To Hell and back twice, but where is Heaven? - BY THE WAY by Max V. Soliven

The line being taken by the administration’s spokesmen – particularly the "newest", billed as the Presidential Impeachment Trial Defense Spokesman, Ambassador Ernie Maceda – is that the questioned "Jose Velarde" bank account in Equitable PCIBank really belongs to crony Jaime Dichaves.

As for the huge amount being bandied about, P1.2 billion, the story-line is that it is a "pooled investment", meaning that it doesn’t belong to a single individual and "certainly" not Joseph Ejercito Estrada.

That’s the Malacañang "Christmas Carol", which claims the prosecutors are chasing after the wrong Scrooge.

The same version was trotted out by the most talkative son of JEE, namely Jose Victor "JV" Ejercito, who was quoted in the banner headline article yesterday of the Inquirer. In totalitarian countries and Communist states this is referred to as the "party line." However, JV should not be the one peddling it. He’s identified as the respondent’s son, so he’s not the most credible witness, not even on whether or not dad is in "high spirits."

The second tack, as expected, is to vilify the prosecution’s star witness who dropped her "bombshell" on the very eve of the Senate trial’s holiday adjournment. The eleven-day recess has given the defense panel ample time to scrutinize Equitable PCIBank Senior Vice President Clarissa Ocampo’s explosive testimony (which is, by the way, not yet concluded) and dig into her background.

This early, defense assistant counsel Raymund "Sig" Fortun is already alleging that Ocampo is a "biased" witness, since she’s claimed to be a second-degree cousin of House prosecutor Rep. Wigberto "Bobby" Tañada of Quezon Province. Gee whiz. "Kissa" Ocampo may, indeed, be related to Tañada, but what’s that got to do with her testimony which was a report of what occurred, as witnessed personally by her, in Malacañang on February 4, 2000?

Although generally bias is a ground to impugn the testimony of a witness, in Ocampo’s case the defense panel will have to do better than hurl such an accusation. What matters is whether what Ocampo said is "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."

Gee whiz. Fidel V. Ramos was the second cousin of Ferdinand Edralin Marcos, but this did not prevent him from "rebelling" against Marcos in the EDSA People Revolution. For that matter, I’m related to Ernie Maceda, "Chavit" Singson, House Prosecutor Rep. Salacnib Baterina (1st district, Ilocos Sur), ex-President Fidel V. Ramos, Foreign Affairs Secretary Domingo "Jun" Siazon, Executive Secretary Ramon "Eki" Cardenas, the clan of Don Quintin Paredes and a host of others, good, bad and indifferent. All Ilocanos, indeed, are kind of a Kamag-anak ng Bayan. And if we hew rigidly to the Bible Story, we’re all related to Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel.

Does this make me a crazy mixed-up kid? (Don’t answer that rhetorical question: You might say, "Yes.")

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And now, let’s look at Pampanga, the home province of our Vice President-in-Waiting, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

It’s another political hot spot these days. The Office of the Solicitor-General has just submitted its 78-page comment asking the Supreme Court to reject a petition for review by Pampanga Governor Manuelito "Lito" Lapid (the Action star) of his one-year suspension from the governorship by the Office of the Ombudsman in connection with a P20-million quarrying scam in that province. His suspension was upheld by the Court of Appeals in a 3-2 decision, but he was reinstated pending a review of the case by the Supreme Court.

Elective officials, especially those belonging to the opposition, invariably claim that they are victims of political persecution by the "ruling" powers whenever they are charged with administrative or criminal offenses, despite the evidence against them. In Lapid’s case, five witnesses linked Lapid and a brother-in-law, Nestor Tadeo, to the collection of excessive quarry fees above the level authorized by law, the Court of Appeals decision had averred, with unauthorized persons issuing the "receipts."

Now that the Solicitor-General has submitted the required comment on the Lapid petition, the High Court should act with dispatch on the case, lest it be overtaken by the campaign for the next elections (in May 2001), which are less than five months away. The Justices hearing this particular case are wellknown for their probity and experience, so we can be confident that the Supreme Court will decide it on the basis of the law and the evidence on record. Those who have been insinuating that considerations other than the law and the evidence on hand might "affect" the decision, I trust, are not promoting their own private agenda.

When I hear such rumors, I’m tempted to recall that many litigants with cases pending before our courts have been suckered in the past by unscrupulous persons into shelling out "wherewithal" with which, purportedly, to influence a favorable ruling. Lapid, hopefully, won’t be suckered in this manner. Let the chips fall where they may.

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During Christmastime, priests and religious ministers in their homilies usually remind us that Jesus came to earth to save us from sin (not the Cardinal), win "heaven" for us, and preserve us from the fires of hell.

This got me to thinking yesterday. True enough, there is a town named Paradise in the United States (I can’t remember in what State) but Hell seems to be more popular. Although Bill Clinton says he came from a town called Hope, there seems to be no community named "Heaven" but some alert reader will probably correct me by pointing out a place called by that name.

All I can say is that I’ve been to Hell twice, and never, yet, found Heaven. The first time was when I was a student in the University of Michigan, in Ann Arbor. During Easter "break", some classmates took me off on an excursion by car – and, to my surprise brought me to a town called "Hell." This small town was very popular because the local Post Office had made it a roaring business to stamp all envelopes and postcards with a very colorful postmark: "HELL, Michigan."

I had a lot of fun writing postcards to friends saying: "Greetings from Hell. Wish you were here!"

A few years ago, on a trip to Norway to attend a series of briefings for Asian editors and journalists, I found my second "Hell." It was a place by the railroad tracks and we all had a hilarious time, too, getting our passports stamped by the station-master who also ran the postal station, with the place-name "HELL."

The Norwegians, to compensate no doubt, also insisted that Santa Claus really came from Norway, from a spot named Finnmark. When I told them that in 1970, driving around Finland, my wife and I had visited the hometown of Santa Claus near Finnish Lapland, a town named Rovaniemi, our Norwegian hosts were outraged. They roared that the Finns had only hijacked Santa Claus and had "commercialized" Rovaniemi shamelessly by putting up a Santa Claus house where tourists could shake hands with an ersatz "Santa" – ho, ho, ho. The Finns even had the Rovaniemi Post Office mark postcards with "Santa Claus Hometown." When I told them that, in addition, the local folk in Rovaniemi had even showed us a bunch of reindeer which ostensibly pulled Santa’s sled, including Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (his nose was really red, probably painted that way), the Norwegians were even more indignant.

Across the border in Russia, though, where Leningrad (St. Petersburg) is only a short train ride from the Finnish capital of Helsinki, the Russians call their own white-bearded version "Father Frost." Down in Antwerp, Belgium, where we spent part of the Christmas season many years ago, he was called Sinter Klaus, or St. Nicholas.

What’s in a name?

All over the world, when you travel in search of the odd and the unusual, you never have to look far. The first time I went to Moscow, it wasn’t in the Soviet Union or Russia, but Moscow, Pennsylvania. Not very far away, in the Amish section of Pennsylvania, there is a town fascinatingly named "Intercourse." Nearby is a town called "Blue Balls." (Both are very religious places.)

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Coming back to the title of this column, I confess I plagiarized it from a terrific motion picture of the 1950s, To Hell and Back. It’s still, in my estimation, one of the finest war movies ever made. It told the story of a young dirt-poor farm boy from Texas who never finished school because he had to support his widowed mother and two younger siblings, then rallied to the colors at the start of World War II. He tried to enlist in the Marines, but they rejected him because he was too puny and too short. The Navy also turned him down from the same reason, not realizing that his years handling a hunting rifle on the farm and in the woods had made him a dead shot. In desperation, he joined the Army where his fellow recruits and draftees ribbed him about being just a Boy Scout. (It’s terrible, coming from a state of tall Texans, I suppose, to be small). In any event, when his unit went to North Africa, then fought through Sicily to the Italian mainland, then through France to Germany, the young man earned not only his sergeant’s stripes, but promotion in the field to lieutenant – and even received an invitation to a scholarship in West Point (although he never got there because a serious injury in battle, which almost took his life, partially crippled him). He was sent back to the US the most decorated soldier of World War II!

The movie, as the "senior citizens" among our readers must have guessed by now, starred Audie Murphy – who played himself!

I remember the last film of Audie Murphy, who had become a popular actor in Hollywood westerns, until he died in a plane crash. I don’t exactly remember the title, but it was about a fast-drawing US Marshal, a two-gun kid. What made it memorable was that it was a re-run of the picture screened for us in the off-base BOQ (Bachelor Officers’ Quarters) in the Danang airbase during a lull in the 1968 "Tet" Offensive. (We called the beat-up former hotel in which we were billeted, "The Danang Hilton", but it didn’t rate a single star, of course). When the cowboy movie ended, and the lights came on, one correspondent in the group sarcastically remarked: "And the good guy always wins!"

To which an airman, in his crumpled fatigues, sadly muttered: "I wish that were true in real life."