Who sneaked that bloody butcher's name into the 'pardon' list?

President Estrada was both shocked and surprised when he discovered that among the 500 convicts he had pardoned and ordered released in the "customary" Christmas list was the mad-dog killer, Norberto Manero Jr. This hoodlum, with two of his bloodthirsty brothers, had shot an Italian missionary down in cold blood, riddling him with 22 bullets, bashed his brains out on the ground -- and, by God, ate parts of the priest's brains!

The horrible and cruel incident took place on April 11, 1985 in Tulunan, North Cotabato. The victim was Father Tullio Favali. That cannibal-murderer Manero must have had influential friends upstairs because it took years to capture him. Once in jail, he even escaped and was retaken only after a determined manhunt. He and his brothers were sentenced to "life imprisonment." What a joke! Now, by a stroke of an unsuspecting President's pen -- that vicious Manero is free. Can we expect him to kill again? Does a leopard change its spots?

The President, who didn't know (he says) that the murderer Manero's name was on the list of those to be pardoned, has ordered a study on the option of revoking the "conditional" parole he granted Manero. What he should learn and should tell us is: Where is Manero today? He has already been released, since that foolish pardon was granted a month and a half ago, on December 16, 1999. I'm afraid he's disappeared completely and it will take the fielding of hundreds of policemen and lawmen to track him down. He must be laughing himself sick -- in his hiding place.

Who sneaked Manero's name into the magic list of hardened convicts to be set free? The officials who recommended Manero's being given liberty are not even repentant. Justice Undersecretary Ramon Liwag, who supervises the Bureau of Corrections, blandly explains that the killer had already served more than 12 years of his sentence, and therefore was "eligible" for pardon. Whaat? Twelve years for a brutally murdered Italian priest's life? Is life so cheap in this country? His brutalized victim has been dead 15 years and is dust in the grave, while Manero swaggers again in the sunlight. Think of that!

It's not only President Estrada who goofed. At least he's indignant that he was fooled. Manero, after all, was meted out a life sentence with a maximum of 40 years, but former President Fidel V. Ramos reduced his sentence to 24 years.

There's something terribly wrong with a prisons system and a Board of Pardons and Parole (BPP) which enables hardened murderers to walk free. (The two other cruel Manero brothers who participated in the grisly incident and helped kill the defenseless priest, stomping on his corpse, and helping themselves, too, to bits of his brain, are also said -- according to Department of Justice officials including BPP Executive Director Reynaldo Bayan -- to be "eligible" for parole. Susmariosep! Heaven forbid! What a travesty of justice!

This isn't the first time this writer and other columnists have attacked our stupid pardons and parole set-up. In the past few years, we've seen killers and thugs set free after just a few years in prison. This disgusting practice smacks of corruption and sleaze. And what of the witnesses who were brave enough to testify in the courtroom against those rats and homicidal maniacs? Who's going to protect them from the criminals' revenge? No wonder so many hesitate to put their own lives on the line by giving testimony and thus bring those with blood on their hands to justice. The awful truth is that there are, with our pardons and parole system so full of holes through which the goons and ghouls can easily slip through, no prison bars that can hold them for long.

What made the Manero brothers' butchery so repulsive was the fact that they weren't run-of-the-mill bandits. They were paramilitary "volunteers" or "Civilian Defense Unit" (CDU) assets -- the forerunner outfit of the CAFGUs -- brandishing government-supplied firearms. It was a hail of "government" bullets that mowed down that Italian missionary. The Maneros added a new chapter on their own book to the definition of barbarism in this country. The authorities should have locked them up and thrown away the key.

The idea of Norberto Manero Jr. getting off the hook after only a dozen years is only marginally less revolting than the bleating of DOJ and Prisons officials that there was nothing wrong in what they did. I won't ask for God's justice on these unworthy types. It would be poetic justice, though, if one of the scumbags and beasts they so blithely "released" were to gun them down in some dark alley. The gods of karma, after all, are not mocked with impunity.

As for the President, he must beware of the "snopake" and fastbreak mentality of those who cluster around him or infest the dark corners of his regime. What's sad is that he's beginning to show signs of paranoia in other things, yet his felonious underlings don't seem to fear his wrath. Let them feel it, Mr. President! Love is great, but, in the end, it is better to be feared than to be loved. Love dies. Fear lasts forever.

And, before I forget: Get Manero! He doesn't deserve to walk among the living -- and the unsuspecting. The odds are that he'll strike again.

Defense Secretary Orlando Mercado told me a few days ago that he was almost "ready" to call for international bids for equipment to modernize our armed forces. He didn't elaborate on this during our chance meeting, and I've waited in vain for the past three days for him to make an announcement on this score.

A call for bids for modern aircraft for our "planeless" Philippine Air Force and better naval vessels for our shopworn Philippine Navy is long overdue. The ongoing "war games" being carried out in conjunction with the United States military in Clark, Subic, Cavite and Palawan were earlier described by Senate President Blas Ople as designed to strengthen the morale of our military with regard to defending our national territory. I'm afraid the contrary will happen: our soldiers, pilots and navy men will be disheartened to see how much better equipped the Americans are, in contrast to their own obsolete and inadequate hardware.

What kind of a nation are we? We're forever dependent on some foreign country to "defend" our shores. The next scheduled military exercises are with the Australian forces -- which, if you count, comprise 57,000 active military (including 7,500 women) with 33,650 in reserves. And yet, the Australian air force, with 17,700 personnel is superbly equipped with tactical jet squadrons and beyond-the-horizon missile capability, while the Australian Navy with 14,300 personnel has four submarines, three modern destroyers, eight frigates, and a fleet air arm of combat helicopters. The Navy is not only a deepwater navy, but capable of operation in such desperate weather conditions as those obtaining in the Antarctic.

It's amazing how a population of only 18,871,000 Aussies, so tiny by our standards, can support such a formidable military "punch", while 75 million Filipinos can't even afford a respectable PAF, Navy and Coast Guard. We have the manpower -- but, alas, no firepower. We continue to be laughed at as the Little Orphan Annies of Asia: no bombs, only bombast; no missiles, only mistakes; no air force, only hot air.

The pity of it is that a Filipino officer, Lt. Gen. Jaime de los Santos, has just taken command of the United Nations peacekeeping forces and the UNTAET, the transitional body preparing for the independence of that strife-torn "budding" republic. We've seen brave pictures of our Filipino soldiers there donning UN patches. But what did General De los Santos bring along to Dili to back him up? Sling-shots and pea-shooters? He's flying around in "borrowed" helicopters, riding around in "borrowed" APCs, humvees and other command vehicles. The other members of his multinational force are better equipped and supplied than our own over there -- we can provide brains and bravery, and some muscle, but in a pinch we could still be outgunned by the Indonesian TNI (Tentara Nasional Indonesia) and other ABRI forces next-door in West Timor.

Make no mistake about it, there will be more trouble in East Timor. The pro-Jakarta militias and ABRI troops who killed, pillaged, burned, and set chapels and churches to the torch while massacring priests and nuns are not through yet.

In our poverty of mind, rather than matter, we've not given General De los Santos, nor -- for that matter -- our own Armed Forces of the Philippines the tools with which to work and the weapons with which to fight. We're a pauper among surrounding nations because, while sitting on a mountain of gold (as in Mt. Diwalwal), we chose to think of ourselves as paupers.

We can't "afford" a modern air force? We cannot afford NOT to have a modern air force. How can we speak of the Spratlys issue without patrolling those islets, with aircraft and competent naval quick-response vessels? Yet, we talk big. That's not a big stick we're brandishing, sadly: It's a toothpick.

The only "wars" we're capable of fighting are political. Yet, even on that domestic front, we're blowing wild.

It's heartwarming to note that the arrival of Her Majesty, Queen Sofia of Spain, represents her fourth visit to Manila. This is a confirmation that Madre España, whom our heroes like Dr. Jose Rizal both loved and fought, is determined to re-establish her presence here and recapture the love-hate relationship (more love than hate in post-Revolutionary years) that she once commanded.

My parents were among the last of the Spanish-speakers. They were the first generation of English-speakers. When my late father was a Congressman and later a National Assemblyman, the debates and privilege speeches in the chamber were bilingual, either in English or in Spanish. Solons switched seamlessly between Spanish and English in their deliberations.

There were still influential Spanish dailies in their time: La Vanguardia, belonging to the TVT group (Tribune-Vanguardia-Taliba) of the Roces family and El Debate of the DMHM group (Debate-Mabuhay-Herald-Monday Mail) of the Madrigals whose editors were Carlos P. Romulo and S.P. Lopez. In the early postwar years, there was still La Voz de Manila, which my grandfather-in-law, Don Manuel Quiogue, a colonel in the Revolution, read daily since he never learned English as a "protest" against the Americans who, he fumed, had betrayed the Revolution.

All these are gone. And yet, Spain appears determined to somehow stage a comeback.

We welcome these initiatives. Without apology to the Tagalistas, this is another avenue by which we must rediscover our roots. Three and a half centuries of our "Spanish" colonial history cannot be ignored if we, as a people, are to emerge whole. Or achieve, at last, a true sense of self-confident nationhood.

It is not a surprise, of course, to realize that Queen Sofia, who has moved "democratically" through Spanish society alongside her husband, King Juan Carlos de Borbón y Borbón, belongs to the Royal House of Greece and Hanover, not Spain. She was born in Athens (Greece) on Nov. 2, 1938, the eldest daughter of King Paul I and Queen Frederika of Greece, one of the ancient Royal Houses of Europe, related to the Czars of Russia, the Emperors (Kaisers) of Germany, and the great Queen Victoria of Britain (who spoke German to her consort, Prince Albert).

The princess, it's said, spent her childhood in Egypt and South Africa after her family fled Greece when the Nazi German forces invaded during World War II. She studied in German boarding school (Schloss Salem) but upon her return to Athens specialized in child care, music and archeology. She was even a reserve member of the Greek sailing team in the Rome Olympic Games of 1960.

She married Prince Juan Carlos on May 14, 1962. At that time, nobody dreamed her husband would be restored to the monarchy and become King of Spain. It was El Caudillo, the long-ruling Spanish dictator Generalissimo Francisco Franco, who decreed that upon his death, Prince Juan (not his father) would succeed him as "head-of-state" and become King.

Franco died slowly -- spending months in his hospital bed until his daughter courageously insisted, while fawning courtiers and Falangistas protested, on disconnecting the life-support systems and tubes which kept his prostrate body "alive."

After Franco died on November 20, 1975, Juan Carlos became King in accordance with El Caudillo's wishes. He was 37 years old, tall, good-looking -- and painfully reserved. In sum, the Prince was sensible enough never to talk while Franco ruled, and therefore became better noted, as one author put it, "for skiing than politics." He was a mystery.

Instead of being the innocent "puppet" he was thought to be, however, it was King Juan Carlos who slowly, but determinedly, moved Spain from totalitarian control to democracy, ending Spain's "isolation" in Europe by helping foster general elections to the two houses of parliament, the Cortes, in 1977.

Queen Sofia, for her part, has been active in the uplift of rural women the "care of persons with disabilities" and a foundation for help for "drug addiction." Her Reina Sofia Foundation, in fact, provided substantial sums (a major portion of its funds) for the relief of the victims of war in Bosnia.

In a number of conversations with her, I found her charming, down-to-earth and articulate.

On an earlier visit, at a dinner held in their honor in the residence of Ambassador Delfin Colomé in Makati, they were entranced by the bamboo orchestra which played beautiful tunes for them. One particular martial air caught the admiration of the Royal couple. The Queen asked me what it was. I couldn't resist a mischievous reply, which was the truth: "That is the Alerta Katipunan also known as the Rayadillo, which was the battle hymn of our Revolutionary armies when they fought Spain for independence."

This sally brought an even more appreciative twinkle to Her Majesty's eye. If I recall right, she mused: "O, I see. It's inspiring music, indeed."