We lost our "Last Best Hope"

January 7, 2010 · Leave a Comment

Emmanuel Pelaez : Repudiated in 1964, and with that went our “Last Best Hope”

In recent months, years really, I’ve received many emails from very well meaning Filipinos, both in the Philippines and the expatriate community in the US, that equally expressed disgust over the endemic corruption that has plagued government at all levels at the same time incessantly wailing for a messiah to lead the country from its seemingly irreversible descent into a maelstrom of political despair. Indeed, failure, morass and corruption seem to be the inextricable hooks that have anchored the Philippines in this place where salvation seems bleak if not totally impossible.
Reading these emails triggered memories of the 1960’s when the Philippines, as a nation and a country, was very much less jaded. Hope still abounded then. It was not a perfect time for sure but our population was less than a third of what it is today and there was a sense that if we’d get the right leadership in place, a prosperous path could be laid and we could envision a preeminent role in Asia both as a vibrant, functioning democracy and become one of the first economic “tigers” of the region.
The 1960’s were a time when idealism was still viewed to be a noble, and not necessarily a quixotic, aspiration. The young, mostly in the colleges and universities, were more readily invested in the political process. And looking at what we now have versus the atmosphere of the ‘60’s has sent me down memory lane, to my own now distant youth, when I too had dreams and the visions of success for the country’s many pursuits seemed palpably attainable. Sadly though, I cannot now but conclude that verily our time may have passed us by; that we had our shot at greatness; that we were presented with an opportunity to become a leading light in the world and we turned our backs and as an electorate many of us could not resist the very plague that we now aver destroys us: corruption.
Allow me to engage in my own remembrance of some of that past, and crucial, era with the hope that a glimpse thru that narrow window of unique opportunity will present us a valuable context thru which we can realistically gauge our current quagmire.
As a 17 year old college student in 1961 I had the very rare privilege of working for the election of the Macapagal-Pelaez presidential team. One of ‘Nyor’ Maning’s nephews,
Myron Pelaez was a neighbor and good friend so most of my efforts were devoted to promote the Pelaez part of the ticket. That in itself was an almost suicidal endeavor in Cebu City because that year the island’s charismatic ‘Niño Bonito’, Sergio Osmena Jr, was also running for vice-president as an independent candidate.
During one of the Liberal Party sorties into Cebu, I was fortunate to be in a group that followed the Pelaez motorcade as he moved from one campaign stop to the next.
I am not exactly sure now whether the events I describe happened all in one day or in two, but those were events that made me henceforth want to kiss the very ground that Mr. Emmanuel Pelaez walked on. As I recall the day it started with a breakfast meeting at the Casino Espanol where he addressed a group of potential supporters in Spanish. Later at lunch he addressed the Rotarians in English. That night he faced a decidedly pro-Osmena audience at Cebu’s fabled Plaza Independencia in impeccable Cebuano. While he did not necessarily sway a majority of the Cebuano masses assembled that night he did get them to listen and by evening’s end he did get a respectful applause which was an accomplishment indeed considering the fanatical fervor of the “Bisag Unsaon Kang Serging Kami” crowd. I and many other listeners, on the other hand, were totally mesmerized by the very facile manner in which Mr. Pelaez articulated his views in three languages, and tailoring his speeches to effectively engage each of the audiences he faced. I asked myself, “ Wow, how much would our country be admired by the world if this man of great fluency and ability were to be President and represent our country and nation?” That was a day when I could very proudly say that I was a Filipino. I’m sure many others shared this sentiment.
(It was the same feeling that many Americans of all colors and creeds seemed to have shared when, in 2008, they heard Barack Obama’s acceptance speech on a chilly autumn evening in Chicago.)
Fast forward to 1964. Though already working full time, I jumped at the opportunity to join a group of ex-classmates who were now working in the Pelaez for president movement. I remember at that time my friend Myron was busy flying the single engine airplane he and his father Paul built right in the basement of their very large house on Sepulveda St. in Cebu. At time Myron’s main avocation was to drop campaign leaflets throughout the province. I remember he invited me to ride up with him on some of his sorties, and, although I was working for an airline, I was not brave enough to be a passenger on a single engine aircraft piloted by a swashbuckling, charmingly grinning 19 year old. (At that time Myron was an old hand at flying having made his solo debut before he turned 15.)
1964 was not an official election year. That was to come in November of 1965. However, the Nacionalistas, hell bent on unseating Diosdado Macapagal, decided to hold the convention sooner so that they could be assured enough campaign time against the well oiled incumbent party. About a year earlier, Vice-President Pelaez bolted the Liberal Party and broke away from Macapagal, resigning as foreign secretary because of a smear raised by Macapagal henchman and Justice secretary Salvador Marino falsely linking Pelaez to a bribe allegation .Pelaez, in the 1963 by elections, invested his time in promoting the Nacionalista candidates around the country thereby collecting valuable I.O.U.’s from the opposition party’s rank and file. About 6 months after Pelaez vaulted, then senate president Ferdinand Marcos, finally convinced he had no chance to win the Liberal Party standard bearer’s role, also turned and became a Nacionalista. By the summer of 1964 the then presidential field among Nacionalista prospects led by Pelaez included Marcos, Fernando Lopez, Gil Puyat, Arturo Tolentino and Lorenzo Sumulong. Polls showed that Pelaez led all others even as they headed into the convention scheduled for November that year.
From what I remembered at the time the story bandied about among Cebu media personalities was that Pelaez, Puyat, Tolentino and Lopez had a ‘gentleman’s’ agreement that should no one win on the first ballot the leader among the four would enter the second ballot as the sole candidate and the three others would release their delegates to the leader. These same Cebu media group also surmised that Marcos and his phalanx of campaign lieutenants launched an intensive vote buying campaign to pry the delegates away from Pelaez and to vote for Marcos. It was also their assessment that Marcos had entered into a ‘deal’ with Eugenio Lopez Sr., the overlord of a vast business empire anchored by Meralco and ABS-CBN, to get the Fernando Lopez delegates to go Marcos’s way in exchange for alleged future business and political favors.
The noted journalist and Pelaez biographer Nelson Navarro in his 2008 work, “What’s Happening To Our Country? The Life and Times of Emmanuel Pelaez”, provides a detailed recounting of the notorious events that led to Marcos’s unseemly ascendance to head the Nacionalista Party’s presidential ticket at that convention.
Thru interviews with erstwhile campaign aides and Pelaez family members, Navarro reports all the gory details of the Marcos blitzkrieg and Emmanuel Pelaez’s staunch refusal to match the Marcos vote buying spree. Because of his much earlier start in the campaign, Pelaez had secured the support of major contributors who literally had a roomful of cash that could have been used to offset the Marcos bonanza.
I had always admired Emmanuel Pelaez not only for his brilliant mind, a command of whatever languages he chose to speak and the impeccable manner in which he conducted himself, but also for his reputation for honesty and integrity. He was also resolutely dedicated to his country and its people. After winning the vice-presidency in 1961 he was slated to occupy the most prestigious cabinet position, that of foreign secretary, which he eventually did. But his original desire was to be the secretary of agriculture because he wanted to devote his time, resources and the power of his office as vice-president to further advance the lot of the rural farmers thru infrastructure investments like farm equipment, electrical power and clean water resources.
And there was never a whiff of corruption that could be associated with him. Neither did he use his fame nor office to build political dynasties to advance the interests of his family. As far as I know there are no Pelaez children or other kin who are in congress, the mayor’s or governors office in his home province of Misamis Oriental. In his view, it seems that whatever it is his relatives wanted to accomplish they had to do so on their own merit. This is, in a sense, the complete antithesis of what we see in other parts of the country where political dynasties are the rule and power shifts in predictable cycles from one ruling family to the other. As Navarro reports about the only ‘influence’ he peddled in behalf of friends and family were introductions to people, but they still had to prove their worth and work hard for everything that came their way.
I have often wondered, what kind of a Philippines would we now have had Pelaez prevailed in the convention of 1964 and then had gone on to become president in 1965?
I am certain, in my heart and mind, that our country would have taken a much different trajectory. A President Pelaez, by his example and his insistence, would have presided over a government that served the people earnestly, free of corruption, and one that mirrored his vision for a prosperous nation steeped in democracy and the rule of law. His stewardship of the country would also have helped create a ruling political and business leadership that was grounded on integrity, competence and honesty. I am absolutely convinced that had he become president we would not have this culture of graft and corruption that pervades the Philippines governmental and business institutions.
I met Mr. Pelaez, Nyor Maning, two more times. Once in 1976 when I run into him at his daughter’s home in Daly City. I was still with Philippine News then ( and, along with other staff persona non grata to the Marcos regime ) hence our brief discussion over the kitchen table was strictly off the record at the time. After pleasantries I brought up the subject of the 1964 convention and noted the irony that had befell the Lopezes in that they had helped engineer Marcos’s winning of the presidency and now found themselves in exile and Eugenio Lopez Jr. in jail. This seemed to bring a sparkle to his eyes, not in glee but perhaps in the consolation that, 12 years after his darkest moment, someone, a total stranger to him, still remembered the malfeasance perpetrated against this honest and true gentleman and the country and nation he always wanted to serve honorably and with supreme competence.
The last time I saw him was in the mid 1990’s. I was on a business trip to Manila and was hosting a cocktail party at the Shangrila Hotel for one of my company’s global customers. I saw Nyor Maning as he entered the lobby, slightly limping then and holding on to the arm of his nephew. I went to greet him and wish him well and asked what he was doing at the time. He very enthusiastically talked about his lifelong project of “rural electrification”. His ambitions for his country had neither waned nor ceased. His commitment to its future had not diminished. His stage may have shrunk quite a bit but the vigor and integrity with which he played his role as one of our history’s most distinguished statesmen remained in character.
We as a nation, thru our purported leaders of the time, turned our backs on a person who may have been our last best hope as a country and a nation. We are certainly the worse for it. And, here irony waxes so luminously. The descendants and forebears of the dramatis personae of that period, the Marcoses and the Macapagals, remain the centers of attention in the shameless plunder of the nation’s remaining strands of wealth and the wanton disemboweling of its laws and principles, continually shredded thru murder, mayhem and outright lawlessness in the service of political expediency and pecuniary ends.
As a footnote, I very strongly recommend the reading of Nelson Navarro’s biography of Emmanuel Pelaez. I once told one of his daughters that the book ought be stacked in every classroom and library in all Philippine schools. I would even go further to add that the life and times of Emmanuel Pelaez be made a part of our educational curriculum for high school students so that, it is hoped, a spark may be lit in the hearts and minds of our youth enough so that they are at least aware that once upon a time, not too long ago we did have a charismatic, intelligent, competent and dedicated leader who forever loved his country and served it faithfully and honestly regardless the role history handed him. That a life in politics can be a noble and exalted service. That corruption need not necessarily be a way of life. That emulating Emmanuel Pelaez’s and following in his footsteps can be one of the most elevated and cherished accomplishments worth pursuing.

Forgetting our own ‘American Experience’

By LEANDRO D QUINTANA Updated December 29, 2009 12:00 AM

WITH the advent of the Internet age it has become very much easier to engage in individual “mass communications”. This usually takes the form of forwarding and disseminating news articles and videos that reflect our own values and points of view.
I was recently the recipient of one such mass mailing by Filipino friends. The article was an excerpt of Patrick J. Buchanan’s March 24, 2008 diatribe, “A Brief for Whitey”.
In it Buchanan makes the outrageous assertion that slavery was good for the 600,000 or so slaves transported from Africa to the plantations in the south. And that America has been the best country for blacks. Buchanan made this and several other points to refute Barack Obama’s assertion that more investments need to be made in minority prevalent schools and communities.
The Filipino friend who forwarded Buchanan’s column made the assertion that “at last somebody finally said it”, i.e. that, in his opinion, someone had expressed opposition to any further amelioration of the racial imbalance that continues to exist in most parts of the US.
This friend was echoing a theme common within conservative white American thought that taxes be spent on matters other than social programs. The same sentiment is reflected in matters such as “affirmative action”, i.e. that it was wrong to continue this program.
Buchanan further asserts that there is preponderance of violence linked directly to black criminal behavior whereas there is minimal white on black violence. His piece was a direct response to
President Obama’s call for more meaningful dialogue on race matters.
I found it absolutely necessary to speak my mind and respond to this piece being passed around the Filipino-American community.
It is correct, as Buchanan avers, that most crimes against whites, and blacks, are perpetrated by blacks; black families are victims of robberies, muggings, murders and rapes. It is also true that perpetrators of these crimes, even if not often enough, end up in jail. Which is why a very large number of the US prison population are black. The issue needs to be approached not only from a law enforcement effort but a socio-economic perspective as well. Now, just because there is a heavy incidence of crime involving African-Americans, does not mean that as a society we will no longer attempt to achieve some degree of racial rapprochement among all races and segments that comprise this vibrant and diverse nation of ours.
Buchanan is ranting at Barack Obama over the many ills associated with black society as if the president was impervious to these ills.
Buchanan obviously has not heard, or refused to listen, to the many instances when the President addressed black conventions, meetings and the black community in general admonishing them to take responsibility for the upright upbringing of their children and youth. He has openly berated young African American males for not taking paternal responsibility for the children they have sired out of wedlock. He has been a leading voice in urging black children to take their education seriously. He has harangued black parents for not taking control over their children’s upbringing by taking away the play stations and reduce television time and instead read to them and support their educational aspirations.
President Obama has also openly advocated that affirmative action programs in schools should include disadvantaged white youth who should be given preference over affluent or middle class blacks. Affirmative action as it relates to education has been a driver in higher Hispanic and Asian American college enrolments, not black students alone.
Buchanan cites the welfare system that was introduced by Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society program of the mid 1960s as a largess bestowed upon African Americans.
I agree that the welfare system has been and is the wrong approach to address poverty because it removes the incentive for work and in the process also demeans the recipients of the “dole”. This is why the “workfare” program passed during the Clinton presidency finds much favor. My point, however, is that blacks were not the sole beneficiaries of the welfare system. Millions of impoverished whites, Hispanic, Asian and Native Americans have, and continue to benefit from, the welfare system.
What I find most abhorrent about Buchanan’s piece is his perverted contention that capturing, imprisoning in dingy west African prisons, transportation in slave ships packed like sardines, sale to slave masters in the US and lifetime bondage as slaves, was beneficial for the 600,000 Africans affected.
Indulging for a minute Mr. Buchanan’s line of reasoning, it is valid and safe to say that America is the best thing that ever happened to the Irish, the Italians, the Scandinavians, the Germans, the Eastern Europeans, the Jews, the Asians and all kinds of nationalities who immigrated to these shores. The big difference is that all of these immigrants came here by choice. And when they arrived they had opportunities for employment and advancement.If they worked hard enough, and most did, they could partake of the American dream and better themselves. They were not enslaved and unpaid and bonded to their masters in perpetuity; they were not treated like one would a plow or a work animal that could be sold and bartered away. How many million children of black slaves were torn away from their families to be sold to other slave masters? How many of the slave children born between the 1600s to the 1800s were sired by white masters of these slaves who treated slave women as their personal property and the object and recipient of their proclivities?
Imagine for a moment the psyche of a man whose ancestors were treated with such humiliation and indignity. Try to remember how we in the Philippines grew up hating the Spaniards for atrocities we only learned of thru word of mouth from previous generations.
Buchanan is quick to take credit for the ‘60’s programs for blacks yet he makes no mention of the fact that after Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation it took another 100 years before passage of the voting rights act that empowered blacks in the south to vote. In the interim the descendant of slave masters in the south enacted Jim Crow laws that in effect maintained the status quo. They continued lynching black men. They continued to oppress them in every way imaginable.
(The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws in the United States enacted between 1876 and 1965. They mandated de jure segregation in all public facilities, with a supposedly “separate but equal” status for black Americans. In reality, this led to treatment and accommodations that were usually inferior to those provided for white Americans, systematizing a number of economic, educational and social disadvantages.)
As late as the 1950s it was not uncommon to see black men hanging from treetops sometimes for the very simple sin of looking at a white woman or for not bowing and deferring to a white man. So, how can Buchanan look at this history and chalk it up as something positive that this country has done for African Americans?
Finally, we are Asian Americans, I ask that we also ought to look at our own attitudes towards blacks. We seem to have a predisposition to discriminate against them. In many Asian cultures we tend to look at “white” as “good” and black as “bad” or “inferior”. Yet, we have our own history of being at the receiving end of discrimination in the hands of whites. As late as the 1940’s the “Asian Exclusion Act” prevented Chinese and other Asians the right to own property and to marry or “mingle” with white women. In fact if an Asian man were found in the same room with a white woman it was quite likely he would end up in jail if not get lynched altogether.
For Filipino Americans, I would recommend reading Carlos Bulosan’s “America Is In The Heart”, a journal of his experiences in the 1930’s when he had to ride freight trains to move from one west coast city to another because movement via regular transportation was prohibited by the exclusion act. Our generation of immigrants are extremely fortunate that we arrived at a time when American society was more welcoming of legal immigrants and we have enjoyed the bountiful blessings of this great country that we are now proudly and rightly calling our own. Our generation and our children’s generation ought to be at the leading edge of the effort to espouse and enhance racial harmony.
The election of Barack Obama has accomplished one thing, among others: blacks and other minorities can no longer make race an excuse for the failure to achieve. His election validates that great American spirit and character that has enabled our nation to look beyond the superficial and reward meritorious achievements regardless of race, color, creed or station in life. This is indeed an opportune moment that could lead to a more harmonious union of all the segments and races that comprise the American nation. Let’s not waste this away by yielding to the self serving rants of fear mongering demagogues who are bent on fanning the flames of hate and discord.
(The author was at one time one of the editors of Philippine News in San Francisco, Philippine Press Weekly and Asian American News in Los Angeles.)
Below is some information lifted from Google re Bulosan and the Asian Exclusion Act.
Editorial Review – Kirkus Reviews Copyright (c) VNU Business Media, Inc.
The author of The Laughter of My Father now presents the seamier side of his youth in the Philippines, and from thence to his experiences in America. His story is one of poverty, misery and oppression — suggesting Black Boy in its parallel of tragio, hopeless incident seen through the eyes of sensitive, intelligent youth. But the dominant tone is different, for Bulosan withstands the slum life of the West Coast, its gamblers, murderers and prostitutes, its starvation, race prejudice and brutality, without losing his innate belief in the dignity of all men and his dream that this dignity can be achieved in America. In the same simple, episodic style that made his first book significant, he records his wanderings, his odd jobs, his organizations of American Filipinos, his experiences of the horrors of victims of “”racism”" and dire poverty. And yet his high courage and spirit prevailed- his belief in America survived. Important as another window on our own national portrait.
(The roots of the Asian Exclusion Act lie in the Chinese Exclusion Act, passed in 1882. The Chinese Exclusion Act prevented all Chinese immigration specifically, and it was renewed in 1892 after it expired. In 1902, the Chinese Exclusion act was renewed again, this time for an indefinite period.
Both pieces of legislation were passed in response to the idea that Asian immigrants posed a threat to American society. Along the West Coast especially, Asians had been seeking their fortunes since the mid 1800s. Some of these immigrants worked hard to achieve their goals, but they were still unable to become citizens or own land. They also faced serious discrimination from European Americans.
Despite the already severe legal and social restrictions on Asian immigration, some European Americans felt that immigration should be forbidden altogether with a specific Asian Exclusion Act. In arguments which seem familiar to modern followers of the immigration debate, Asians were accused of taking white jobs and causing social unrest. Especially in California, Asians and Chinese in particular were already limited to Chinese ghettos, highly dense housing clusters which were prone to fire and violence. Modern-day Chinatown may be a popular tourist destination, but it was once the only place in which Chinese could safely live.)