Demoralized

Politics has ruined our country.  We need to stop it.  There should be a new form of public service, one that protects the citizens from the corrupt and evil; from all this madness.

The President must be having nightmares on his decision to bury the late dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos at the Libingan Ng Mga Bayani.  Either that or he is just callous about it.  With the many decisions and acts the President has so far done from the beginning of his term, this one is difficult for me to fathom.

On a positive note, however, I am happy that this happened now for the new generation to experience and know how the Marcoses can be unperturbed by their actions, blinded by what they believe is indestructible.  But as Shakespeare’s Mark Anthony said, in his tribute to the murdered Julius Caesar: “The evil that men do lives after them. The good is oft interrèd with their bones.”

The fact of history, purified from the dross of prejudice and political misrepresentations, show that from the very start we resisted martial law. Many valiant men and women led a good fight against the tyranny, against despotism, against corruption, against the ‘plagued’ that Marcos created. And it was only after almost 20 years that the inferno was over. The Filipinos angered by his leadership finally ousted the late dictator.  And today, his wife, his children and their loyalists seem to want us to believe that we just woke up from a bad dream; that nothing bad happened at all during the reign of their beloved one. Sanamagan!

So, to all the young Filipinos out there continue to protect this country and let your voices be heard. While Marcos rots under the rubble of this land, his family suffers with the stigma they have placed upon themselves. Learn from this demoralizing experience and never ever let it happen again.  Be a new citizen, be a better public servant, think of country before self.

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I was actually going to the Libingan Ng Mga Bayani on that very day Marcos was buried.  It was a day to celebrate the birth anniversary of the late Vice President and Foreign Affairs Secretary (during Cory Aquino’s administration) Salvador Laurel.  After all the hullabaloo caused by the Marcoses, the Laurel family finally was able to celebrate a mass at sunset.   In my late father’s column entitled, Fond farewell to Doy, he wrote, “It is despicable, to say the least, that he had till the very end, been plagued with accusations of “graft” in connection with the Centennial fund, which was poor reward for a lifetime devoted to our country’s cause. For Doy fought the good fight.

It was their karma alas, that in 1965 he and his brother, the late Speaker Jose “Pepito” Laurel, had helped “smuggle” Ferdinand E. Marcos, then the president of the ruling Liberal Party, into the Nacionalista Party – despite the strong rejection of Marcos by the NP chief, Senate President Eulogio “Amang” Rodriguez. (Marcos had just lost the LP nomination for the Presidency, understandably, to the incumbent President Diosdado Macapagal – GMA’s dad.)

It was the balimbing cum somersault act of the century. Having pole-vaulted into the opposition Nacionalista Party, Marcos then snatched the NP nomination away from such loyal NP stalwarts as Emmanuel Pelaez (former Vice President), Senate President Gil Puyat, and others. The Marcos victory condemned us unwittingly to a decade and a half of outright dictatorship and martial law.

Doy and Pepito argued that they had welcomed Marcos with open arms into their party with all the “good intentions” in the world. You know how the road to hell is paved with such good intentions. In any event, Doy himself was among the first to discover their dreadful mistake. He valiantly stood up to protest Marcos’ totalitarian rule at the height of the despot’s martial law powers. Pepito for his part bitterly cussed Marcos both when he was sober and in his cups (the latter often enough).

Doy was nominated for President to fight Marcos by 28,000 delegates at the UNIDO – or United Opposition – convention held at the Araneta Coliseum on June 12, 1985. When it became a toss-up between him and Ninoy’s widow, Corazon C. Aquino, as to who would run against Marcos, Laurel was convinced by friends, led by His Eminence Jaime Cardinal Sin, that a divided opposition could not win against the dictator and his Kilusang Bagong Lipunan (KBL).

Laurel gallantly stood aside for Cory to be the opposition’s standard-bearer, while he ran for vice president. Marcos might have cheated his way to triumph in February 1986, but the actual vote count could not be denied – then People Power at the EDSA barricades assured the ascent of the two to office.

In victory, however, the two parted ways. Cory, Doy declared, had pledged to be the candidate of the UNIDO, but in the end she cast the UNIDO aside. Was a deal made that Doy should be named “Prime Minister”, not just Vice President? What he got instead was the Secretaryship of Foreign Affairs. Nursing his political wounds, smiling through his period of being regarded as a virtual outcast within the Aquino Cabinet, Laurel did a fine job as foreign minister and head of the intrigue-ridden Department of Foreign Affairs (still a Puzzle Palace, if you ask me).

Finally, the break became irrevocable between Cory and Doy. Cory unkindly sneered at him as a langaw (fly). How can you fight against St. Cory at that time viewed as our national Joan of Arc? Indeed, how can one fight against a sitting president stubbornly set against you, and suspicious of your every move? This spelled the end of Doy Laurel’s political career. His ascent was out down in mid-trajectory. He never recovered his momentum again.

We honor him today, however, for what he accomplished, for his self-sacrifice, his idealism – and his lost hopes. For, like his friend Ninoy Aquino, Doy dreamed the “Impossible Dream.” I can still remember him vividly, singing that song a capella in his unusually rich baritone, with fervor, accompanied by his own accomplished children. Doy fought “the unbeatable foe.”

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In this world where many a times injustice prevails because of evil and avarice, we must find it in our hearts to recognize Filipinos who have made heroic sacrifices for the country.  They are the men of valor.  They are our true heroes, the eternal source of inspiration and guidance to the nation and to our people.  They are the only ones who can strengthen and intensify our national spirit and solidarity. Let us continue our quest for a better Philippines as we must still have faith in ourselves and in our people.