Gold in Basilan

Launched at the Equitable PCI Bank Tower last Thursday was Tom Stern’s first novel, Gold Fever, published by AEI Titan (9601 Wilshire Blvd., Box 1202, Beverly Hills, CA, 90210 USA).

Much of the fictional enterprise, "inspired by a true story," is set in Zamboanga and Basilan, so that its launch in Manila couldn’t have been more timely.

The presence of ARMM Governor Nur Misuari as a special guest underscored the uncanny synchronicity of the novel’s release. Topical tropical, commented another guest, apropos to current headline material.

The book had been launched in Hong Kong a couple of months back, generating such feedback as the following from South China Morning Post’s Chris Davis: "Tom Stern’s quest to find fabled gold failed, but the physician-turned-author hopes to have a Midas touch with the novel it spawned."

The "fabled gold" is of course part of the Yamashita treasure of World War II, of which the Philippine landscape is unfailingly believed to be a not-so-secret repository.

A medical professor at the University of California in Berkeley, Dr. Stern had visited the country as part of a medical mission that performed free surgery on harelipped children. Expectedly, he fell in love with the Philippines and a Filipina, and has since notched no less than fifty visits over the last couple of decades.

Early in his Philippine sojourns, back in the Marcos era, Stern embarked on a gold-mining operation in Zamboanga del Norte together with his Flipino brother-in-law. The successful mining concession had to be given up when a couple of workers were murdered and Stern’s life threatened. He then turned "to searching for the hidden stockpile of the fabled Yamashita gold." Gold fever had struck Dr. Stern.

"Aided by local guides, coded treasure maps, and some expensive tip-offs, the team mounted five expeditions in the dense jungles around the Muslim stronghold of the southern Philippines."

The gold hunt has since been placed on hold, but Stern did the next best thing: render his experience into a fictional account that may yet gain a producer’s nod to turn it into a Hollywood blockbuster.

Currently based in San Francisco, Tom is married to the beauteous Yolanda Stern, who recently headed the Federation of Philippine American Chamber of Commerce. The couple have become close friends of Misuari, and are said to have played a prominent role in having the MNLF leader and former President Fidel V. Ramos awarded a joint United Nations Peace Prize.

"I never set out to write a novel," Stern says. "My intention was to record more than 50 visits to the Philippines so my children would have a better appreciation of the colorful adventures I have been involved in."

While he humbly acknowledges that "I am not a natural writer in the sense of Larry McMurty (Lonesome Dove) or James Clavell, who craft the language and make every sentence flow," Stern has surprisingly turned up quite a page-turner with Gold Fever. And he’s obviously been bitten by another bug. He’s nearly completed a sequel, Vatican Gold, and started a third novel that harks back to a boyhood spent by the Missouri River.

Stern’s first-hand experience in the Philippines certainly serves him in good stead for his first book, which faithfully mirrors current events. Early in his fast and fluid exposition, Stern writes:

"Everyone on the Doctors Abroad team had been invited to the Presidential Ball to honor the civic organizations of Zamboanga Cty, whose citizens had worked long and hard to promote peace in their city, torn by four hundred years of Muslim-Christian conflict. After the brutal kidnapping of two dozen European scuba divers from a nearby resort in Malaysia, the Philippine army cracked down on the rebellious followers of Mohammed. The kidnappers responded by shipping two men’s heads and the breasts of three captive women to the Army. After several months of ferocious, large-scale fighting, cooler heads prevailed and a cessation of hostilities brought peace. Overjoyed by prospects of future tranquility, Muslims and Christians alike had flown the five hundred miles from Zamboanga to Manila to celebrate their achievement with the Philippine President, Maria R. Legaspi."

At the ball is where Todd Ellison, the surgeon turned adventurer, first lays eyes on Miranda Santiago, who dances a sultry tango with the uniformed Ali Ali, Zamboanga’s police chief.

Follows the rapid-fire introduction of assorted characters, so that by page 40 the reader is well-acquainted with the inevitable protagonists that compose a colorful international crew: Miranda’s dashing brother Eduardo with whom she manages a vast hacienda off Zamboanga City; an American functionary named Beecham who provides security for Ellison; the Yakuza warlord Matsumoto, son of an officer under Yamashita, who hopes to retrieve the treasure to get back at the Americans even if it starts World War III; a Malaysian-Chinese named Jacobius who maintains links with drug syndicates and can recruit Chinese mercenaries to haul the gold away for Matsumoto; an American fat cat named Reno who runs a high-class prostitution den, and the Filipino General Fidel Emperador.

And then there’s "A Muslim leader known only as ‘The Haji,’ (who) has recruited a 30,000-man Moro separatist army based on Basilan Island, just ten miles across the strait."

Of course love develops between the divorcee Todd Ellison and the prize catch that is the 23-year-old hacendera Miranda, despite Ali Ali’s own amorous intentions. And the motley cast of characters are swept up in a rising tide of violence and intrigue.

At one point Matsumoto-san and Jacobius take a train ride from Beijing to Tangshan. Again author Stern proves knowledgeable of terrain, customs and cuisine – as well the proverbial wisdom of the international carpetbagger. Nearing a port town, Jacobius asks the driver of a Mercedes limo to stop.

"He then jumped out to inspect the water, not out of some superstition but out of his wealth of business experience.

"‘Clean water, see all the fishes, government too good. No make money!’ he commented. ‘Dirty water, no can see, plenty money possible. This water good, very dirty!’"

Todd eventually deflowers Miranda on a beach, but not before she gathers fruits from a nearby jungle for "Fiesta de Amor (as) we call it in Zamboanga, the feast of love."

Todd pleads that he is hungry, "but not for food."

"‘Eat this,’ she said, slicing a mango and turning it outward, so that its shape resembled the lips of a woman’s sex. From the look in her eyes, he realized the fiesta de amor was a game; and he laughed aloud and gave the mango his most suggestive lick – eliciting a giggle from her – before he ate it and shared with her the juice that ran down their faces and necks."

Gold Fever is no potboiler but a well-crafted first novel that entertains with each page, even as it authenticates the excitement of the near-mythical tropical paradise as a virtual setting for a Survivor episode.

No tribute speaks more eloquently of the land of buried treasure and burning conflict than the following brief passage:

"Ellison felt his adrenalin pumping and quietly tried to steady his breathing. The sun-kissed land looked so idyllic, but danger lurked everywere. This was more than he’d bargained for."