The battle for Manila begins

Yesterday, we honored the revolutionary Filipino writer and hero, Marcelo H. del Pilar on the occasion of his 156th birth anniversary by laying two wreaths at his statue. The monument is located in "Plaza Plaridel," part of the former Paraiso ng Batang Maynila, just across the street from the Manila Zoo.

Perhaps the proximity of the statue of our journalistic icon, the leader of the Propaganda Movement against Spanish Friar abuse and the heavy-hand of colonial rule, to the Zoo is serendipity. For, as the now caged animals in the zoo used to fight for survival in the jungle, we live in an asphalt, concrete and chrome jungle in which only the fittest and most powerful (and most courageous) can survive.

Marcelo Hilario del Pilar y Gatmaitan, whom we paid tribute to yesterday, was a native of Bulacan. When he was studying Law, he and a bunch of youthful student radicals started the first Tagalog-Spanish newspaper in the Philippines, the Diaryong Tagalog. M. H. del Pilar took the battle, eventually, to Spain itself.

As editor-in-chief, he established a journal in Spanish to promote Filipino aspirations, along with our other outspoken writers, Dr. Jose Rizal, Graciano Lopez Jaena (of Iloilo), Mariano Ponce and Pablo Rianzares. The publication, La Solidaridad, was published in Barcelona.

In any event, this writer, as Chairman of the Samahang Plaridel, and Manila Mayor Jose "Lito" Atienza Jr. who had helped us in renaming the Plaza and setting up a monument to our hero, did the usual thing – lay wreaths and give short speeches on the occasion.

It turned out to be a pro-Atienza rally, but what the heck. The political season has begun in the country’s capitol city.

Two days earlier I had asked Lito who would be running for Mayor of Manila in the May 2007 elections. Would it be his son Kim, or his other son, Ali, the latter a Taekwondo champion, with matinee-idol good looks – and even a campaign song, which left out what he was campaigning for. I had presumed that, having reached the Constitutional limit of having served three terms, Papa Lito would switch to making a bid for Congress, or simply devote himself to reorganizing the Liberal Party – which, he claimed, former Senate President Franklin Drilon had tried to "misrepresent" and relaunch against President GMA.

The Mayor grinned at the very idea of either stepping aside or retiring. He laughed and said that if Cha-Cha succeeds and a new Constitution is adopted, there would no longer be any "term limits" – and he could run AGAIN.

"After all," he chortled, "I might be the candidate for Mayor myself!"

At this sally, the audience – mostly Lito’s supporters, palas, and admirers, including scores of young students from the tuition-free Universidad de Manila (which Atienza established) or from high schools, like my own alma mater, the Paco Catholic School, broke enthusiastically into the "Atienza Song," or whatever it might be called.

Oh well, you can’t fault Lito A. for lack of pizzaz or hoopla, from booming voice to his signature loud, but faded, red Hawaiian shirt. What’s obviously not fading is Lito’s determination to remain Hizzoner, or at least retain control of Manila City Hall.

The candidate for Vice-Mayor under his banner will be, as already announced, his bosom buddy, boxing champ Manny Pacquiao. The Pacman is expected, Atienza boomed, to score a knock-out in politics, as in the boxing ring.

* * *

The battle-royale for Manila Mayor is growing more heated by the week. Already up and running is Senator Fred Lim, who successfully cleaned up Manila of crooks and drug-pushers when he was the city’s Mayor for two terms.

It was Fred who brought Atienza up, as his Vice-Mayor during that period. Now the two are, as the saying goes, "at daggers drawn."

When Fred had run for the Presidency (but lost by a landslide – or "landscape" as Erap put it – to Joseph Erap Estrada, he had relinquished Manila to Lito, after first exacting from Atienza a pledge that his "Vice-Mayor" would retain his (Lim’s) major appointees. Lim fumes that within days of Atienza’s "take-over," all his protegés and associates in City Hall had been summarily demoted or dismissed. Sic transit etc. as the adage goes.

In high dudgeon, Fred tried a comeback in order to teach Atienza a lesson – but by then Atienza was firmly entrenched in City Hall, and, as another adage warns, "You can’t fight City Hall" . . . City Hall had a formidable budget and the power to "appoint." Fred was thrashed by Atienza in that bruising encounter.

Now, determined this time to regain City Hall (while already among the topnotchers in the Senate), the two-fisted Fred Lim is going to try again – slugging it out to regain his beloved City of Manila.

As a former Police Chief, and former Director of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), Lim earned the dual reputation of "Mr. Clean" and that of "Dirty Harry" (ala Clint Eastwood, in combatting crime and violence). You can be sure in the coming dust-up, he’ll be in there with everything he’s got.

As for who’s going to post as his Vice-Mayor, that’s still to be announced.

A third contender is already surfacing, although I don’t see him campaigning – as yet.

This is Senator Panfilo "Ping" Lacson, who, as everybody knows, came in third in the May 2004 Presidential elections, behind La Gloria and the late FPJ. If Lacson and Ronnie Poe had joined forces – who knows? Anyhow, the first confirmation that Ping is running for the mayorship came from Movie Star Cesar The Great Raid Montano – who’s no mean contender himself. Cesar told me that he’s running for Vice-Mayor (against Pacquiao) under the Lacson banner.

* * *

Coming back to yesterday’s festivities, by way of background, our association, which we proudly dubbed (hopefully not conceitedly) the Samahang Plaridel – a band of brothers (and sisters) in Media – when we set out on this adventure, has only one goal. To promote excellence in journalism in order to serve the best interests of our nation.

We registered it with Securities & Exchange Commission on October 3, 2003, with the following . . . oh well, somewhat hi-faluting statement of purposes: (1) To uphold the freedom of the press and the dignity of our journalism profession; (2) to promote camaraderie, cooperation and understanding among journalists, particularly those who have been practitioners for 20 years or more; and (3) to work for the advancement of the journalistic profession.

In a few months, it was decided that the "20 years of experience" rule be relaxed to welcome younger newspapermen, media persons and journalists into the fold. I hope in some way, our Samahang Plaridel will be able to infuse new dynamism into a calling which was in danger of sliding down into cynicism – and pessimism.

We derived our name, of course, from the nom de plume and nom de guerre chosen when he penned his revolutionary writings, by our hero of the written word, the great nationalist M. H. del Pilar. The name he selected was "Plaridel." Del Pilar so passionately believed in the principle of liberty for the Filipino that he underwent untold sacrifices in order to mobilize a Propaganda Movement for our freedom. He died penniless and starving of the killer disease of that time – tuberculosis – in Barcelona, Spain: a fighter to the very end.

"Plaridel" and our national hero, also an icon of revolutionary literature, and finally a martyr to freedom’s cause, Dr. Jose Rizal, did not always see eye to eye. Indeed, they quarreled over ideas and the composition of La Solidaridad often enough. In the end the two "broke" away from each other. Yet their hearts beat as one: that the Filipino learns to be proud of himself, and shake off the shackles of Colonial and despotic Friar rule.

We are happy as an organization, with the cooperation of Mayor Lito Atienza, to have gotten a Plaza in Manila named after "Plaridel", and erected a monument to him on that spot. However, statues are only symbolic. What is essential is what del Pilar taught us: to strive to do our best, and be our best, in the service and in the defense of our people.

We honor the writers and journalists who have gone before us to blaze the way. We stand shoulder to shoulder in the present fight.

Among the writings which inspired another of our heroes, the founder of the Katipunan, Ka Andres Bonifacio, to cry out for liberty – the Sigaw ng Pugadlawin or Balintawak (take your pick) – were the novels of the French writer Alexander Dumas. Among the revolutionary Supremo’s favorites was The Three Musketeers, which also caught my imagination in my callow schoolboy years. It was their motto which is unforgettable and has grown famous among moviegoers who enjoyed and were thrilled by four motion picture versions of the tale of the doughty, sword-flashing Musketeers: "One for all – and all for one!".

If we Filipinos, like Bonifacio, only took that pledge to heart, and made it our own, we would be a nation proud and strong.