The saga of Rosebud

"The struggle of humanity against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting." – Milan Kunders, Czech novelist

A hush fell upon the more than 600 people gathered at the Ateneo high school covered courts as her name was called. Mary Ong stood up, carefully placed her black bag on her seat and slowly approached the stage. There was confidence in her stride, and a perceptible glow in her eyes.

Mary surveyed the audience. She looked behind her, thinking. Then she read aloud the word emblazoned boldly on the banner that adorned the stage.

"Katotohanan," she intoned. "This is exactly the word that made me decide to risk my life as early as two years ago. I wanted katotohanan –the truth–to come out."

The audience, composed mostly of professionals and leaders of non-government organizations, hung on to Mary’s every word. They had been there all day, discussing ways to prevent so-called narco-politics from taking over the country. And the woman in front of them had virtually begun the war they wanted to wage.

Mary went on to relate, in the most concise way she could, her experience with the illegal drug trade. She began a sordid tale of love, crime, double-cross, kidnap and murder. It was a synthesis of what she had told the nation through the series of televised Senate hearings over the past weeks.

"I’ve been with these men for five years," she said, referring to the police officers whom she accuses of committing criminal activities related to illegal drugs. "But I parted ways with them when they began to abduct people, get their money, seize the drugs, then sell them."

She recalled several victims she had met in person, two of whom were sent to the province to be killed. According to her, their bodies were chopped and burned, and their bones crushed to leave no evidence.

These incidents, sad to say, was committed by a group headed by one man. He used to be very close to Mary. "He was the man I loved," she said, her voice quivering, she on the verge of tears.

The foregoing is a glimpse of the newest real-life telenovela Filipinos are engrossed with these days. The protagonist, Mary Ong, more popularly known as Rosebud, has appeared in numerous talk shows, revealing every teeny-weeny detail of her affair gone sour, shedding probably a bucket of tears in public as she narrates the abuses, the torture, the heartaches and the frustration she experienced.

Still, not everyone is convinced that Mary Ong is telling the truth.

I first met Mary in her final months as secret agent for the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force (paoctf). It was late 1998 and I was then an investigative reporter of The Philippine Star. I had noticed the proliferation of illegal drugs, particularly shabu, and, as a journalist, I felt I had to do something.

I remembered what Rod Reyes, Joseph Estrada’s press secretary, did as a young reporter of the old Manila Times. He posed as an addict to penetrate a drug den in Tondo and his exposé made the nation’s leaders admit a problem they had been denying and sweeping under the rug all those years –the problem of illegal drugs.

Reyes did not get his story all by his lonesome, though. He had an "insider", a certified drug addict wanting to reform, by his side. The addict served as his teacher, his guide to the dark world, the one who protected him when trouble came.

I asked around for such a man. I approached different people, including Gen. Roberto Lastimoso, then chief of the Philippine National Police (pnp). He looked me in the eye and said, "Sigurado ka ba sa gusto mong gawin? It’s a dangerous world you are planning to enter. You have a family now. You may not come out alive."

Lastimoso was not kidding; he expressed genuine concern. But he may have sensed my determination for he told me that I had come to him at an opportune time: he had just met with someone whom he considered capable of providing the assistance I needed.

He also warned me, however, that the person he would be introducing to me was an experienced "double agent", someone who had worked for both law enforcers and criminal syndicates for years without being caught. "This person has an uncanny talent in convincing people," he said. "Kilatisin mong mabuti. Huwag kang basta-basta maniniwala. Baka pakawala lang yan ng sindikato para malaman ang operations ng pnp. Mahirap na baka mapaikot lang niya ang ulo natin."

I asked Lastimoso for the name of the man he wanted me to meet. "It’s not a man," he said. "It’s a woman."

I was intrigued. A woman, I repeated to myself. A woman working as a secret agent. I couldn’t wait to meet her.Lastimoso, through an aide, set up a meeting with Mary. She chose the place, an Italian restaurant at the Robinson’s mall in Ermita. I arrived 30 minutes early, curious about this lady secret agent. Lastimoso’s aide had told me that Mary was a businesswoman by profession, already in her 40s, with two sons, separated from her husband. She had also just broken up with a lover who is a police colonel.

The image of Mary that I toyed with in my mind as I sat inside the restaurant was that of a middle-aged, typically Chinese woman who probably looks like my mother.

A lady in a dark blue blazer and mini-skirt, black high-heeled shoes and a signature handbag entered the restaurant and approached the receptionist, who pointed in my direction.

I couldn’t believe my eyes when she approached. "Mr. Ocampo?" she asked. This was not the secret agent I expected.

We shook hands and began a conversation which, to my surprise, turned out to be one of the most interesting I had had in years. Mary indeed was excellent at relating to people. She didn’t only talk–she asked questions. And she didn’t only listen–she took notes.

That first meeting became the start of a friendship. She would beep me or call me on my cell phone, visit me at the office, invite me for lunch, merienda or dinner. She took me to Binondo, to Benavidez Street where she grew up and where she was holding office, to her house in Concord Subdivision in Parañaque, and even to the hotel which she frequented for ballroom dancing. She introduced me to her friends, to her brothers, to her parents, to her sons, and even to Borris, her 200-pound rottweiler who, despite my almost weekly visits, still continued to distrust me.

I talked with Mary numerous times for four months before I came up with a story. She’d cry whenever she felt helpless, and all I could offer her was my prayers. My story came out in two parts but it nary had an effect. The bombshell I was expecting turned out to be a dud. In hindsight, I realize that my story lacked the ingredient to arouse the interest of the nation. Because Mary was then afraid to expose herself, my story didn’t have a protanogist or a bida; all it contained were villains or contrabida.

And who is this bida fast becoming an inspiration to women in this country? Mary never thought she’d come this far. All her life Mary only wanted to be a good businesswoman. Never in her wildest imagination did she think of herself as a secret agent, much less a celebrity or a heroine.

She was born the second child of Buan Ong and Ogay Lee Chua, both natives of mainland China who migrated to the Philippines when they were young. Her mother, Ogay Lee, is known as Dolores to many. She had been wishing for a daughter ever since she married Buan Ong, a man ten years her senior. But her first child was a boy. She conceived again a year later, and this time she got her wish. She named the girl Mei Li, Chinese for beautiful.

The Ongs were not an affluent family. Buan Ong was a small-time businessman who had an auto supply shop on the ground floor of the two-story wooden house he was renting. His wife and children lived upstairs.

But Buan and Dolores Ong wanted their children to have a good education, something they spent heavily for. Unfortunately, of their three children, only Mary showed a knack for studying. Hence she was the only child who was sent to an expensive school.

Mary spent elementary and high school at the Immaculate Concepcion Academy in San Juan. Daily, she hitched a ride with a well-off classmate who also lived in Chinatown. She was a conscientious student who usually stayed up till the wee hours reading books and writing notes. And she had an amazing memory, a gift that made her the unofficial record-keeper of her class, both in high school and in college at the University of Sto. Tomas where she majored in Economics.

Mary, to this day, still keeps volumes of records. This fondness for record-keeping is the reason she was tapped by the bosses of the infamous Binondo Central Bank (bcb) in the early 1980s. She proved to be worthy of the bcb lords’ trust and she was made to handle dollar operations, delivering millions of greenbacks to Hong Kong and China.

Her work at the bcb made Mary a master in the art of dealing with her fellow Chinese. But it cost her her marriage. Her husband, a dentist three years her junior, became insecure with her success at work and began beating her. While pregnant with their second son, Mary received the worst beating from her husband. She packed her bags, returned to her parents and had her marriage annulled.

Mary continued her work at the bcb. In 1993, she met John Campos, then a fast-rising police officer doing spy work on drug syndicates. She fell in love with him and soon John moved in to her house where they lived like husband and wife.

Mary and John made a good team, not only because both of them are good-looking but because they completely trusted each other. It was John who first gave her the nickname Rosebud, an alias she first disliked. It was also John who introduced Mary to the ranking officers of the police force. In return, Mary used connections with various drug syndicates to enable John and his men to come up with big-time drug busts.

But even such perfect partnerships do not last. As millions already know, Mary and John’s love story, with all the elements of bestselling novels, did not have a happy ending.

Mary became emotional as she continued with her speech at the Ateneo. She lamented that no one dared to help her when she first came out to expose what she knew.

"I was angry at the Lord because He didn’t help me either," she said. "But that was two years ago. I have realized that the Lord works in very wondrous ways."

Mary says she considers herself a tool of God in warning the people of this country about the dangers of illegal drugs. "My crusade is not a personal crusade," she stresses. "When I saw policemen selling drugs, I said I wouldn’t forgive myself if I didn’t come out with the truth. This concerns our country, our children and the youth of today."

The saga of Mary Ong continues. And the nation waits as the truth– katotohanan–is slowly unveiled.