Let’s get out of our paranoia

One description of paranoia is the inability to get out of a certain mood or mode of behavior. There is a sense of stuckness and inability to resume other activities requiring different thoughts and feelings. In that sense the country can be said to be in a state of paranoia. We are stuck with the thoughts, feelings, moods, engendered by the response to the political debacle that was Erap. It is time now to take hold of ourselves. Erap is gone. The Arroyo government is not the Erap government. It will have its frailties but if it is to overcome these frailties it needs as much help from us, the citizenry. I hope that the Rodrigo letter will be the last we’ll hear of l’affaire Mikey. The country simply cannot afford the bickering. Those who want to pursue the case, please use the anteroom. The main room is reserved for those with more productive activities – helping to fulfill the promises of the President Arroyo’s SONA for one, should occupy everybody’s mind. She has asked for a year to bring the ship to shore. Let us give it to her.

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Military plot just is not true. I don’t know where it is coming from but talk is rife once again about alleged military restlessness. Funny but when I talk to real military men they seem more surprised than pleased that some civilians seem to know better what the military is about. I realize that a coup plotter will not tell you if he were in on a plot. But a very relaxed retired general said to me at lunch the other day, ‘It is just not true’ I believe him. More likely this is the fancy of some disgruntled civilians who are out in the cold. What is true is that the Philippine military can be just proud of the restraint and discipline that was exercised in both EDSAs.

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Heroic aspect of the military role in EDSA. On that score the military in other countries with similar political problems as the Philippines were too fragile to resist the temptation to take power. That was not the case with the Philippine military. Those in charge of their public image should have played up that near heroic aspect of men with guns refusing to take these up even when civilians are practically pushing them to use force to take over the government. As if force would set this country right.

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A military takeover will be disastrous. These civilians who are egging the military should take deep breaths and think hard of the folly of their actions. On the contrary, any use of force at this time will only set the country back. We are already seeing a transition that will discard the bad elements of governance, perhaps not as fast as we might wish but we will get there with a bit more patience and good sense. If there are people contemplating another EDSA "because anyway the Arroyos are just as corrupt as the Estradas", please perish the thought. It just isn’t so and you know it. If all that Estrada was was to be corrupt, he would still be in Malacañang. Estrada and his cohorts were not just corrupt (receiving bribery and the like) but corrupt to a point that would have brought this country down and delivered into the hands of the most fearsome criminal elements (drugs, money laundering, protection rackets at the very highest rungs of government).

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Open skies. Political bickering is taking its toll in occupying our time and misusing our efforts when we should be on full steam ahead. While we are busy wrangling with each other, we have failed to implement the open skies agreement with the US for the past years. Who is in charge here? The implementation has been postponed thrice and if we are lucky we may be ready to implement by 2003. Open skies means a bilateral agreement between the two countries that would give both the same opportunities and access to each other’s markets. According to a statement released by the lobby group, Freedom to Fly Coalition, the delay has left the Philippines behind. Countries that have already liberalized their air access are reaping the benefits of their bilateral open skies agreements. In fact other countries are already talking about not just open skies to the US but multilateral open skies. "This presents new opportunities with our neighbors in ASEAN and partners in APEC and the like. They are lining up to join in this move – are we again going to be the last one in line?" the group asks as it attempts to persuade the public to rally behind their open skies advocacy.

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A family friend intercedes for Nanoy Ilusorio. It was my former classmate and good friend, Sonia Habana Rodriguez who introduced me to Nanoy Ilusorio. I had just come from political exile and it seemed unthinkable that a Marcos crony, especially that it was he who introduced Dovie Beams to Marcos and thereby precipitated Imelda’s wild extravagance in the twilight of the regime. But I did get to know him better through Sonia and saw other aspects of the man other than one who was a Marcos crony. Please, could I say a good word for him, she begged.

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Two weeks ago I had written on the public interest aspect of the case and the issue of whether the law was followed, especially during the last moments of Ilusorio, remains a concern. I hope that the authorities concerned, in this case General Wycoco and the NBI will be able to release the results of their investigation on the last days of the Ilusorio patriarch. I believe that this is the last thorn to be removed if a reconciliation is to be attempted. To preserve public interest does not preclude wishing, like most of their friends, that the two sides of the family would come together. It only means putting truth above all.

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Sonia pointed out to me that perhaps I might print some words from Bishop Escaler’s eulogy to help the family reconcile. Here are the paragraphs from Bishop Escaler’s speech that might begin the healing.

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"I know in my own way that Nanoy died in peace because he tried to make up in the last few years of his life whatever he had failed to do so as a father, as a husband as a businessman. And in that process there was in fact a sense of peace over him and then in difficult times he would come to ask why has it come to all these. When can the family get together again. I think one message he leaves for Nena and her children is: "Go to God and cast aside all differences. He alone can decide the truth. As I have told you, whatever riches or wealth I have, I cannot take along with me. It is just my time to lie in the ground. Only ashes remain. But I know my soul lives and all the things that really matter is that God knows that I am at peace with Him. So let us now, in all charity, forgive Nanoy for his frailties and let us now make up for the suffering we may have made him undergo in the last four or five years of his life.

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It was Nena herself, widow and mother who narrated to me how during that mass she crossed the aisle and walked up to her children and embraced each of them when the priest (was it Bishop Escaler?) asked the audience to make the sign of peace.

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