Government by deception? Portrait of Barican

What in heaven's name is happening? First we are told the presidential pardon of Norberto Manero was just an accident, a slip of the mind because, well, Erap Estrada may have been wobbly and in his cups. Second, it was the fault of Justice Secretary Serafin Cuevas. He okayed the list submitted by the Board of Parole and Pardons which, of course, included the name of Manero. So he was sacked. A scapegoat? Third -- lo and behold! -- the moving finger points to Executive Secretary Ronaldo Zamora as the arch villain. Whaaat?

It was Secretary Zamora, according to report, who handpicked Manero's name from a list of 29 criminals recommended for conditional pardon last December. And all along, we all thought that Zamora, like Oliver Cromwell, was "guiltless of this country's blood" and was bypassed by a Malacañang condotierre which had faster and more immediate access to the president. Now, the inference is that the president knew all along he had signed the pardon of Manero and simply feigned surprise.

Else, why the Mercedes Benz? Why the billeting of this arch criminal at the New World Hotel?

I don't have the answers. The morrow might provide more answers. But what I know is that we are all being gulled. And it hurts because this Manero and his powerful protectors stick their middle finger, right hand, at all of us, suckers that we are. If indeed Secretary Zamora singled out Manero's name to add to the final list of prisoners to be pardoned by the president before Christmas, then we could be in the presence of a Rasputin who behaves like an archangel.

But then, but then, but then. What we have is a government of deception, collusion and deliberate confusion. And if we accept that, we have a president seemingly hostage to his counselors and advisers, unable to think and decide for himself, leaving the leadership of the nation to the crotchets, capers and caprices of Palace cabals, now in cahoots, now in rivarly. That explains why there is confusion confounded, why the atmosphere is that of a circus, or if you prefer, a zoo.

We have had crises before. And still today. We had Chinese-Filipino smugglers laying siege on Customs, the saturnine face of Stanley Ho riding broomstick on his gambling empire, smuggled luxury cars wantonly distributed as gifts by the president to members of the cabinet and special protégés, the huge money deals brokered by Mark Jimenez, scams and scandals galore, gambling casinos galore, narcotics lords leering at us, presidential relatives waving their Erap credentials for entry into Casbah. And yes we had Concord.

But nothing like the Manero caper in capital letters.

It had and has everything. He is no ordinary person, this Noberto Manero. A priest-killer who slurped his victim's brains, he was a government-hired murderer, doing the bidding of evil politicians both in Malacañang and Mindanao. He relished his job of killing people and getting paid handsomely for it. Well, those politicians are still around, and I understand they lobbied Malacañang for his pardon.

Don't fall for the baloney that Manero is now a reformed man, that he had paid for his sin, and now seeks to spend the rest of his life in atonement. Even if he wanted to, he can't. Remember his statement that he doesn't want people to manipulate him anymore? Fat chance. Manero knows a lot, in fact he knows too much and can wreck the lives of some very powerful politicians if he chooses to talk. But he will never talk. They own him and he knows it.

The slightest trespass, the slightest sign that he might deviate, they'll kill him. We have the information from the highest sources that there already was a plan to kill him in Muntinglupa prison but they desisted because it would have been too obvious, too apparent, too glaring. But now that Manero is out, he can be finished off anytime. Life in Mindanao is cheap and trifling. Mindanao is the graveland of many strange deaths, unsolved until today, for the living in that killer region will not talk about the dead.

There were too many hands on that bloodied corpse of Father Tullio Favali, an Italian missionary. Not just the hands of Norberto Manero and his brothers, but the hands of those powers-that-be, the political masterminds that converted Mindanao into No Man's Land and hired the likes of Manero to kill, kill, kill. And it is not difficult to believe they have links with Malacañang and that probably explains the headline story that Executive Secretary Ronaldo Zamora handpicked his name to be pardoned by the president. God! Government by deception.

Mercedez Benz. New World Hotel. That makes sense.

Once upon a time (that's how everything starts), Jerry Barican was a First Quarter Stormer, stalking the dictatorship of President Ferdinand Marcos with eloquence and with courage. He was one of the first student leaders I met in August 1969 upon my return from a four-year university course in Paris. It was uncanny. I had left a Paris still troubled, still wounded from student riots and turbulence led by Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Jacques Sauvaget and Alain Geismar. When I came back to Manila, our students were in revolt.

There was nothing then about Jerry Barican that indicated or forecast what he is doing today -- a presidential spokesperson unremitting and remorseless in his loyalty to Joseph Estrada. The Jerry of his younger days, the Jerry I used to know quite well would have treated his present master today the way he treated Ferdinand Marcos -- an enemy to be overthrown. He was quite a glamorous campus figure then -- receiving his law diploma with an upraised right fist, tall, husky, breathing Promethean fire.

We used to some spend days at my Merville residence together with Haydee Yorac baying angrily at the dictatorship. Mr. Marcos bought himself out of the First Quarter Storm by declaring martial rule, putting a cap on a studentry that clawed mightily at his rule. The University of the Philippines studentry was particularly dynamic and inventive. The students converted their university into a commune (after the Paris Commune), raised red flags, operated their own radio station. Some of UP's professors and leaders told me the success of the "revolution" was just around the corner.

It was romantic, a whole campus breathing revolutionary fire. The UP radio even broadcast sounds, sighs and moans to what was supposed to be the love-making between Marcos and Dovey Beams. Through it all, Jerry Barican became both myth and legend, certainly one of the great Filipino leaders of tomorrow. But times have changed and so has Jerry. The raised fist, the verbal student salvo has been replaced with the grotesque lie, the superior smirk.

I will not enumerate the lies, that would take up too much space. But I raised my arms in sheer stupefaction when recently Jerry said with a straight face that hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Filipinos sought jobs overseas not because of poverty here but because they had special skills which were needed abroad. Jerry, how could you say that? That was a lie and you know it -- a big, brazen lie that smelled like stale Roquefort cheese. Special skills? They are mostly servants, domestic slaves, if we talk about the Middle East, the women often physically abused, many of them raped.

The poverty of Filipinos is now a major issue in the electoral campaign in Taiwan. Some Taiwanese leaders are fearful that if a future government does not do things right, their people could go the way of impoverished Filipinos. That stung all right. And Jerry had a right to be stung. But he had no right to lie. Nothing he could say, no lie that he could manufacture could hide the truth he is trying to cover up for his boss Erap Estrada.

And the truth is our country is badly bleeding from poverty. Sixty to sixty-five per cent of Filipinos, as per Pulse-Asia, consider themselves poor or very poor. Ecnomically, we are the "worst-performing" nation in East and Southeast Asia, and all economic, financial and political experts are agreed on that.

Jerry, if I were you I would just resign.

I know the job of being presidential spokesperson is abominable, possibly the toughest job in the government. If the president is good, that's because he/she is good. If the president is bad, it's the fault of the press secretary and spokesman. I know, I did the same thing for about three years. But during my Malacañang tenure, things were not really bad; there was no such foul and fetid smell in the palace as there is today. There was still some dignity and decorum and, yes, pride. Our president was honest.

But I resigned irrevocably because I could no longer stomach the intrigues. Now I ask you, Jerry, in the name of an old friendship, is it worth it? Perks, power, privileges -- do they really mean anything?