Plunder and the Philippines

1972 was a special year for me. It was the year I was supposed to go back to the Philippines. It was the year I was to reclaim my destiny. Five years. Five years was all I had given myself. Seattle was lovely, especially in the Summer and in the Fall. But it was not my home. My home was 6000 miles away - on the biggest island in an island chain in the Pacific. I had given myself five years in my new home, Seattle, and then I would go back - my family in tow - and make something of my life. I was convinced that someday I would be an important man in the Philippines, but to accomplish that I needed to go back.

It was getting a bit late. I was already 31, but I knew that if I was too old, I was only too old by about five years. And what's five years compared to the rest of a man's life?

Psychologically I was already back in the Philippines. I wrote one of my childhood friends that Seattle had become too toxic for me. I resented going to Dick's Burgers to picnic on burgers and french fries. My taste buds yearned for tinapa (smoked fish) and salted eggs mixed with sliced tomatoes. To me, that was a picnic. Not those french fries. Not those burgers. And I wanted to eat fried rice and tuyo (salted fish) on the mornings.

Everybody who knew me knew that my ultimate goal was to go back to the Philippines. I told my bosses that, I told my friends, I told my wife.

Tragedy struck. The legitimately elected (elected by landslide) President, Ferdinand Marcos, declared martial law, jailed all his political opponents, including the student leaders at the University of the Philippines and other universities. Some of the jailed leaders were my friends.

1972 was a bad year to go back. 1973, 1974, etc. were not a good time to go back. But my soul was already back in the Philippines, stuck and in limbo. I had already lost interest in forging a career in the U.S. I went through a string of jobs - good jobs, because I was terrific in job interviews - but I was unhappy.

I had what in retrospect was a delusion of grandeur. I thought of myself as a man of destiny, that I had no business being in the U.S., that my true home was the Philippines.

But I could not make it my real home because I did not trust myself. I was convinced that I would eventually end up in jail if I went back because I was not one who would keep my mouth shut if I saw injustice being done to my fellow Filipinos.

So I suppressed my dream as the calendar swiftly turned, day after day, season after season, year after year. Till I woke up one day and decided that America was my home and there was no going back.

Though I was never a victim of Marcos' atrocities, I was in a very real sense also his victim. He robbed me of my dream. It was a dream that would not be replaced by any other dreams for many years. I walked around, defeated without having even started. A man with no dreams.

1986 was prolonged delirium. The country finally unchained. By a woman, by a housewife. Cory Aquino was the widow of a murdered hero. Greatness appeared to be in store for a people long neglected but ever exploited. By outside colonizers. By the elites in society. By nearly everyone who could afford to buy a plane ticket to take one to this island chain. The whole world had watched the toppling of a hated and despised dictator, his dowager wife, his palace guards. The whole world learned from Filipinos how to topple dictators and dictatorial regimes. Shortly after, the Berlin Wall came down amid a cacophony of hammers. The Iron Curtain was shredded. Even China was taken to the brink by peaceful demonstrators, who had molded their tactics after the People Power revolution in the Philippines.

Meanwhile, did the Filipino people really win? The hero's widow proved powerless against the mutineers. Except for top brass, the military never really accepted her and let her know in many different ways. The widow was beleaguered, besieged by her many foes. To add insult, there were rumors that her relatives and cronies were as pigs in a sty.

The old power structures during the Marcos years started streaming back into the Philippines. They were back in force, reclaiming the wealth, prestige and power they had enjoyed. Even the highly successful Fidel Ramos presidency would not prevent the gradual return of Marcos elements back into Philippine elite society.

By the time the actor-turned-politician, Joseph Estrada, was elected President, the whole Marcos clan and nearly all his cronies, were back in power. The message to the Filipino people? It's OK to plunder the government, to murder the people, to steal from political opponents because the Filipino people are very forgiving. Either that, or they have no real power. Or they are too stupid to know how to use their inherent power as the supreme ruler of their land.

So the Joker, Estrada, himself plundered the treasury, fearing no downside. Sure enough, though convicted of plunder, Estrada was pardoned by his successor, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

Arroyo, herself, feared no prosecution because she owned the wheels of justice. The Ombudsman was a classmate of her husband's at the Ateneo and would never prosecute her if she was caught stealing from the blind to give money to her friends in the illegal numbers business. Arroyo felt she was above the law, and by extension, her husband too.

Now comes President Noynoy Aquino, the hero's and the widow's son. He was swept into office by the accumulation of rage and hope of a people that was fed up with all the far-too-imperfect, far-too-fallen leaders who had masqueraded as the people's saviors. All the while focused on the country's meager resources. How these leaders went about appropriating for themselves a percentage of all major government contracts was a study in genius. There are many different ways powerful people could make money on government contracts, and all the leaders knew all those ways.

The jury is still out on President Noynoy. So far all we have seen is shadow boxing. No prosecutions, only threats of prosecution. No judgment day, only talk of the people exacting revenge upon their exploiters.

One very disturbing and maybe very telling indication that President Noynoy's administration may yet be same old, same old was the recent appointment of Vice-President Binay to head the committee to decide on the request of Senator Bongbong Marcos - yes, the late dictator's son - to bury his late father with full military honors at the Libingan ng mga Bayani (Cemetery for Heroes). Because of the uproar over this suggestion, VP Binay has made a counter-offer, to bury the late dictator not in the Cemetery for Heroes but in an Ilocos Region cemetery with full military honors.

What!...? Full military honors? Is this how dictators are treated by countries with a conscience and with high standards of morality?

The late Marcos, to begin with, was granted asylum in an island paradise - Honolulu - while most other dictators ended up in unglamorous cities to live out their retirement years. Cities such as Riyadh, Cairo, Asuncion, Paraguay, Karina,Zimbabwe, Santiago, Chile. Marcos, of all the dictators, ended up in paradise to live out his retirement years. And now that he is dead, he is to be given full military honors?

Ano siya, sinuswerte? (What? He's the luckiest man alive - or dead.)

I don't know VP Binay personally. I know of him, that he was a good administrator while serving as Makati's mayor. But this suggestion to bury Marcos with full military honors - even if it's done in Ilocos and not at the Cemetery for Heroes - is a travesty. It makes a mockery of the People Power revolution that toppled Marcos in 1986. It sullies the memory of those who had been murdered by Marcos's secret police and military. It sends the wrong message to the people: that Filipinos are so forgiving that the man who had ruled with an iron fist, had plundered the Philippine treasury, had murdered and incarcerated so many innocents, deserved forgiveness.

Why did Binay even think of making that suggestion? Was he gunning for national reconciliation? Is reconciliation more important than the Filipino soul? The Filipino soul had been wounded by this man, Marcos, and no reconciliation is possible without the continuing and proper punishment meted out to this man. Others have suggested that the family of Marcos and his cronies should be barred from leadership positions going forward. I'm not getting into that, since that is an altogether different question. Suffice it to say that if Marcos is buried incognito, with no honors, that should take care of the future of the Marcos children. None of them should ever be allowed to ascend to the Presidency and a Marcos incognito burial will get that done.

Reconciliation is not possible without justice. The relatives of Marcos' victims have not been adequately compensated. Many have received no compensation. No apology has been received. Marcos's heirs and cronies are high-flying and thumbing their noses at the country. Meanwhile, a greater percentage of Filipinos are dirt-poor and in desperate straits than before Marcos became President. Our economy is in a state of arrested development while our Southeast Asian neighbors are overachieving, thanks in large part to the lack of development - even negative development - during the Marcos years.

And now Binay is suggesting that this Marcos guy deserves full military honors?

This, folks, is why the government's treasury is being plundered. President Noynoy will probably break the chain of Presidents who have seen the government treasury plundered, but when he is gone and someone else (Binay, Roxas, etc.) is in power, the treasury will be plundered again. Why? Because the message is clear: if you are president, you can plunder, murder, pillage and maybe even rape all you want and the Filipino people will forgive you. You might even be given full military honors when you die.

And this is the country I had dreamed of going back to, for which I had sacrificed my early years in America? What was I thinking?

Oh, but I will go back. I will keep going back. Probably not for full-time retirement, but for significant chunks of time. It is not the Filipino people's fault that they are gullible or too forgiving. Filipinos have known only exploitation. It's already in their genes. They will be exploited, fooled, their treasury plundered, and they will still smile and shriek and sing the Wow-wow-wee theme song. They are a lovable people and easy to please. They seek to be pleased. With the slightest compliment. With the minutest of favors.

This is why plunder will always be open for business.