She is being punished

Why is former President GMA not being allowed to travel? Frankly, I am mystified by the harsh treatment by the justice secretary. On the other hand, Senator Panfilo Lacson left the country despite a warrant of arrest and came back like a conquering hero. He traipsed around the world with what he claims was a legal passport issued by the DFA. The department denied it ever issued him one during his escape.

He went on a long vacation saying that he would only return when the Arroyo administration was over.

This is the same Senator Panfilo Lacson who now expresses “concern” about former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s planned overseas trip. Why? Is she under arrest? Questioned about his whereabouts when he disappeared to escape a court ruling he said he would carry his “secret” to his grave.

So the issue is not really about the former president’s illness. The issue is why GMA is being denied her constitutional right to travel while Senator Lacson goes scot free after defying a court order. I would certainly question the double standards of Secretary Leila de Lima.

The simple fact is the former president is being punished. She is not being allowed to travel because her government displeased powerful forces that would punish her when the time came. Remember that this is a president who defied all attempts to be ousted. These attempts began with the Hyatt 10’s withdrawal of support. She never got a respite since the 2004 elections.

The overt story of this campaign of vilification is because “she cheated in the elections and a tape was produced to support the allegation.” All criticisms, in one form or another, spring from that accusation which gave it a moral stamp. And yet there has been no answer to questions raised about the Smartmatic-PCOS electoral system in 2010. 

Who knows? Maybe the secret that Senator Lacson says he will carry with him to his grave has everything to do with the harsh treatment of the former president. This is worth looking into by an intrepid investigative reporter.

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A number of writers have asked the question on why the US government has refused to return the Balangiga bells despite requests from several Filipino presidents. The question came up once again when American Catholic nuns returned two small bells taken by US soldiers from a church in Meycauayan, Bulacan, 112 years ago during the Philippine-American War.

The two small bells were returned to the Philippine Consulate in Chicago by the Sisters of Mercy (SOM) in Omaha, Nebraska.

The US newspaper, Omaha World-Herald described the two bells as “connected by a hard block of black wood with a handle on top.” On it is written “taken from the Church at Meycauayan, Luzson (sic) Island after bombardment by Utah Battery (on) March 29, 1899, by P.O. Thomas Co., a battalion of engineers.”

So why are these bells being returned while the Balangiga bells are not? The bells were taken during the infamous Balangiga Massacre on Samar Island on Sept. 28,1901? It has been such an irritant between the two nations that one wonders what it means to the Americans? Two bells are kept by the 11th US Infantry Regiment at Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Another is said to be carried along by the 9th US Infantry Regimen (the infantry that raided Balangiga) wherever it is assigned. It is now in Camp Red Cloud, South Korea.

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I received a letter from Sara Soliven de Guzman about Nelson Navarro’s book on Max Soliven.

While in exile in London Max was a frequent guest. His friendship with my husband goes back to their younger days when the Pedrosa and Soliven boys played basketball together.

Our friendship deepened when Max defended the Untold Story of Imelda Marcos and myself many times in his column “By the way” in the defunct Manila Times of those years. He said members of the diplomatic corps would ask him for copies when the book was banned. He would tell them, “Do you think I am its distributor?” Distributor or not, I did give him several copies for his friends who could not get it when martial law was declared.

When he was jailed, Preciosa and his mother asked me to write the IPI (International Press Institute) to help set him free.

The book launch is on November 10, 2011 (Thursday), 11- 2 p.m. at The Manila Peninsula Hotel’s Rigodon Ballroom.

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Senator Loren Legarda’s project for a National Film Archives is laudable because as she said “Filipino-produced films and other audiovisual recordings form part of the country’s rich heritage. Filipino films not only show a glimpse of the country’s history and culture but also showcases the rich talent of Filipinos like Atang dela Rama, Gerardo de Leon, Lamberto Avellana, and Ishmael Bernal, who are among the Philippines’ National Artists for Theater and Cinema.”

If film is a huge part of our cultural and national heritage then we must start from the beginning, from the pioneer spirits who paved the way for the later films. 

The pioneers worked alone and still had to develop their audiences. Nick Deocampo in his book Cine: Spanish Influences on Early Cinema in the Philippines” writes about the time.

“It has been said before, but it must be said again in relation to our film industry that neglected, until almost too late, its history. An art form without memory is an art form that is doomed from its infancy. Time and again the Tagalog saying about looking back and moving forward had been quoted but the Filipino film industry did not seem to learn from it. “Ang hindi lumilingon sa pinanggalingan and hindi makararating sa paroroonan,” writes Deocampo.

My interest in the Filipino film industry dates back much earlier than LVN, Sampaguita Pictures or Premiere Productions. It dates back to Parlatone Hispano Filipino, a movie outfit founded by my father, Raymundo F. Navarro. He worked closely with the original Filipino producer and director, Jose Nepomuceno.

“Parlatone-Hispano-Filipino was at the forefront of the Tagalog movie industry’s efforts at breaking into the foreign market,” writes Deocampo. The first film exported under Parlatone’s foreign distribution agency in London was “Diwata ng Karagatan” that was directed by Carlos Vander Tolosa starring Rogelio de la Rosa and Mari Velez.