Don’t believe what malicious ‘text’ bullshitters say

There’s a text message that went all over the place yesterday which sounded so credible that enterprising journalists even tried to contact any "sources" they could tap in the US Embassy to verify it. (Of course, they didn’t trust Philippine government sources – since it is the usual knee-jerk reaction in our media to reject administration statements and protestations).

The Americans, it being a Sunday, were either out of touch, out of town, or discreetly non-committal (they seldom confirm or deny anything, since our press also discounts any American confirmations or denials – whatta situation).

Here’s how the amazingly well-circulated text message went, verbatim: "PLS PASS TO THE MEDIA. Urgent. Gen. Esperon upon orders of GMA sacked Col. Henares of JAGO. Henares is investigating the alleged mutiny of Gen. Danny Lim, Scout Rangers & Marines, Henares recommended the dismissal of the mutiny case for lack of evidence. Esperon got mad and removed Henares, a righteous man from JAGO. The Henares report was sent to U.S. Embassy by concerned officers. AFP is on red alert."

By golly, a couple of people rang me up about it. I checked with some others, and they, too, had received the same text "message."

The trouble was that Armed Forces Chief of Staff, Gen. Hermogenes Esperon, Jr., could not be reached immediately for comment.

I finally got through to him through his cellphone at 6:30 p.m. yesterday evening, and Jun Esperon snorted, then laughed. He informed me that he, too, had been made aware of the weird text going around, and assured me: "There is no Henares in JAGO, there never was even in the past to my knowledge, and that so-called ‘dismissal’ of the mutiny case allegation ‘for lack of evidence’ is nonsense. I still have not received the Pre-Trial Investigation Report from Col. Al Perreras – the officer who is really undertaking it – but I expect it within the week."

Esperon said that when he gets the Report and it is so warranted, he will immediately order a GCM (General Court Martial) to resolve the Danny Lim issue and the cases of the others accused of mutiny." He stated that a GCM would be held in Camp Aguinaldo.

* * *

JAGO, but you know that already, means "Judge Advocate General", the military office which undertakes all legal matters.

My late father, Benito T. Soliven, then a Major in the battle of Bataan, had been promoted from Captain in the field, and being an Assemblyman and experienced trial lawyer himself, was assigned to be JAGO.

Those were more dangerous times, since our troops and the American USAFFE were fighting the Japanese on that peninsula. A JAGO court-martial of any officers or men caught deserting the lines in the heat of combat, or attempting to flee their posts, usually concluded with the sentence of "death by musketry", i.e. execution by firing squad.

Papa, when he was finally released by the Japanese from Prisoner of-war camp (O’Donnell in Capas, Tarlac), emaciated and dying of malaria, told us that in trying "deserters" he would give the boys a "second chance", enjoining them to go back and die with honor for their country.

Second-time offenders were, of course (he added) shot immediately with the scorn they deserved for being cowards.

"Above all things," dad remarked, "when an army is in battle, discipline and loyalty to your comrades must be upheld."

The statues of dad in our hometown of Sto. Domingo, Ilocos Sur, and in Plaza Burgos in Vigan (across from McDonald’s so viewers can wolf down hamburgers and junk food while contemplating it) portray him in military uniform – of which we’re proud.

The town of Benito Soliven in Isabela is also named in his honor.

He died at only 44 because he volunteered to fight the invading Japanese, leaving behind a 33-year old widow and nine young children.

His story is not unique in our country. There were many like him during our time of testing when war came to our country in December 1941. Almost the entire ROTC cadet corps of the Ateneo de Manila, for example, young teenagers, volunteered to fight. Sure, they loved basketball, football, and sports like kids today do, but their country’s need was foremost in their agenda. One of them, the only son of his parents, indeed fought in Bataan and barely survived the Death March. However, he was able to realize his boyhood dream of becoming a Jesuit priest. Father Eddie Olaguer, S.J. was one of our coaches in high school elocution, a brilliant professor, theologian, and an inspiration to his students. Alas, plagued by deteriorating health, he died early, never having recovered from his ordeal in Bataan and the privations of prison camp.

What we need in this uncertain period is a resurrection of the pride and courage that pre-war generation, from teens to adults, demonstrated. There was no complication or rhetoric attached to their patriotism. They simply felt that it was their duty to sacrifice themselves (and, in the case of the young men who perished in the struggle, give up all their tomorrows) so our nation might endure.

In the context of our cynical and materialistic times they would have been called suckers.

* * *

I know it will be painful for those who took the nursing examinations to be compelled to retake them – especially for the ones who, deservedly, were topnotchers. I notice that the hot potato of having to "decide" on the matter has been thrown into the lap of Labor and Employment Secretary Arturo Brion – and if he says "must do" it will make him unpopular. But bite the bullet he must. And, if he feels it has to be done, Brion, a brave man and true, will so decide.

As for myself, since I’m unpopular enough for things I’ve written anyway, I believe that there’s no way out for our nursing graduates of the present crop but to retake those qualifying exams. Otherwise, no matter how innocent they may be of having had to pass owing to leaked test questions, they will be unemployable. In short, no hospitals here, or prospective employers abroad, will give contracts or jobs to nurses under the cloud of suspicion – which, sad to say, overhangs everybody of the current dispensation.

Those who rushed to take their oaths to beat the imposition of legal sanctions are fooling themselves if they think that the certificates they received will be respected by institutions and hospitals in search of trained nurses.

Sorry. For the sins of the tiny few, the vast majority are now suffering the opprobrium of uncertainty over their genuine qualifications. If you ask me, we deserve our pain and embarrassment. Too many third-rate, badly set-up "nursing schools" sprouted in a mad rush to cash in on the worldwide demand for Filipino nurses. And our government, for example the Commission on Higher Education (CHED), did not crack down on those fly-by-night outfits – probably because their owners and operators were well-connected.

There is no substitute for quality and dedication to excellence in education. Our penchant to accept mediocrity, indeed thrive on it, has unfortunately caught up with us.

The exam scandal has severely damaged the reputation of our nurses both here and abroad – hopefully, not beyond repair.

* * *

We arrived Saturday night, about 7:50 p.m. from Shanghai. The Philippine Airlines Airbus A-320-300 (PR 337) made the trip in just three hours ten minutes, depositing its passengers smoothly at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport. What’s impressive was that at the PAL NAIA Centennial Terminal, the luggage was coming off the carousel within ten minutes – in short, just as the arrivals were getting through Passport Control in the arrival area.

Exiting the airport terminal, on the other hand, what we saw was an area of darkness and blight. Sanamagan. No wonder investors are turned off almost as soon as they step off their aircraft and exit the terminal into the wasteland of Metro Manila.

Coming from magnificently-lit Shanghai and Pudong, and the glitzy, spacious terminal building of the Pudong International Airport, even returning Pinoys like myself experience "culture shock."

Believe you me, in the 1950s up to the early 1990s, Shanghai was extremely primitive. The only impressive structures were on The Bund (named after the Indian word, "bund" for "embankment") built by the Western Imperialists, as well as the mansions in the French and other foreign concessions. The rest of the place was composed of Shikumen homes – compounds which, while middle class, were dowdy and trash-littered, then the shacks and huts of the poor.

The city’s airport when our group of journalists first arrived in Shanghai in 1964 (when travel to "Communist countries" was still prohibited by our government and thus stamped with that warning on our passports), the airport was a ramshackle joke. You could even see the women squatting in the toilet, since the wall to the Ladies’ Room was full of gashes and holes. The toilets were smelly and dirty.

In the downtown section, sewage ran openly in the gutters.

Now, look at Shanghai – plus Pudong, a city which magically went up only in the past five or six years, with the Jinmao Tower in the Lujiazui Finance and Trade Zone, the tallest building, dominating the scene. That skyscraper boasts 88 storeys (the Chinese magic number for infinite prosperity), with the Grand Hyatt hotel occupying its higher stories above 54.

The Hyatt has 555 rooms and suites, and its most marvelous view is from the Cloud Nine Bar on the 56th floor, with its atrium ceiling soaring up 31 stories. From the 54th floor Japanese restaurant, Kobachi, you can admire the night-time scene of neon-ablaze Shanghai, with the Pearl TV Tower sticking its lighted finger 468 meters high – exactly as you may have seen it in Tom Cruise’s "Mission Impossible III" movie epic in which he rapelled amazingly from one building to another ala-space-age Tarzan.

Pudong, which occupies 523 sq. km. and consists of the entire eastern bank of the Huang Pu river (with Shanghai’s Bund glittering on the opposite bank) was started about the year 2000. Now, it sparkles with the most avant garde architecture in Asia – I daresay in the entire world. Which just goes to show that fields, squatter towns, and swamp can be transformed into a 21st century metropolis in just six years – and that we, too, can do it. But we won’t – because of lack of political will, graft and corruption, and the TROs of aggressive lawyers, NGOs, and assorted interest groups out to preserve their selfish prerogatives and interests.

Summing up, when we emerged from the airport, we found ourselves not "in the Second World," a status GMA recently claimed we had achieved, but in less than the Third World – in truth, the Congo in Africa is reportedly shooting ahead of us despite its civil wars and troubles.

When will we get our act together? Not soon, I fear. Politics, politics, and more politics get in the way of progress. And selfishness, laziness, and avarice. Charles Derbyshire, the translator of Jose Rizal’s first novel, "Noli me Tangere" called the Rizal book, "The Reign of Greed."

This is still true of today. Greed reigns and holds us back from redeeming the promise of nationhood.