Remembering the fake medals of FM

Last Thursday, an estimated P100 million in government property and highly taxable goods went up in smoke in a fire at a Cebu Port Authority (CPA) warehouse at the Cebu International Port (CIP), which was being used by the Bureau of Customs (BoC). Burned in that conflagration were 22 assorted vehicles, eight of them luxury cars, as well as 36 big bikes and some 30 container vans that hadn’t been opened yet. The 22 seized vehicles were supposed to be auctioned on the third week of August. Also gutted in that fire was some P10 million worth of medical equipment belonging to the Cebu Doctors’ University Hospital.

So the big question which fire investigators have to look into is whether this fire was accidental or the work of arsonists. While no one has yet come out in the open as to why the warehouse burned, speculations are ripe that it could be the handiwork of disgruntled Customs officials who didn’t want the seized vehicles to be auctioned. Cebu Customs district collector Ma. Lourdes Mangaoang was also recently at odds over the seizure of a container van in Mandaue City which had chop-chop vehicles inside. Was this done to embarrass her? It is an open secret that Mangaoang cannot trust the rank and file of the BoC. Perhaps, they’re still loyal to her predecessor.

Mangaoang is only a few months old in her position, replacing Billy Bibit... yes the same Billy Bibit of RAM who, during his time, boasted a record collection in the BoC, but at the same time, assorted luxury vehicles have been seen running the streets of Cebu as if a lot of Cebuanos could afford them. We wrote about that luxurious BMW C45 Coupe which bore a number "8" license plate and tasked Mr. Bibit to identify the person who brought this vehicle into the Port of Cebu, but we only got silence from him.

Incidentally, since he was booted out of the bureau, when things turned sour for President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (GMA), Bibit wasted no time in openly asking for the resignation of the President. I’m not blaming Bibit for this fire, but we can’t help but be suspicious that a fire gutted the huge Customs warehouse. Let us hope that the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) will get to the bottom of this mess.

But can we trust the NBI to resolve things related to the Bureau of Customs? A few years ago, Customs collector Edgardo "Wewe" Lao was assassinated together with his assistant at the height of the afternoon rush hour just a few meters away from the Philippine National Police (PNP) headquarters along Osmeña Boulevard, where a poor innocent bystander, a high school student, was hit by a stray bullet. Today, we still do not know who ordered the killing of Lao and it seems that the NBI has stopped investigating this crime. So forgive me if my confidence level with the NBI is at an all-time low.

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I was shocked to read the headline of The STAR last Thursday that President Arroyo was open to the idea of allowing the late dictator Ferdinand E. Marcos a hero’s burial at the Libingan ng mga Bayani. But I was glad that President Arroyo immediately placed a call to Sir Max Soliven to clarify that story... that she hasn’t struck any deal with the Marcoses regarding this issue. But while this issue may be considered a "case closed," we ought to say our piece as a reminder to Malacañang.

Let me point out that many Cebuanos supported President Arroyo in so many issues for the simple reason that we want her to succeed... after all, we put her in Malacañang. But let me say it here that we would never support any move to allow President Marcos to be buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani for the reason that if you recall, it was never proven that Marcos was a war hero.

Remember how we used to joke about the fake medals of Marcos... that they were made of tansan or softdrinks cap? Of course, back then we made those jokes in very hushed tones and the mainstream newspapers like the Daily Express never printed those stories, as they were undoubtedly sacrilegious for the Marcoses and their sacred cronies. But the so-called "mosquito press" like the Mr. & Ms. had a heyday printing those funny stories.

Remember the joke that while the Battle of Bessang Pass was raging, someone revealed that Marcos was actually in Manila, arrested by the Japanese? So how could Marcos be the hero of Bessang Pass when he wasn’t there? Of course, there was never any attempt to prove or disprove this story. But since no one could prove it, how then could anyone claim that Marcos was a war hero? For sure, at the height of Martial Law, a column like ours would certainly allow me a one-way ticket to Bicutan... it wasn’t funny to the Marcoses, but many believed those stories to be true.

We also cannot forget the story of the Maharlika, of which President Marcos was the leader. Suddenly, there were thousands of members of the Maharlika who, as the story goes, were guerrillas who registered in Escolta when the war was over. Marcos allegedly used this group to launch his political career. Again, such stories published by the "mosquito press" should have been verified, but when the Marcoses fled to Hawaii, no one really cared to dig the truth about those stories.

Meanwhile, I don’t think that the remains of Marcos should be buried at the Libingan because it would certainly dishonor the soldiers who were buried there; after all, they died fighting for their country. Even the families of our soldiers who died during the war wouldn’t want a fake hero to be buried beside their loved ones. But the fake medals of Marcos are just one issue that should prevent him from being buried at the Libingan. The other is that as President of the Philippines, Marcos threw away the great 1935 Constitution using the fake ambush of his defense secretary, Juan Ponce Enrile (Enrile admitted this as fact), to justify the declaration of Martial Law.

If a huge number of Filipinos want President Arroyo to resign because she lied in that wiretapped tapes, it just makes me wonder how the Filipino people would react if we have the embalmed remains of Marcos buried at the Libingan when he lied to the Filipino people to justify his throwing away our democratic processes. I hope we’ve heard the last of this issue!

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For e-mail responses to this article, write to [email protected]. Bobit Avila’s columns can also be accessed through www.thefreeman.com. He also hosts a weekly talk show, "Straight from the Sky," shown every Monday, at 8 p.m., only in Metro Cebu on Channel 15 of SkyCable.