Commentaries on a "suicide"

CRITIC'S CRITIC
Mentong Laurel
2/21-27/2011



General Angelo Reyes was corrupted and corrupt. He said so himself in his pre-interview notes to PCIJ's Malou Mangahas. "I did not invent corruption. I walked into it. Perhaps my first fault was in having accepted aspects of it as a fact of life,” Reyes reportedly told his aide as the latter scribbled his thoughts verbatim. All through that supposed preparatory exercise, Reyes presented himself as someone who accepted the corruption that confronted him as he worked up the ladder in his military, government, or political career.

Contrast this to the oft-repeated declaration of one young officer of the Bagong Katipuneros (erroneously dubbed by an ABS-CBN reporter as Magdalo during Oakwood) in the person of Marine Capt. Gary Alejano, and the difference could never be more unambiguous.

We saw corruption
From our panel interview on my Global News Network TV show, Alejano simply repeated: “We saw the corruption in the AFP and we had to take a stand against it; take action against it, or we would be compelled like… our predecessors to accept it and be part of it… This we couldn’t accept.”

For accepting corruption, Gen. Angelo Reyes rose to be an AFP general and then attained four Cabinet positions. It was an enviable government career matched only by Senator Juan Ponce-Enrile who also had as many Cabinet posts but likewise had to lie (as in the self-assassination attempt to justify Martial Law) and perform all the consequential deeds that go with such capacity for prevarication.

For not accepting corruption and, instead, denouncing it and acting against it, the Bagong Katipuneros spent between six to seven years behind bars; endured tremendous mental torture as well as lost incomes, and suffered family difficulties--even marital separation.

Truth Prevailed
Yet over time, justice and truth prevailed. Philippine society finally came through with the right judgment, as those who stood by their moral and lofty principles are now vindicated while those who violated the Honor Code are chastised -- except by a number of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (GMA) hacks in Philippine media.

GMA and all those associated with her, such as FVR and the tainted generals (among others), have a lot at stake in the Angelo Reyes “suicide” drama. Turning Reyes into a hero, instead of the knave that he was, lightens the burden on them for their unprecedented nine-year period of maximum decadence.

GMA & Trillanes
It’s not surprising then that the marching orders to all of GMA’s assets in media are to: 1) prettify the “death” of Angie Reyes, picturing it as akin to a Samurai’s hara-kiri (or the ultimate self-sacrifice); 2) extol his “record” in public service, ad infinitum, and 3) create diversionary targets for lambasting and demonizing so as to distract from the sordid facts about Reyes (and his benefactors).

The prime target for the third ploy is, of course, Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV, who has been lambasted with such inconsequential labels as “mayabang (arrogant),” “self-righteous,” “uncavalier,” “coup plotter,” ad nausea, all by the usual GMA barkers howling in unison for over a week over the alleged “high handedness” of some Senate interrogators.

Carmen Pedrosa, for instance, in her Feb. 12 Philippine Star column, stated: “I do not think Senator Jinggoy Estrada and Senator Trillanes should be let off that lightly for General Angelo Reyes’ death.” Let off from what “crime,” may I ask? For doing their sworn duty as senators of this Republic; for producing results in unveiling long-rumored and kept secrets about the GMA military cabal’s corruption (which I had already written about years ago)?

Guilty Conscience
Last Feb. 14 in the Manila Standard Today was ex-GMA spokesman Gary Olivar’s turn to sound silly. He said: “…The consequences of irresponsible sensationalism were driven home by the recent suicide of Secretary Angie Reyes… rumors were already flying that Sec. Angie’s suicide was the product of a guilty conscience. This is self-evidently stupid: self-destruction would be an even likelier recourse for someone who is innocent but has no way to properly defend himself, as well as his family and friends.” Whaaat? Is this guy for real? Angie Reyes’ family already has a paid professional spokesperson by the name of Patricia Daza, who’s touted to be very expensive, and with at least P50 million in pabaon to his name, couldn’t Reyes have easily hired the best lawyers too?

But then, the arbiter of self-evident stupidity continues: “…It would also be a fitting coda if our send-off for the general serves to trigger a re-examination of the slow death through trial by publicity.” Now, now, anyone who puts Reyes’ less than 12 hours of intense Senate grilling side-by-side with the seven years and seven months of incarceration of the Bagong Katipuneros will see that this guy, Olivar, is only exaggerating for Reyes to the point of absurdity.

Missing the Point
Oh, not to be left behind, Armando Doronilla of the Inquirer last Feb. 16 claimed: “The soldiers of the Republic closed ranks around him (Reyes), hailing him as a hero.” Obviously, Doronilla never asked if any of the young officers and foot soldiers out in the fields with worn boots and reused Coke plastic bottles for water canteens (who definitely outnumber those handfuls of generals in cushy posts) shared the same sentiment.

He even bewailed “the nefarious methods used by the investigation that stripped citizens subpoenaed by the Senate to testify at its hearings (better described as torture chambers) of their honor and dignity, as well as of members of their family.” Gee, doesn’t Doronilla know the difference between the mental anguish of, say, CoA’s Heidi Mendoza and Lt. Col. Antonio Ramon Lim, who, while facing interrogation, shed tears not of shame or humiliation but of remorse over the corruption they witnessed, versus those of Reyes, Garcia, Ligot et al., neither of whom had the courage to admit the truth openly?

Doronilla even continued by accusing Senate investigators of making Reyes “a convenient fall guy, vilified, unable to defend himself from slander, by self-righteous detractors using the privilege of legislative immunity as a platform to settle scores for his decisions and actions (military or civilian related)…” Sadly, Doronilla deliberately misses the point of the exercise.

Personal Indictment
Even granting that human motives may have been a factor, why on earth was Reyes only able to answer with “Have I been selfish?” “Did I ever ask for anything?” or “Didn’t I share?” in the face of a direct indictment against him on those corrupt practices? Surely, these can only be construed as an indirect admission on his part that, yes, he did share something and, though he never asked, he did get something--in other words, his pabaon.

And if you think we’ve had enough comedy for now, think again. On that same day in The Manila Times, another of GMA’s stooges, Ricardo Saludo, called the congressional hearings into AFP corruption as “hearings in aid of demolition,” claiming “that cavalier attitude toward public accusations triggered tragedy with the death of Angelo Reyes.” But if we were to follow this logic, then there should already have been a long history of suicides by resources persons or witnesses invited to congressional hearings, since these had been instituted as a “check-and-balance” mechanism in the Philippine political system long ago.

Just think of how many subjects the acerbic Miriam Defensor-Santiago has humiliated with her loose artillery language since she became senator in 1995, and how many of them could have already succumbed to self-destruction if words and shame alone were enough to trigger suicide.

Lastly, while I have critiqued other critics in this column, I reserve the last critique for myself: I erred in naming retired Col. Proceso Maligalig in one of my columns in anoth er newspaper, as well as on my radio program, as the former RAM man who disjointedly criticized Trillanes’ conduct in the investigation of Reyes. It was not Proceso but Col. Leopoldo Maligalig. My apologies to Proceso.

(Tune in to Sulo ng Pilipino, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, 6 to 7 p.m. on 1098AM; TNT with HTL, Tuesday, 8 to 9 p.m., with replay at 11 p.m., on GNN, Destiny Cable Channel 8, on the “Sorry Yellow Movement” with Charito Planas and Linggoy Alcuaz; visit http://newkatipunero.blogspot.com and watch or listen to our select radio and GNN shows)