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.