Was that trip really necessary?

Up to now I’m still grappling with the problem of finding a rationale for the President’s In-and-Out flying trip to Hong Kong – a case of GMA fiddling around abroad while Manila (to paraphrase Emperor Nero’s Rome) burns.

What was so urgent about speaking to businessmen and investors in Hong Kong, or to anti-corruption officials there, etc., when two very important chiefs of state were arriving in Manila yesterday, or the very same evening of La Presidenta’s sortie to HK? Surely, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono would have been flattered to have our President receive him at once, instead of sending his old Ft. Leavenworth classmate (Kansas, 1991), Armed Forces’ exiting Chief of Staff, Gen. Efren L. Abu, along with Vice-President Noli de Castro as the airport greeter. (Abu was temporarily elevated to "Cabinet rank", whatever that means, for purposes of protocol).

Oh well, I hope Noli and Bambang will manage to get an opportunity to dialogue with each other, preferably on television, so the public may judge who speaks better English. We might be surprised.

Then there’s Gambian President, Dr. Yahya A.J.J. Jammeh, a Muslim leader of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, etc., who was scheduled to arrive last night, too.

Once again, what was the importance of that side-trip to Hong Kong? La Gloria flew off in a Learjet yesterday morning (a seven-seater), with her entire Cabinet to see her off, including AFP Chief of Staff Abu and Philippine National Police Director General, Arturo C. Lomibao in the sendoff group. She was scheduled to return last night.

That trip has aroused all sorts of speculations, none of them helpful to GMA. Critics suspiciously claimed she had gone there to get rid "of a paper trail", or transfer secret bank accounts, or bring cash out of the country. Mind you, these allegations may be wild, but why did GMA have to make a trip which could result only in provoking such rumors?

In the meantime, everybody’s still looking for Comelec Commissioner "Hello Garci" Garcilliano, even though his wife swears he’s in town and has not skipped off to Kota Kinabalu or elsewhere abroad. (Wives, after all, don’t know the whereabouts of their husbands). Can’t blame Garci for dodging the questions likely to be hurled at him by five committees of the House of Representatives which are eager to get into the act – and get some of the… er, action. The other day I looked at a photograph in a newspaper of some of the Congressmen spearheading the inquiry, and, by golly, they’re the once who ought to be investigated.

Oh well, if they launch an investigation "in aid of legislation", why don’t they grab the opportunity to legislate reform in the Commission on Elections, a revision in our electoral system, and the institution of safeguards, so that next time we’ll be able to guarantee a clean election?

In the meantime, let me say I think it’s time Garci surfaced – and told us his side. (I didn’t say "confess", but if it was his voice, why not?) Sad for him, from the moment he was appointed by GMA last year, he and his fellow Comelec Commissioner Manuel Barcelon were immediately tagged by the opposition and many in the media as being inserted into the Comelec for "fixing" purposes. Indeed, there are those who say that the "Hello Garci" cellphone call by the "voice" (which sounded like GMA) wasn’t really necessary. Ab initio, almost everybody suspected what Mr. Garcilliano’s brief was supposed to be.

Incidentally, Commissioner Barcelon must prudently be keeping his head down – and his cellphones switched off. The silence from his corner is deafening.

* * *

The latest in retired General Fortunato U. Abat’s saga was that Abat was "snubbed" yesterday by both AFP Chief of Staff Gen. Abu and PNP Chief, Gen. Lomibao.

It seems Abat tried to secure a meeting with Abu and Lomibao in succession to get a "pledge" from them that the military and the police would not disrupt a "Solidarity March" he planned to mobilize from his "headquarters" in Quezon City to Malacañang Palace. The date he has reportedly set for the march is June 25, next Saturday.

Abat is declaring that the march will be absolutely "peaceful". But how can anybody promise that when anybody can join such a "long march" – and thus anything could happen. Those who’re likely to participate, from the Far Right to the Far Left, are protesters who are hostile to La Presidenta, and it’s never been a secret that Abat himself would dearly love to replace GMA and her "corrupt" government with a civilian-military junta.

I don’t know whether a permit will finally be granted to Abat’s purported "Solidarity March" (solid against GMA?). But it doesn’t seem likely.

Sure, I’ve poked fun at Old Soldier Abat who refuses to fade away, as in General MacArthur’s famed barracks ballad, and indeed, coming from the Old Folks Home, he appears the least likely of coup leaders. But Abat is not the figure of fun he appears to be. In his prime, he was one of our distinguished soldiers. He fought in the Korean War and World War II. He was one of our battle-tested commanders in the Moro Wars (his memoirs, in fact, were entitled The Day We Almost Lost Mindanao). He rose to become Commanding General of the Philippine Army. In fact, many years before he graduated from the Philippine Military Academy in the first postwar Class of 1951, he had already fought as a teenage enlisted man in the guerrilla forces. His guerrilla unit was the famous United States Armed Forces in the Philippines-Northern Luzon, better known in acronym as the USAFIP-NL. He had belonged to the 14th Infantry regiment, the guerrilla unit which boxed off Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita in Kiangan, thus preventing him from sending reinforcements to the Japanese troops defending Bessang Pass in the mountain region of Ilocos Sur from another USAFIP-NL regiment, the even more famous 121st Infantry. The 121st defeated the Japanese at Bessang Pass, the only Filipino victory of World War II.

Another USAFIP-NL unit, also composed of Ilocanos, the 15th Infantry, fought and defeated the Japanese in the cave of Tangadan, on the way to Abra. But this was a less celebrated battle. After Liberation, Abat went back to high school, then enrolled in the PMA.

Abat also holds a Masters in Business Administration from the Ateneo Graduate School of Business.

During the Marcos regime, he was a defense attache in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Upon retirement from the Army, he was named Ambassador to the People’s Republic of China from 1982 to 1986. Under President Cory C. Aquino, he was Administrator of Veterans’ Affairs, Undersecretary of National Defense, and Deputy Director of the National Security Council.

What’s more, he had a son who gallantly died for our country. 2nd Lt. Tito Fortunato Abat (PMA ’78) was killed in operations against the Communist New People’s Army in Eastern Samar barely a year after graduation. He could have asked for a safer sinecure, but he asked for combat duty.

In sum, Abat is a man with admirable credentials. But now, what has happened to him? There’s a word for someone who’s beyond senior citizenship, but I won’t use it. The coffee shop wiseguys who crack jokes about him as having been "the waterboy of General Emilio Aguinaldo during the Philippine Revolution" do Abat an injustice – but who can blame them? Perhaps he ought to have followed MacArthur’s Old Soldier code and simply "faded away" before singing his batty "No-El" song.

The dangerous thing is that more vicious elements might take advantage of his planned "Solidarity March" to break up the Republic, not solidify it.

* * *

A correction: our hero of the Katipunan, Gat Andres Bonifacio, died on Mount Tala (not on the hilltop called Susung Dalaga, cute as the name sounds). Some even say it was "Mount Buntis" (pregnant).

There are three versions of how he was executed. I refer you to the book written by Sylvia Mendez Ventura, who also wrote an excellent biography of Jose Rizal. Sylvia’s book Supremo is the only good book I know about Bonifacio, and it was published in 2001 by Tahanan Books for Young Readers, beautifully illustrated by Ed Talusan Fernandez. Chapter XVI was entitled by Sylvia "Death in a Hammock."

On May 20, 1897, one of Aguinaldo’s officers, Gen. Mariano Noriel sent for Major Lazaro Makapagal and handed him a sealed envelope. He instructed Makapagal (no relation?) to bring Andres Bonifacio and his brother Procopio to Mount Tala and open the envelope only when he got to the destination. The Major, with four soldiers, took the Bonifacio brothers, as instructed, to their fatal assignation with death. When the verdict was read to them, Procopio wept then tried to ran off. He was followed and shot. Then, Andres, who had been carried, sick as he was, in a hammock, was hacked to death with bolos and bayonets. Procopio was only 18 years old.

Bonifacio deserves to be better known by our people. His thoughts were great and noble. In his "Decalogue" he had written: "Insofar as it is within your power, share your means with the poor and the unfortunate."

Further on, he said: "The love of God is also the love of country, and this, too, is love of one’s fellowmen."

He expressed in truth, his own epitaph and commentary on his own tragic execution: "One who truly loves his country must be prepared to risk not only his blood and life itself but also an ignominious death. However, the light of history will certainly set things right, so that those who formerly failed to perceive the truth will be able to see things in their proper perspective. Then they themselves will realize how glorious it was to love one’s Motherland. Moreover, they will in the end repudiate the traitors."

These words were said to his bosom friend and loyal comrade Santiago Alvarez in 1896.

The words uttered by our heroes, like Bonifacio – certainly not an unlettered warehouseman, but one who read widely and revered the Holy Bible, Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables, and Alexander Dumas’ novels, like my own favorite, The Three Musketeers – come down from the past to haunt us.

And to shame us in our world of selfishness and materialism.

Where has their patriotism, their sense of love of country, God, and fellowmen gone?

"Engrave in your heart that the true measure of honor and happiness is to die for the freedom of your country," Andres Bonifacio had asserted.

What is engraved in our own hearts?