Amboys at work?

DIE HARD III

Herman Tiu Laurel

10/1/2012

Watching Malacañang and the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) pronouncements on relations with China it is clear there is a huge divergence between the two. The Palace statements are conciliatory as reflected in headlines by the media, such as "Palace: Mar Roxas' talks with China's Xi Jinping 'constructive, cordial,' or 'Palace hopes RP-China ties will move forward'" and many other projecting positive tones and rosy prospects. The DFA is projecting a different outlook on the relations, such as the statement emanating from Secretary Albert del Rosario a few days after his reported threat to resign and speaking in Washington to the CSIS (Center for Strategic and International Studies) which was headlined in the Philippine newspapers with an ominous "Philippines will respond to China ships" and threatening to send RP ships back to the shoals.

Del Rosario's visible deviation from Malacañang on the country's attitude to China may mean a few things, all of them bad for the administration and the country: first, Malacañang doesn't really have an official line with regard to relations and the issues with China; second, Malacañang is not coordinating its various branches of government relative to a most critical foreign policy question; third, the DFA secretary has gone "rogue" and is going on his own with regard to China related policy positions; fourth, the DFA secretary is taking instructions from other than the official chain-of-command leading to the president; and the worse, the DFA secretary is following the chain-of-command from across the seas in Washington and disregarding Malacañang completely. Is Del Rosario an Amboy?
Del Rosario qualifies for the title of Amboy due to the alleged "green card" status that the DFA ranks insists he maintains, plus the fact that there has been strong speculation about the Malacañang doubts about him. Retired diplomat Ambassasor Rey Arcilla's writes in his columns in Malaya, such as Sept. 24 in the aftermath of Tillanes' exposé of Del Rosario's alleged conspiracy with Manny Pangilinan, "'If Del Rosario is wondering why it was only spokesman Lacierda who said Noynoy still has confidence in him, I think it is Noynoy's way of giving him an opportunity to exit gracefully by resigning… He is dense. He does not know the meaning of loss of confidence or delicadeza or amor propio."'

Amboy means American Boy, and in political terms it means more than just loving things American but one who does the bidding of the US. One historical example of the Amboy is former Philippine diplomatic icon, the late Carlos P. Romulo who is venerated as the little man who walked up the shores of Leyte Gulf with Gen. Douglas Macarthur fulfilling his vow "I shall return." One of Romulo's progenies followed in his footsteps to become the DFA secretary, Roberto (Bobby) Romulo who keenly supported the assignment of Sonia Brady to China recently despite her ill health and very advanced age. Some say Brady was supported heartily by Amboys for the post to China as she herself is very pliant to the US. Just a last week Romulo commented on whom he believes should not be assigned to China to replace Sonia Brady.

In his newspaper column "Diplomacy 101" Bobby Romulo wrote last week, "I have received reports that a prominent member of the local Filipino-Chinese community as well as a long time Filipino refugee or exile in China are being considered to replace Ambassador Brady… I was shocked that the two are candidates for the most sensitive and important post in our Foreign Service … A member of the Filipino-Chinese community… does not fit the bill because of ethnic ties … these work against the detachment and objectivity (needed) … Neither does a political exile who has spent something like the last 40 or his to odd years in this world in China pass all the test of objectivity. That candidate has been fed, sheltered and cared for by the Chinese for four decades during which he must have accumulated a long list of IOU's …"

The present US ambassador to China, Gary Locke's is ethnic Chinese whose forebears hale from Taishan, China. Ethnicity doesn't bother the non-discriminatory Americans. But what about Brady who, if my DFA source is correct, is married to an American; couldn't that becloud her loyalty? Obviously referring to ex-exile Chito Sta. Romana, Romulo must understand that patriotism and idealism that led to Sta. Romana's exile. He led a student delegation to China when Martial Law was imposed in Manila Sept. 21, 1972. He was advised to stay put there to escape arrest while the Romulo clan enjoyed the privileged life in the US backed Martial Rule life in the Philippines. True patriots, like Sen. Antonio Trillanes or Chito Sta. Romana, are helping the country breakaway from mendicancy to the US to chart a free, independent and peaceful course of the Philippines with Asia.

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Diversion, deception

DIE HARD III

Herman Tiu Laurel

9/24/2012

The original issue now buried under tons of media debris from the Trillanes-Enrile imbroglio was not the China back channeling, it was the Camarines Sur gerrymandering bill and the alleged Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo lobbying with the Senate president to pass the bill. This issue was tabled in the Senate for Monday, Sept. 17 but Senator Trillanes was absent due to a leg injury. It was in that Senate session that Enrile, irked at the questions over his pet CamSur gerrymandering bill that the Senate president lambasted Trillanes for being a "coward" in failing to appear in the Senate debate on the issue. Trillanes could only attend on Wednesday, declaring his loss of confidence in Enrile's leadership and to bolt the Senate majority coalition.

Solita Collas-Monsod wrongly asserts in her Sept. 22 Inquirer column that, "It is very clear that the fight between Senators J.P. Enrile and A. Trillanes was started by the latter when he named Enrile as the reason he was quitting the majority bloc… complete with attacks on the quality of Enrile's leadership (supposedly dictatorial at the very least) and motives (alleged lackey of Gloria Arroyo)." Monsod attenuated the timeline and arrived at the wrong conclusion. Enrile cast the first stone on Monday, Sept. 17 calling Trillanes a coward. On Tuesday, some newspapers were already bannering Trillanes' back channeling vis-à-vis China on the Scarborough Shoals question. But the back channeling was a confidential State mission, confirmed by Malacañang lately by BS Aquino III himself. Who leaked the Trillanes back channeling to the press?

It doesn't appear to be an accident that on Wednesday Enrile responded to Trillanes' privileged speech not by answering the issues squarely but with a grand diversionary move. Enrile diverted the proceedings from CamSur to China-Philippine relations, lambasting the Trillanes back channeling with highly charged, emotional ad hominem such as "traitor." Enrile conveniently had in hand former RP ambassador to China, Sonia Brady's notes which he read and annotated with derogatory and bombastic bias against Trillanes. Subsequently, revelations involving DFA Secretary Albert Del Rosario and Manny V. Pangilinan surfaced revolving around MVP and the US interests. Recognizable radio hacks immediately went to work on morning radio, many former appointees of Gloria Arroyo (whose hatred of Trillanes is well known) to government sinecures.

Enrile's use of Brady's notes dragged other issues in, such as the links of Del Rosario's antagonistic bellicosity against China, relations to Manny Pangilinan and the latter's Recto Bank interests, the US "pivot" and "refocus" on Asia, and the unfortunate mismanagement of Malacañang of a "good cop, bad cop" strategy with China that otherwise would be a valid strategy in dealing with the Scarborough Shoal issue. People should pause to ponder: Was it kosher or proper that Enrile read confidential government diplomatic records and exchanges without following protocol? This is prima facie treason. That's why Trillanes had to walk out a while, as discussing the Brady notes in the open jeopardizes national security. As it turns out now, Enrile's impropriety really embarrasses the country.
Enrile cast a lot of aspersions. But while engaging in trapo gerrymandering and avoiding to face the issue, does he have the right to call anybody else a "coward?" Enrile called Trillanes a "fraud."

Let's consider Enrile's admitted lie in staging his own fake assassination in 1971, his 1995 dagdag-bawas proven by Nene Pimentel, his betrayal of the anti-PPA cause we started in 2001, ad nausea. Who's the fraud? I have known Trillanes and the Magdalo soldiers since Oakwood 2003. These young men stayed together through the hardest of times, with many among their families literally on the verge of starvation during their incarceration; only their word of honor kept them together and through thick and thin. Enrile should not think his billions can besmirch the Magdalo members or "sno-pake" his own vacuity.

DFA career officers say Del Rosario is a green card holder. Graduated from Xavier High School in New York and New York University, a member of the Asia Society (a John Rockefeller organization) and its International Council, Del Rosario is very qualified for a green card. Del Rosario sat in MVP companies: the Philippine Telecommunications Investment, Philex Mining, PT Indofood Sukses Makbur Tbk (Indonesia), Metro Pacific Investments, Metro Pacific Tollways Development, Manila North Tollways and more; headed Pacific Plaza Towers' development, Metro Pacific Corp.'s signature project at the Fort. Del Rosario's SALn has P 650 million. MVP called Trillanes a "liar," asking why he would conspire with Del Rosario if he (MVP) is negotiating with China. It's not only in diplomacy that "good cop, bad cop" is useful.

Gloria Arroyo awarded Del Rosario the Edsa II Heroes Award in recognition of efforts in promoting Philippine democracy, the one described by former Supreme Court Justice and ConCom chairman Cecilia Muñoz Palma described as a "Rule of Force." With the most critical foreign relations issues in his hands, shouldn't these questions about Del Rosario be clarified first?

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The presidency or the republic?

BACKBENCHER

Rod P. Kapunan

9/22-23/2012

(An excerpt from the author's forthcoming book)

Had it not for our misplaced values and oblique perceptions of things, Mrs. Marcos would be right in saying that the declaration of martial law by her late husband, Ferdinand E. Marcos, was his greatest political act as President. It could have been his greatest heroism, for then he acted to save the republic from being violently fragmented by an ideology determined to overthrow the constitutionally established government. Positively looking at that fateful decision, maybe in that sense Mrs. Marcos was right. It was an ultimate act of self-defense, for often the painful process connotes a degree of suppression to those who purposely sought to realize their objective outside the parameter of a peaceful process.

Many historians judged martial law not on the basis how it was successfully enforced to restore order, but often misjudged it on the basis that it exacted a price on the liberties of the people. Those who opposed Marcos judged him not for why he imposed it, but for the drastic measures to precisely deal with the national emergency. From that angle, Marcos is viewed negatively. The ratio decidendi why in the first place martial law was conceived as a constitutional and a valid defense is short-circuited by the cry of suppression without reexamining the nobility it sought to achieve. Having succeeded in negatively depicting martial law, Marcos, for all his heroism in wanting to preserve the Republic he presided, was demonized.

From a philosophical standpoint, the declaration of martial law deserves to be given a priori and apriori reexamination. It is only by understanding what led to its imposition could we, as a nation, judge that (un)historic action whether Marcos stands to be glorified or to be condemned permanently by history. It is most excruciating for one who was affected to detach himself from the person or to judge history with the end view of giving premium to the commonweal. by standing on higher ground could we visualize the events beyond the vistas of recrimination, detached from that dilemma of either to praise or condemn him. In that sense, we also liberate ourselves from the encapsulated bias of what happened.

First, we condemn Marcos for his decision to declare martial law without us knowing the circumstances that led him to impose it. For that, we tend to judge martial law as arbitrary and capricious, and not a necessary and defensive legal mechanism of the State.

Second, we tend to judge the effects of martial law on a personal basis, like how it affected us individually, and not from a collective point of view that it will do good to restore tranquility in our society.

Third, we tend to equate his decision as personally motivated, and not as an exacting duty reposed upon him as commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces.

Fourth, we tend to ignore that martial law constitutionally mandated the President to exercise that emergency power.

Fifth, being an extreme exercise of power for the defense of the State, we often fail to balance between its positive and negative effects to our people and to our society.

Sixth, since martial law was bound to affect people who sought to have it declared, paradoxically, they should have anticipated the high price for their participation.

On the first issue, many of us condemned Marcos for imposing martial law on September 21, 1972, than in asking whether there were valid grounds that compelled him to impose it. Such question is crucial because the circumstances that led to its declaration remain irrefutable; that martial law was used to save the republic. It was rebellion and subversion that they conceived, and "not a tea party or a picnic" as Mao Zedong would succinctly put it. For the State or for the Marcoses to accede to their demand for compensation is to admit that martial law was, at the outset, wrong and unconstitutional.

Martial law is an emergency political instrument used to surgically remove the abscess that is causing the social and political unrest. The circumstances of rebellion, secessionism, subversion, murder, kidnapping, arson, ambuscades, violent demonstrations, sporadic bombings, assassinations, and arson were carried out in broad day light and with impunity. Only a foolhardy President would ignore them. The reasons were enumerated in the "Whereas" clauses of Proclamation No. 1081 or Proclaiming A State of Martial Law.

It must be recalled that on October 22, 1950 President Quirino issued Proclamation No. 210 suspending the writ of habeas corpus. Fear gripped the people that the communists were at the outskirts of the city. The difference however is that, when President Quirino suspended the writ, the communist HUKBALAHAP was operating outside Metro Manila, while during the time of Marcos, the communists and their newly organized armed group New People's Army were operating almost freely inside Metro Manila. They managed to immerse themselves with the radical students and with labor organizations.

Those irrefutable facts stated in the "whereas" clauses were all verified to have taken place. The orchestrated violence waged against the civilians and the duly constituted authority proved beyond doubt that his suspension of the writ and the imposition of martial law were not fancy alibis to justify his desire to hold on to power.

Even the members of the opposition who sought to distance themselves from that doctrine seeking to overthrow the government admitted of the need to declare martial law. The Supreme Court, acting on the several petitions to nullify the declaration of martial law, including the early decision upholding the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus in the aftermath of the August 21, 1971 Plaza Miranda bombing, held that it would be the height of irresponsibility for the President to stand idly as violent chaos engulfed the nation.

• rpkapunan@gmail.com