. Ask the businessmen who did not support him. Ask my fellow Liberals. Ask the Nacionalistas who did not deliver the votes in the last election.

“My brother-in-law, Antolin Oreta, was deprived of his liberty for 24 days—only to be released after the elections with a simple ‘I’m sorry.’

“Promise No. 15: No troops to Vietnam.

“What there is: History is our witness!

“Promise No. 16: To adopt a nationalistic policy.

“What there is: The Japanese, Americans and Chinese must be smiling at this. For they, like our students, know better! And, invariably, the standouts are Marcos’s friends.

“In 1969, a fake NEC resolution—No. 23-36—was secretly approved. We suffer the impact of this today: Japanese products in every line of consumer and capital items. Curiously, when Immigration Commissioner Edmundo Reyes wanted the Japanese liaison officer deported, Mr. Marcos stepped in and stopped him. Why?

“Promise No. 17: To provide heroic leadership.

“What there is: Mr. Marcos no longer dares walk our streets!

“Given all this, it is time that we face up to our realities, not allow Mr. Marcos to foster his myths.

“The need is for the leadership to make bare our reality, no matter how harsh, and, hopefully, get our people to join in the communal sacrifice demanded by our unhappy situation.”

Again? Editorial for January 23, 1971

January 23, 1971

Again?

THOSE who lived through the Japanese Occupation, and that includes Pres. Ferdinand Marcos himself, know what a total horror it was, how people were tortured and heads cut off on mere suspicion of resistance to Japanese military rule—and how it did not discourage resistance. Everybody was a guerrilla, or claimed he was.

President Marcos keeps hinting at the imposition of military law on the Filipino people when he does not hint at the suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus. With the suspension of the writ, President Marcos could order the arrest of anyone and keep him or her in prison or in a concentration camp at his pleasure—that is, indefinitely. With the imposition of martial law, that is, the establishment of a military dictatorship, “Congress might as well close up,” as one congressman has observed. And the courts might as well close up, too, for Marcos would have absolute power. The independence of Congress and the Judiciary would be a thing of the past. Marcos’s rule would be absolute. He would be king.

Is the fate in store for the Filipino people to live under the sovereign will of “King Ferdinand”—and “Queen Imelda”?

As noted in the article beginning on page 2, the demonstrations in the United States have been marked by violence which makes the demonstrations here models of law and order by comparison. A magazine, Scanlans, features in one of its issues “Guerrilla Warfare in the U.S.A.,” and presents, in a most graphic fashion, the almost countless acts of sabotage, dynamiting, attacks on persons in authority and other acts of war against the government and the Establishment it is supporting—yet the American president, Richard Nixon, has never ventured to speak of the possibility of suspending the writ or imposing martial law. Were he to do so, he would be promptly impeached and removed from office.

Why does President Marcos keep on talking about suspending the writ or imposing martial law? One would think he could hardly wait to do so. And what good would that do? What good would that do him? Never mind what good it would do the country, but what good wold to do him? Having imposed martial law and become a dictator, how could he ever leave Malacañang and rejoin a people finally free of his rule? He must be a dictator for life to be secure.

He’d never be safe otherwise, no more than the Japanese—what was his name?—who headed the Kempetai could have lived with any sense of security among Filipinos once the Japanese forces had been disarmed. As a matter of fact, the Marcos Administration is reaching the point of no return to a democratic regime, for with so many young Filipinos killed merely for demonstrating against the manifest injustices of the government, how safe would Marcos & Co. be when no longer in power? Could Marcos afford to be no longer in Malacañang if more of the young should be slaughtered?

Was it necessary or wise to arm government forces with Armalites to maintain order during the demonstration in Plaza Miranda last week? Armalites are used in war. (The Americans use them in their war in Vietnam.) Has Marcos declared war on demonstrators, whose right to demonstrate he continually affirms—after all, it is a constitutional right and he is supposed to uphold the Constitution—that he must have his forces armed with Armalites when they confront the demonstrators?

Is there a war on?

The British, confronted with rampaging Chinese Communists in Hong Kong at the height of the Cultural Revolution, kept their cool. They sent police with only truncheons to meet the mob. If the mob should break through the police lines, it would be met with police armed with tear gas and riot guns. Only if the demonstrators should be able to overwhelm the second police contingent would the government give them the works. Armalites are the works—and the Marcos regime resorted to their use last week, killing four and wounding many others—almost as a matter of course.

After “Black Wednesday,” military rule and a Marcos dictatorship would seem to be an inevitable development. The further use of Armalites against demonstrators and the slaughter of more who cannot stomach the Marcos Administration would make it certain.

What would life under Marcos dictatorship be like—and its political and other consequences of the Republic?

With the courts and Congress reduced to impotence and the independent press shut up—with publishers who dare to disagree with Marcos placed under house arrest or in concentration camps where they would be joined sooner or later by outraged justices of the Supreme Court, senators and representatives who would not lick the boots of Marcos, as well as others who would not submit to tyranny—the nation would be “polarized.” the Philippines would be divided into Marcos collaborators and those who love liberty and are branded “misguided elements” (as during the Japanese Occupation) and declared enemies of the Marcos state.

Marcos, as a former guerrilla leader, should know how the Japanese failed to stop the Resistance against their rule. The more atrocities the Japanese committed, the more Filipinos they tortured and killed—the more joined the Underground. It became a matter of honor to do something against the oppressors, whether it be merely to contribute money to the guerrillas or to commit some act of sabotage against the government if not actually to go to the mountains and take up arms against the regime. Filipinos in tremendous numbers found they were not afraid to die for freedom. They were suddenly free from fear. Marcos himself got a lot of medals for not being afraid, and many more showed the same lack of fear though they got no medals for it. The country became one vast concentration camp except when men dared to be free.

Life under a regime of martial law or a Marcos military dictatorship would be little different from life during the Japanese Occupation. How many would submit to it? And how would Marcos ever dare restore civil law? Would he dare to leave Malacañang? Would he not  be compelled to declare himself President for life, that is, a dictator forever? And how long would “forever” be?

Our republican institutions suffer from corruption but they do guarantee certain civil liberties—like freedom from arbitrary arrest and indefinite detention without trial and the right to demonstrate peaceably against the government for redress of grievances and to write an editorial like this. The denial of such liberties in all-too-many cases does not argue against the goodness of the institutions. Because there are thieves does not make the law against theft a bad one but only makes enforcement of the law more necessary than ever. Under our republican institutions we enjoy certain liberties, to repeat—if not too much economic progress. Justice is often mocked, true, but under a military dictatorship, there would be no justice at all, no liberty at all, and even less progress than ever. The entire economy would be organized into a government corporation run by Marcos & Co., and one has just to contemplate how Nawasa, the Philippine National Railways and other government corporations are run to know how the people would suffer under such a regime.
Only Marcos & Co. would profit from martial law. They should. They would be the law. The rest of us would be mere subjects—or outlaws.

Those who wish the President well should advise him to stop talking about martial law. Whatever he and his friends get out of it—would it really be worth it?

The Survivor: Man of the Year for 1987

January 9, 1988
Man of the year

HOPE springs eternal, as in the case of the political prisoner being blindfolded before the firing squad. It might misfire.
One clings to life, however miserable. Life is better than none—except to the would-be suicide. He does not think so, and pulls the trigger. A martyr to his conviction. But just to go on living, under the most adverse conditions, is worth it. Just survive!
But is life, as it is, better than none—to the wretched of the earth? Perhaps, life after death will be an improvement.

There’ll be pie
In the sky
By and by.
It’s a lie!

So went the International Workers of the World’s gibe at organized religion’s panacea. Suffer here, enjoy there— forever! Opium of the people? But relaxing!

And what if there is no life after death? Well, who can tell? Who really knows anything about “that undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveler returns”? Ask no question and you will be told no lies. A question without an answer is a silly one. But there is a question that may be reasonably asked:

“Is there life—after life?” After birth?

Life worth living?

Is living in Smoky Mountain life? Worth living?

Must be. Or so many thousands of human beings—like you and me—would not be living there. Not rising in revolt against their inhuman condition and burning the city down. They’re alive. Enough reason for being.

Life is good—however its condition. That is the ultimate affirmation of faith. That is the Survivor’s Creed.

The Survivor, then, is the Man of the Year. He took all that life and the regime he suffers under but still maintains,  with protest but also with patience. Showing “grace under pressure”—to the exasperation of those who would replace the present dispensation with its flawed rights and liberties with a dictatorship, fascist or Communist, that would strip him of all rights but promises rice for his liberties. He’s still free—to suffer but protest against his suffering. Still being robbed but protesting the robbery. Still being tortured—as that poor young man who was burnt with lighted cigarettes and had electrode wires attached to his genitals if he did not come across with P10,000 for the police…

Life is good—despite the Government and the Opposition, fascist and Communist, offering only the alternative of the Tiger or the Hyena. One suffers and labors and provides, however inadequately, for the needs of those one loves, one’s family, the Real Country—without hurting others. One is a good man or woman. One survives—remaining human.

“To the Survivor!”

The Man of the Year.

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.