Lite Moments Turned Sour

YESTERDAY, TODAY & TOMORROW
Linggoy Alcuaz
9/22-24/2011



Some of my most embarrassing experiences have been with former, incumbent and/or future Press Secretaries.

In June of 1976, my wife, Baby, and I brought our now 40-year old eldest son, then called Peep Peep, now shortened to Pip, to the Ateneo de Manila Grade School for his first school day in Prep. Since the classroom was filled with students and their parents, and since I occupy more than the average space, I left Baby and Peep Peep inside.

Since I started out at the Ateneo, not in prep, but in grade one, I was interested in exploring the entire prep premises in order to kill time and rediscover the area of the grade school that I was the least familiar with.

Familiar Face
When I came back to the covered corridor outside my son’s classroom, I found just one solitary and young father outside the classroom.

Since he looked quite familiar to me, I approached him and greeted him with the words, “Excuse me sir, l’m Linggoy Alcuaz. Have we not met in the past?” or “Where have we met before?”

As soon as he opened his mouth to return the greeting, I knew that we had never met in person before this occasion.

I had just seen him on television before.

Specifically, I first watched him with my entire 100 % attention on Saturday, Sept 23 or 24, the first day of the implementation of Martial Law.

Martial Law
The Presidential Decree 1081 was supposedly signed on Sept 21, 1972.

Marcos was very partial to the number seven and its multiples.

However, Marcos found it advisable to wait until the Congress adjourned “sine die” on Friday night, Sept 22 or 23, before implementing the Presidential Decree.

The next day, a Saturday, the Philippines woke up to a completely different world.

The newspapers failed to arrive. There were no TV or Radio Broadcasts. There were less cars on the streets. There were less people moving about.

Our scheduled meetings, especially those in public or well-known private places were all canceled. Instead, we were setting up emergency meetings in safer places.

That whole day, the entire Philippines watched TV and listened to AM radio awaiting news regarding the imposition of martial law and the subsequent arrest of opposition figures.

Three Superstars
The whole day, there were only three superstars that could be seen on TV and heard on the radio: second termer President Ferdinand Edralin Marcos, Martial Law Administrator and Secretary of National Defense Juan Ponce Enrile and Press Secretary Francisco “Kit” Tatad.

How could I not have instant recall of his face when we first met less than four years after that very impressionistic Black Saturday.

It took my two sets of senses and organs, sight and sound, eyes and ears, to recognize him.

Not even the doctors and nurses who delivered me from my mother’s womb on October 12, 1948 (My birthday!) had such a monopoly of my attention as that Unholy Trio had on that Saturday, the first whole day of what would become eight and a half or thirteen and a half years of martial law.

Marcos officially lifted Martial Law in the first quarter of 1981 in order to encourage the Pope, Paul the VIth to push through with a Papal visit to the Philippines.

However, the real effects of Martial Law would stay on until the EDSA People Power Revolution of Feb 22-25, 1986.

Changing the Rules
Some of the most important means to maintain the strangle hold on political power, were the Transitory Provisions of the 1972 Constitution.

Among other things, these gave Marcos residual powers to amend the Constitution. Therefore, he could keep on changing the rules of the game to favor him.

Fortunately, Press Secretary, later on, Senator Kit Tatad, was not imbued with an ego big enough for him to have me thrown in jail for not recognizing him instantly.

He probably thought that I was just kidding him.

The next one to figure in my list of embarrassing encounters is former Editor-in-Chief (Newsday and Chronicle), Press Undersecretary (Under President Estrada and Press Secretary Rod Reyes {My Editor-in-Chief when I wrote a column in the Manila Standard in 1986-87 as E. K. Walis.}), Press Secretary (Under GMA.) and Ambassador (First to Romania and later on to Myanmar {Burma}) Noel Cabrera.

However, since the incidents that turned sour happened during Erap’s time, I will include them in my future book of Erap anecdotes, jokes and vignettes.

The next one is Toting Bunyi, first as Mayor of Muntinglupa and second as GMA’s Press Secretary. I was the Commissioner of the NTC between March 1987 and November 1989.

This period was at the height of the coup attempts against the Cory Administration.

We Survived
When I was still a Deputy Commissioner from March 1986 to March 1987, we had survived the following attempts:

1. July 4, 1986 at the Manila Hotel - the attempted proclamation of Marcos’s Vice President, Arturo Tolentino as the President with Loyalist civilian and military support;

2. The November 1986 “God Save the Queen” coup plot that hardly took off;

3. The January 1987 take-over of the GMA TV and Radio Network at EDSA corner Timog Ave. including the studio and transmitter of its FM radio station;

4. The March 1987 premature bombing of the PMA Graduation, and

5. The 1987 Black Saturday take-over of the Philippine Army Headquarters.

As NTC Commissioner, I had to face the two bigger and more violent attempts of August 27, 1987 and December 1, 1989.

Self-reliant Me
Since I had experienced being separated from (July 4, 1986) and even being abandoned (August 27, 1987) by my Philippine Constabulary (PC)/Integrated National Police (INP) escorts, I prepared to be as self-reliant as I could be.

I accumulated an assortment of offensive and defensive gear.

My heaviest weapons were M 16’s, M14’s, Steyr SSG .308 cal. and Remington .30-06 cal. sniper rifles, M 79 and M 203 grenade launchers and Browning .30 cal. tripod mounted, air cooled machine guns.

If I had not been fired in November 1989 for publicly predicting the week-long Dec 1, 1989 coup, I would have acquired 90 mm shoulder fired and 105 mm jeep mounted recoilless rifles. The latter was actually a light cannon.

But all of these, were useless unless we knew how to fire and use them.

The only firing range in Metro Manila or the National Capital Region that was willing to accommodate my grenade launchers was the National Bilibid Prison in Muntinglupa.

Demonstrating our Weapons
One day, I was in the improvised heavy rifle range when then Mayor Toting Bunyi dropped by. Curious, he asked us to demonstrate our weapons.

All the others just had sniper rifles.

When it came to my turn, I raised my M 16 automatic rifle with a 40 mm, M 203 grenade launcher mounted below the .223 cal. barrel and fired a round.

The grenade fell and exploded beyond the crest of a neighboring hill in the midst of a herd of carabao. They immediately stampeded in all directions to the chagrin of the mayor.

I Lost, Gained Weight
The next time I met Bunyi, he was GMA’s Press Secretary at about this time of the year. It was on the occasion of the PCSO anniversary.

I was a member of the Board of Directors. Press Secretary Bunyi was in GMA’s party but had come early.

When he saw me, he greeted me and then commented that I had lost weight. He asked how I had done it.

I answered with tongue in cheek: “You see Sec, I’m very loyal to GMA. Whenever, she falls in the survey ratings, I lose weight proportionately!”

Unfortunately, when I was no longer loyal to GMA, the reverse happened. I gained weight!