A family quarrel with a public interest

On the surface, it would seem that the saga of the Ilusorio family, chronicled by a national daily is tabloid stuff, a concession to the curiosity and propensity for gossip by the newspaper-reading public. I know members of the family on both sides. By pursuing some questions I hope that this would not be misconstrued as taking sides. Journalists ought to be chroniclers of public events and if they take on private affairs they do so with the public interest aspect in mind. This is the case of the Ilusorio family and more specifically, the circumstances of the recent death of its patriarch, Potenciano "Nanoy" Ilusorio. There are disturbing aspects of the case that need to be explained rather than be dismissed nonchalantly as a mere family quarrel. There is a public interest here and that is my concern.

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I refer to the last hours of Potenciano Ilusorio. Why was the widow and the other side of the family not notified before the body was cremated? Granted that there is a legal dispute that made notification difficult, a simple phone call made through their respective lawyers would have removed any cause for suspicion. Or if that was not desired, an autopsy by a competent and neutral party could have been resorted to before cremation. This step should have been taken especially in the light of a legal battle that centers on his mental capacity during the last few years of his life.

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The widow’s side of the family wants some questions answered. These questions have been published elsewhere. When Potenciano Ilusorio was brought to the San Juan de Dios Hospital the attending physician in the emergency room was a Dr. Ernesto Gonzales. According to their narration, Dr. Gonzales informed an assistant of the widow, a Mr. Raul Baria, that Mr. Ilusorio was already dead when he was brought to the hospital and that the attending physician"s report said the cause of death was "undetermined". Why was no post-mortem or autopsy made by the hospital despite the legal requirement to do so when the cause of death is"undetermined"? Who issued the certificate of death? These questions are all of public interest not because it might favor one side of the litigants but because there are rules to guide the behavior of members of civilized society, whether feuding or not. If these were not done satisfactorily, then the authorities concerned have been remiss in their job and should be held liable.

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To be fair, this column also talked to the other side to get their version of events. Their answer was simple. The cremation was not done in haste. It was done according to the wishes of their father in a codicil that instructed them to have his body cremated within 24 hours. He wished, a daughter said, that if they had fought about his wealth, they would not fight about his body when he died. (The ashes have been divided between the feuding factions into two urns). The trouble is Potenciano Ilusorio is dead and can no longer speak for himself. The public concern is that the truth be known on what he really wanted, about the circumstances of his death and that the authorities concerned did their job to protect the rights of all the individuals concerned.

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New politics. The way I understand it, there is not one way of interpreting "new politics" as there is also not one way of describing "traditional politics". The misunderstanding arises when "new politics" is made to describe a preference for a particular way of doing things. For example, Joe de V is criticized for being pragmatic. As far as I know, to be pragmatic is to be practical and it is defined in Webster"s Unabridged Dictionary as being skilled in affairs and business. As such, a pragmatic politician cannot be said to belong to the old precisely because he is pragmatic. It would mean necessarily that he is sensitive to his immediate environment and present circumstances and how these can help attain his end.

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In the speakership contest, Joe de V had to muster at least 130 votes if he were to succeed. Since his own party, the Lakas-NUCD-UMDP had only 86 votes, he needed at least 48 more votes. Pragmatism led him to first secure the highest number at the quickest possible time in order to catch the small groupings, being also pragmatic, would cast their vote only to a winner. Because he is a seasoned politician, Joe de V covered all flanks in his campaign for the speakership. It was not one group against the other. He went for all the votes he could get at the same time. He denies any quid pro quo with NPC or that the PPC has broken up because of the speakership contest since most of the smaller parties within the coalition – i.e., Aksiyon Democratiko, Promdi, etc. – had pledged their votes to him. It would be fair to suspend judgment on how he will manage Congress to ensure the passage of the legislation for the Arroyo government.

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It may be a paradox but no new politics is ever without some element of the old. Just because we want reforms in politics, it does not mean eliminating everything that pertains to the old, if even that is possible or indeed desirable. That applies to most things, not only to politics, unless we want to begin from ground zero. That is what happened in Cambodia when Pol Pot and his cohorts wanted to remake Cambodian society.

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My e-mail: [email protected]