When dreams become nightmares

Once again, perennial putschist former senator and retired Col. Gregorio "Gringo" Honasan is on the Wanted List as a suspect in the aborted February 24 coup plot. Ten thousand posters carrying Honasan’s photograph – as if his face were not yet so universally known – have just been distributed nationwide by the Philippine National Police.

As Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez announced the other day, pictures of Gringo and his alleged co-conspirators will be put up in public places, published in newspapers, and broadcast on television stations. It’s clear a manhunt is on again for a picaresque individual linked not only to the current state of military discontent but to the "Oakwood" Magdalo group’s mutiny in July 2003.

This is not Gringo’s only claim to "fame". As the leader of the now dissolved RAM (Rebolusyonaryong Alyansa Makabansa), Honasan was a major figure in the November 1986, July 1987 and December 1989 coup attempts against former President Cory Aquino. The last-mentioned one, in fact, came close to toppling the Cory Government.

It’s not flattering to recall that the coup attempt faltered only when the United States sent a signal that it did not welcome the coup but was supporting the Aquino Administration. It’s interesting to read the autobiography of former Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Colin Powell, who was later Secretary of State of President George W. Bush. In his book, Powell relates that the US almost did not react because Powell found difficulty making a phone call to Manila from the Pentagon. Trying to contact then Minister of Defense FVR, the Pentagon could not get through because the Americans were using an advanced digital phone system while the PLDT line in Manila was of primitive quality. Just in time, Powell and his men found an old fashioned telephone to patch his call to Manila through! That’s what happens when we don’t upgrade our technology. To think that the rise and fall of the Cory Government might have been dependent on solving a telephone glitch is appalling.

Anyway, after Gringo was arrested along with his fellow RAM boys, he was granted amnesty in 1995 by then President FVR. In that year, FVR forged a "peace of the brave" with the RAM-SFP-YOU. Honasan then run for Senator and won. He’s that charismatic and charming, which constitutes the danger of his continuing to promote a "messianic" military solution to today’s political problems.

All indications, sad to say, point to Honasan having been actively involved in promoting last month’s disturbance in the military – although, thankfully the promoters of a mutiny did not attract enough adherents to stage any credible challenge to the government.

The hostility between Honasan and La Presidenta dates back to 2001 when he was earlier charged with rebellion by GMA for being one of the alleged instigators of the May 1 "Labor Day" attack on Malacañang in which deposed President Joseph Estrada’s loyalists stormed the Palace and almost overwhelmed its gates. By golly, if that’s true, coup plotting on the part of Gringo appears to have become habitual. The warrant of arrest issued against him that May did not prevent him from being re-elected to the Senate for a short term which has since expired. This proves, although several of his own fellow RAM boys have since been denouncing him, that Honasan with his eloquence and good looks, remains a formidable figure on the national scene.

Honasan’s military pedigree, which makes him, alas, a glamorous figure to many young officers is impeccable. His father, the late Col. Ramon Honasan, whom I knew well, was the Chief of the Presidential Security Group and was constantly at the elbow of the great President Ramon Magsaysay. Dad was even more handsome than Gringo, but lacked his showbiz qualities. Col. Honasan had shot to fame as one of the Edsa People Power Revolution heroes who barricaded themselves in Camp Aguinaldo and later Camp Crame to defy the dictator Marcos. At that time the Colonel was bodyguarding his boss, former Defense Minister Johnny Ponce Enrile.

Since then his exploits came to be endowed with the mythical aura of a "warrior" hero. Gringo was pictured as the modern commando who had been wounded in combat owing to his daring, which was indeed authentic. The RAM propagandists captured the popular imagination by recalling how Gringo would parachute into battle with his pet python wrapped around his neck. During the People Power Revolt, Honasan was photographed wearing a flak-jacket emblazoned with a brace of automatic pistols, ammo-belts, while touting an UZI submachine gun: a veritable Rambo, with apologies to Sylvester Stallone.

It was even bruited about that he kept in his room an aquarium of pet piranhas (the dreaded Amazon River man-eating fish), which incidentally are banned in the Philippines. Surely to the annoyance of his wife, women were said to swoon at his feet although he preserved the image of manly virtue. As one gushing reporter explained the origins of Honasan’s nickname, quoting his own sister: "He is like Clint Eastwood in that film The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. He just sits there and bang!"

I must confess that I like Gringo. During the RAM rebellion days, we used to meet secretly, and exchange notes in which he signed himself "Sonny Boy" and called me Tito Max. I had hopes for a great political if not military future for him, being his father’s son. I guess I’ll have to call him, to borrow from Kipling: "The light that failed."

His motto in the RAM was poetic: "Our dreams will never die." Sad to say, that dream may have turned into a nightmare.

* * *

It’s good news that the long-mothballed Terminal 3 (NAIA 3) at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport is scheduled to open in two weeks time. Anyway, this is what Executive Secretary Ed Ermita announced at a press conference in Malacañang.

This jibes with the timetable given to me by DOTC Secretary Larry Mendoza, and which I reported in this corner a few weeks ago. Mendoza had informed me that the long-stalled Terminal 3 would probably be opened to coincide with GMA’s birthday in early April.

The announcement came at the very same time the Supreme Court ruled with finality that the government should pay Philippine International Air Terminals Co. (PIATCO) P3 billion before it could take over the operation of NAIA. I still think that the payment is overpriced, but what the heck. Let’s get that airport terminal going once and for all.

It has long been an embarrassment to us that we don’t have an airport terminal modern enough to compare with those in our neighborhood, like the fabulous Hong Kong Airport, Changi International Airport in Singapore, and Don Muang Airport in Thailand. Incidentally, that Thais are soon inaugurating an even more streamlined and state-of-the-art airport in Suwana Phome which is several kilometers in the opposite direction from the present Bangkok Airport. That illustrates how far behind we’ve fallen.

The new NAIA 3 is far from the dream airport terminal we had envisioned to replace the moth-eaten NAIA 1, but it will do for starters. The important thing is that we must begin.

* * *

It was a joy to learn that the topnotcher in this year’s graduating class of the Philippine Military Academy (PMA), First Class Cadet Ariel Toledo, 25, comes from our hometown of Sto. Domingo, Ilocos Sur.

This means that young Toledo will lead the rest of his 325 classmates in the PMA "Mandala" Class of 2006 and be commissioned a 2nd Lt. in the Philippine Air Force. He hails from one of our barrios, Sitio Lussuac, and his inspiring young life has already been reported in yesterday’s newspapers. At the commencement rites in Fort Del Pilar in Baguio City he will be receiving the Presidential Saber, The PMA Award for Excellence, and the Philippine Air Force Saber from President Macapagal-Arroyo.

Toledo’s performance at the PMA demonstrates to us anew that the backbone of our country’s strength lies in our little towns in which idealism and optimism in the pursuit of excellence has not yet been stifled by the cynicism which has come to pervade too many of our urban communities. From childhood, it had been Toledo’s dream to become a soldier, and he had pursued this step by step, by first joining the Cub Scouts and the Boy Scouts. I’ve always believed that the Boy Scouts (and for women, the Girl Scouts) are the greatest builders of self-reliance, concern for others, self-discipline, and endurance among our young.

If you’ll notice the first letter of Toledo’s name is typical of Sto. Domingo where most of the surnames start with a T. The Spanish priests who had originally been assigned to baptize the flock obviously had picked a letter of the alphabet for the names of the faithful in each town within the archdiocese of Nueva Cacceres. Thus, most people in Sto. Domingo carry surnames like Tadena, Tadique, Tesoro, Torralba, Tagorda, etc. Our surname of Soliven and my mother’s maiden name of Villaflor (both mom and dad came from Sto. Domingo) were among the exceptions.

In fact, our small town of less than 50,000 inhabitants has produced many of the leaders of Ilocos Sur. Most of the congressmen representing the First District of the province, indeed, have come from our town. In the old days, leadership in the province came exclusively from Vigan, the capital (originally founded by the Conquistador Juan Salcedo as Ciudad Fernandina). The Vigan folk dominated the province, considering themselves the best educated, the handsomest and, of course, the richest. It was papa who had broke the ice by challenging Vigan’s dominance in this field. He had graduated in Law from the University of the Philippines and engaged in law practice in Ilocos Sur. But soon growing tired of being paid for his legal services in vegetables, rice, corn, chickens and other commodities, felt that he might be more useful in serving the province as a Diputado in the House of Representatives.

"You can’t beat the guys from Vigan", his friends kidded him. To which my father said, "Just watch me!" What helped him win was his oratory. Having been trained by the Spanish and Filipino Jesuits of the Ateneo in their seminary in Vigan, he was fluent in both Spanish and Ilocano but had learned English only when he went to UP in Manila. There, however, he had diligently striven to improve his "Bamboo English", as his classmates had scoffed at him at his probinsyano accent. Perfecting his rhetorical skills, he had won the Quezon Gold Medal for Oratory in his final year in the State University.

Papa was a spellbinder on the entablado and soon had people coming from miles away just to listen to him. His argument was that a small town "boy" was just as good as any Vigan grandee. "Don’t we put on our pants in the same way? Or wear our shirts in the same way? Are our brains smaller than theirs?" He would jest on the platform. One of his campaign managers, Leon Pichay, had devised a catchy campaign song, "Hymno Soliven" fitting the lyrics to the rousing revolutionary tune, "Alerta Katipunan". Whenever the band started batting out that tune, the audience began applauding. He jumped over fences and conducted a person to person campaign, in a manner to be perfected by one Diosdado Macapagal many years later. Borne on the crest of almost total support from the small towns of the First District, he was swept into Congress.

He used the same tactics when he ran for a second term, this time for the National Assembly. In this campaign he defeated former Interior Secretary Elpidio Quirino by a landslide, virtually two to one. Apo Pidiong, of course, went on to become President of the Philippines years after my father died in 1943. Since then, most of our First District Congressmen have come from Sto. Domingo. First, there was Congressman Faustino Tobia. Recently, we had former Congressman Mariano Tajon. At present, on his second term, is my cousin, Congressman Salacnib Baterina.

Hurray for Sto. Domingo! Please forgive me for being a small town chauvinist.

* * *

THE ROVING EYE… I sent my secretary to the Philippine Airlines NAIA Cargo Terminal yesterday to pay Customs Duties and Tariffs on a "gift" air-flown from Mauritius, a handcrafted model sailing ship dispatched by my old friend, Mumbai business tycoon Irfan Allana, Chairman of the worldwide Allana Group of Companies. To her surprise, there was nobody from Customs to process the documents and receive payment. "Ma’m, please come back tomorrow the officer who has to sign your documents is not in the office right now," a clerk explained. "All our 700 Customs agents are out raiding 168 Mall in Divisoria!" This was confirmed herself by La Presidenta who I saw on television announcing in her speech before the Asia-Pacific Council of American Chambers of Commerce in the Makati Shangri-La that "at this moment 500 Customs agents and SWAT teams are raiding smuggling operations in Binondo." (Did GMA underestimate the number of Customs agents by 200?) Anyway, I’m glad that a genuine all out drive against smuggling which has plagued our archipelago for years is reportedly underway. Is this announcement only cosmetics? Or will the President persist in smashing the notoriously powerful smuggling syndicates no matter whom she hurts. There lies the challenge. Curbing smuggling is not the work of just one day but a war that must be waged unrelentingly, day after day. Smugglers may lie low for a period but then they come back with a vengeance. Go get them Madam President and spare no one!