The farce is played out

“IT’S THE prerogative of the House.”

Terse was the initial statement of former president and current Pampanga 2^nd District Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on her demotion from senior deputy speaker to simply deputy speaker last week.

Only to be followed by a longer statement that, among others, said:

“In the Philippines, the House leadership has traditionally been closely associated with the sitting President, and this relationship of deep trust between Speaker and President has been beneficial in smoothly enacting the legislative agenda of the President. I think this is acceptable, because in the Philippines, the check and balance needed in any democracy has traditionally been well-provided by the Senate.  
“When President Marcos won, I wanted to aspire for the Speakership of the House. But it soon became apparent that he was most comfortable with then Congressman Martin as Speaker. I quickly realized the wisdom embedded in that sentiment.

“By this disavowal, I hope that we can preempt any needless politicking so that the House and our President can focus on the job at hand with minimum distraction.”

Politicking. Distraction. The operative words unlost to House Speaker Martin G. Romualdez who, after days silence, issued his own statement, thus:

"There is still much work to do, so occasional moves to destabilize the House should be nipped in the bud.

"The House cannot be distracted from finding legislative solutions to issues that affect the lives of ordinary Filipinos. Rather than engaging in politicking, I would rather that we, in the House of Representatives, remain focused on more urgent matters.

“The House of the People is in order. This same level of order is what allowed us to approve on third and final reading at least 29 of the 42 bills that comprise the legislative agenda of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

“[The House] should prioritize the real problems of the ordinary people, the only thing that deserves attention. Let’s set aside premature politicking.”

 

 

 

 

Vice President Sara – without the H – Duterte took politicking to down the basest plane altogether in her resignation from the Lakas-CMD immediately after GMA’s demotion: “I am here today because of the trust of the Filipino people in me to lead and serve them and the country, and this cannot be poisoned by political toxicity or undermined by execrable political powerplay.”

Execrable toxicity. The plot thickens? More popcorn?

Au contraire, it is all Rabelais: “Bring down the curtain, the farce is played out.”

Cry Press Freedom!

                            

                        May 1, 1990. Headline Manila photographer Renel Dizon truncheoned by PAF troopers 

O TEMPORA! O mores! Cicero, indeed: How times, how customs have changed.

Case in point: Rappler’s Pampanga stringer files complaint over surveillance, cyber harassment:

MANILA, Philippines – Rappler’s Pampanga stringer Joann Manabat on Wednesday, May 10, filed a complaint with the Philippine National Police (PNP) Anti-Cybercrime group in Camp Julian Olivas, Pampanga, after she was surveilled during a Labor Day protest on May 1 and then contacted on Messenger by someone claiming to be with the military.

Manabat told Rappler that at around 10:50 pm on May 1, someone using the name Jero Haiden Tenorio sent three photos of her via Facebook Messenger. The photos were taken while Manabat was covering the protest rally.

The sender claimed to be from the military, and said he wanted to get to know Manabat and assist her in getting scoops in return for friendship.

The journalist said the photos showed her covering the Workers Alliance of Region III Labor Day rally near the roundabout at San Nicolas Public Market in Angeles City…

Fact is: Surveillance of journalists in protest rallies has always been par for the course for mediamen on one hand, and part and parcel of so-called intel ops of the military on the other. This senior’s generation of journos never made any bones about camera-toting plainclothes cops and ISAFP operatives, not to mention the US Air Force’s OSI, infiltrating the ranks of both rallyists and media in every protest demonstration at the gates of Clark Air Force Base during its American occupation.

                          1980s. Journalists wait for protest rallyists in front of the Clark Air Base main gate

Why, we even had fun posing before and making faces at their cameras. No big deal to us, even when a photographer friend in the USAF told us of our blown-up photos at the OSI office. OSI, by the way, is acronym for Office of Special Investigation. To be fair to these Yanks, derogatory dossiers on us notwithstanding, we were allowed access to Clark for coverage. But always with an American staff of the CAB public affairs office as guard, even when we used the lavatory. 

Military intel also utilized pseudo-newsmen and media scalawags – complete with multi-pocketed vests and press cards as large as coupon bonds – to spy on those of us in the working press, not only during rallies but even in our watering holes.

Did we ever cry harassment over these? No.

Harassment, to us, came in different ways.

Throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s, there were the death threats in envelopes with a single bullet – usually .45 – tied with black ribbon slotted on our gate or left at the counter of Shanghai Restaurant, our de facto press clubhouse. 

In 1983, there was this cocky Pampanga mayor, cocked gun in hand, challenging to a duel Manila Bulletin’s Jerry Lacuarta with nothing but a Bic ballpen that could pass off as deadly weapon.

In 1988, there was this bodyguard of Angeles City Mayor Antonio Abad Santos named Lakay lining up bottles of beer on a table directly opposite ours at Shanghai, giving us satanic looks, and gesturing like he was drawing the .45 tucked in his waistband after every bottle gulped down.       

Then there were the shadowy figures with bulging waistlines that suddenly materialized like one’s very own shadow be it in the dark of night or the light of day.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

And how else would you consider the Abad Santos’ civil security unit – at least six of them brandishing M-16s and machine pistols – swooping down on the DZYA radio station and posting themselves around Tagamasid program hosts Sonny Lopez, Ely Julian, Bert Basa, and Bong Lacson in the middle of broadcast critical of their boss? This happened on Sept. 10, 1988.

Or the ordeal sometime in 1990 of Manila Standard’s Jess Malabanan – stark naked, hands bound by electric cord, made to sit on a stump with a can atop his head as target in a marksmanship practice of Olongapo City police chief Lt. Col. Torres aiming an M-14 from a distance of some 30 paces? 

As bad, if not worse, Manila Chronicle and Reuter’s Elmer Cato, Lopez of Malaya and UPI, and Lacson of People’s Journal/Tonight and AP sanctioned with a “death-in-24-hours” order by the right-wing vigilante headman Col. Rolly de Guzman to his henchmen after we were red-tagged as CPP-NPA propagandists. Our “execution” stayed only through the intervention of one of De Guzman’s closest lieutenants who felt he owed us a favor for his promotions in rank that he attributed to our wide coverage of his exploits in the field of battle, as well as the influence on the colonel of common friends. This was in 1988 too.

Yes, a quid pro quo – even in life-or-death matters – can obtain between newsmen and the police-military sans promises of scoops in exchange of friendship.

A protocol of sorts, aye, an SOP at the Angeles City Metropolitan District Command at the time of Col. Amado T. Espino was to take media along in anti-criminality and anti-insurgency operations, or if such posed grave danger, to give us immediate post-operation briefings.

Serious as harassments were in our time, they were no more than child’s play compared to the actual assaults committed on mediamen.

It was also during a Labor Day protest – May 1, 1990, to be precise – that Pampanga journos were savagely attacked by elements of the Clark Air Base Command-PAF. Of all the scores of journalists covering the rally, only local newsmen found themselves at the smashing end of truncheon-wielding troopers. 

The Philippine Star’s Robert Quito and Headline Manila’s Renel Dizon suffered the most brutalization of the scores hurt in the PAF rampage.   

                                May 1990. Media rally vs. PAF brutality

On June 12, 1997, a security guard’s shotgun went off at the Central Fermentation alcohol plant in Apalit, Pampanga during the implementation by the DENR of its closure order, a buckshot hitting Philippine Star’s Ding Cervantes who wrote a series of stories on the pollution of the Pampanga River attributed to the plant.

Unarguably, the worst assault was the June 2000 daytime ambush in front of station DWGV-FM where former Porac, Pampanga mayor Roy David was co-hosting the hard-hitting Alas-4 Na! program with The Voice’s Ody Fabian and this writer, resulting to David’s severe wounding and the death of scriptwriter Joji Vitug, legman Butz Adizas, and David’s driver Buddy.  

Amid all the mauling and the murder, we did not cry harassment. We screamed press freedom! Ironic, that this was mostly during the presidency of the heralded icon of democracy, the sainted Cory.

Indeed, how times have changed. And how we have changed. By no means though that the severity of the ordeals of our past, trivializes those of the present.   

 

A peek into an ilustrado past

 

ANGELES CITY -- Beside the Archdiocesan Shrine of Christ, Our Lord of the Holy Sepulcher – famously Apung Mamacalulu Shrine – in Barangay Lourdes Sur stands not your typical convento or rectory that serves as the official residence of the cura parroco. 

The traditional bahay na bato in the original Paras-Dayrit estate where the shrine is sited monumentalizes the Angeleño’s rich ilustrado past. Though built in 1917 – during the American Period – as residence of Dr. Clemente Nepomuceno-Dayrit, and his wife Dona Susana Nepomuceno, the house bears much Spanish influence – from its thick adobe walls, ventanillas, ornate latticework on the eaves and interior walls, and the wide hardwood floor planks to the ceramic wash basins and four-poster beds in the bedrooms. 

  

 

Words can never describe everything that one sees, much less that one feels – the majesty of the place best experienced in person. Pictures here serving as mere invitations.

On your next Apo pilgrimage, immerse yourself in the bahay na bato. After your prayers and supplications, of course.  

selfie

 

Of the Press (1999)

Brigada .45 (2004)

About Oca: A Story of Struggle (2005)

Oca: Isang Istorya ng Pakikibaka (2006)

Pinatubo: Triumph of the Kapampangan Spirit (2007)

Reverend Governor: A Chronicle of Irreverence (2009)

Agyu Tamu: Turning Tragedy into Triumph (2011) 

Our Dennis Anthony H. Uy: Angeles City’s Own Mogul (2020)

Cong Tarzan Lazatin: A Public Life (2021)

 

a writer –

i concede

not without

conceit – i am.

 

11 may 2023

 

 

Shanghai's Meng, media patron

SHOCKED TO learn today May 3 – World Press Freedom Day, at that – that a patron of Pampanga media for the longest time has passed, last Saturday yet and, per his wishes, immediately cremated, with no public viewing of even the urn that contained his ashes.

William Gonzales Kwong, known to all as Meng, was the owner of Shanghai De Luxe Restaurant, unarguably the best in Chinese cuisine in Angeles City if not everywhere north of Binondo.

It was out of Meng’s genuine friendship with the local media that Shanghai became an integral part of the history of Pampanga journalism. In remembrance of Meng, here is but a footnote of that history in Chapter 2 of my book Of the Press (1999) under the sub-head News Factory. 

OF ALL the workplaces the Pampanga Press Club had, none can compare to Shanghai De Luxe Restaurant in Balibago, Angeles City.

The PPC sequestered for the exclusive use of its members the roundtable nearest the counter, the telephone, and the toilets. This, of course, with the concurrence of owner William “Meng” Kwong who also provided free coffee for the group and made the boys the “official food tasters” for new recipes his chefs whipped up.

With Shanghai mayordoma Pards’ Cris Villanueva, the boys never got hungry even when penniless which was more often than not. The usual “employees’ meal” of spare ribs sinigang and fired chicken necks and wings made truly filling free lunch and dinner. Then, for little cash, there was a “newsman’s meal” of Shanghai fried chicken, kangkong and squid in Chinese bagoong and steamed rice.  

An added bonus from Shanghai for the red-blooded macho newsmen were its beautiful food servers and singers. Lest I incriminate my peers, not to mention myself, I shall keep my quiet here. Pero sino nga ba ang nagka-girlfriend ng dalawang singers? Sino yung nakakuha doon sa Miss Angeles City runner-up? Sino ang nagkaribal doon kay Tess, a Sunshine Cruz look-alike? Sino ang nagwala nung nakitang naka-baht chain nanggaling sa Tsinoy yung kanyang nililigawan? Sino ang nahuli ng asawa doon sa Lovers’ Lane?

Open 24 hours, Shanghai made the ideal newsman’s watering hole. Developing stories especially at the time of the American killings in October 1987 found their way in the wee hours at Shanghai. Overnight vigils during those anti-US demonstrations at Clark were made pleasant with congee and hot-and-sour soups at the PPC roundtable. And no corkage was ever charged for the wine and liquor friends of the PPC regularly brought for the boys.

Manila-based newsmen, notably Philippine Daily Inquirer columnist Ramon Tulfo and PTV-4’s Cesar Carpio, television news crews and even foreign correspondents wanting to do stories or documentaries on the city and the region also called on the boys at Shanghai for briefings and assistance. Susan Kreifels of the Pacific Stars & Stripes set her homebase at Shanghai.

The eeriest story out of the PPC’s Shanghai years came from the restaurant’s jukebox. There was this plaintive dirge-sounding song which title we could not anymore remember. Every time the song was played, a killing in Angeles took place. It was Jack “The Horse” Tongol, Meng Kwong’s general utility man, that made the frightening discovery. He had the jukebox play the song before us once for three consecutive days. Three killings were recorded in those three days. The record was promptly taken out of the jukebox to never play again after more than 40 died in the May-June 1988 “festival of killings” in the city. Needless to say, that song was played out daily throughout that stretch.

The earliest discussions on the alternative uses for the Clark Air Base – from airport to industrial zone to food basket for the region – germinated from the media roundtable at Shanghai with Rep. Tarzan Lazatin (1^st District-Pampanga) intently listening and exchanging ideas with the boys, the most vocal of whom was Sonny Lopez. It was this standpoint of Sonny on an American-abandoned-Clark scenario at the height of Uncle Sam’s affair with the city that really buried him in the local elections of 1988.

Soon after, the bases conversion discussions on the national legislative-executive levels gained ground with Gov. Bren Z. Guiao, Mang Tarzan, the local government units and private sectors of Angeles, Porac and Mabalacat, Ody Fabian and, of course, Sonny taking active part. From here came the birthing of the Bases Conversion and Development Authority and the Clark Development Corp.    

Spending more time with their peers than with their respective families daily – routinely from 10 AM to past 12 midnight – engendered greater solidarity among the members of the PPC.

It was from Shanghai that emanated the PPC condemnations against threats to press freedom in any part of the country, the PPC persona non grata resolutions against a number of individuals deemed unfit to be in Pampanga, the PPC denunciations of the “White Trash from Down Under” for abusing Filipinas.

So closely identified was the PPC with Shanghai that it suffered its own death throes when the restaurant burned down during the Mount Pinatubo eruptions of June 15, 1991.

Alternative “Shanghais” were sought out in Mar’s, City Lunch, and Peking House. But after a meeting or two, none was found anywhere near Shanghai…

…The PPC found itself adrift for some four years and never fully recovered to its Shanghai-era closeness even after the restaurant reopened in 1995. The Shanghai phase of the PPC story was simply too good to last. But it was best while it lasted.