If you speak Spanish, don’t forget, too, the Spanish virtues

The word from Spain is that our Presidenta has charmed Spanish parliamentarians and all she met in Madrid with her excellent command of Spanish. It’s true enough that GMA – most of us here don’t realize – grew up speaking that language. Her mother, Evangeline Macaraig Macapagal was a fanatical Hispanophile with an eye for nuance and punctillo.

Just as eloquent, it might be added parenthetically, is our Foreign Affairs Secretary Bert Romulo, who earned his Doctorate in Laws from the Universidad Central de Madrid sobresaliente.

I’m happy that on this journey, Spaniards and Pinoys alike were reminded of our heritage, our legacy from Madre España born of a common faith and four centuries of close embrace, albeit as the farflung colony of an Iberian people who found themselves trying to rule a globe-girdling empire even before they themselves had become a nation.

Several years ago, when this writer went to Buenos Aires, I was hosted by some leaders of the Senate of Argentina.

I was later to carry the personal invitation of then President Carlos Saul Menem to President Joseph Estrada to come on a state visit to Argentina. When Erap accepted, I had warned our irrepressible former Chief Executive: "Compadre, you may look somewhat Castillian, indeed like a Mexican Pancho Villa, but for Chrissakes don’t try to give any of your speeches in Spanish!"

The truth is that Erap can emote in English quite fluently, despite his efforts to denigrate Inglis-Inglis or war-war but he can’t even manage Chabacano. In any event, when we got to Santiago, Chile, where he, too, had been invited by their President, he rashly produced a speech written in Spanish. To his consternation, the lights in the banquet hall were dim and flickering, and he stumbled blindly through what must have been a floridly written address. It was a period of agony for him and all of us Pinoys in the audience. But when he concluded his bumbling performance, Estrada gave "El Presidente de la Nacion de Chile, and all the grandees and VIPs assembled, a solemn wink, and mischievously cracked: "How did you like my Spanish?"

They guffawed in appreciation and rewarded him with thunderous applause. The country bumpkin act had saved the day for Erap para sa Masa, even without his getaway jeepney.

In Buenos Aires he was more cautious and stuck to English . . . of sorts. He was even awarded by the famous Jesuit University there with a Doctorate in Humanities or whatever. When he descended the podium, his former classmates greeted him: "Now comes the hard part – to get an Ateneo High School diploma!" (He had been booted out of the Ateneo for fighting an American classmate mano-a-mano, in a slugging match quite different from the Pacquiao-Larios dust-up this Sunday).

But I digress.

Coming back to my own reception in Argentina’s Senate, I was cornered by the deputy Speaker (I think), who had been scheduled to receive me in his office for 15 minutes, but the visit turned into 45 minutes or more, because he loved to reminisce about his old friends who were Filipinos – he truly loved our people whom he viewed as "kindred Latins."

"Why did you abandon us?" The distinguished, elderly solon finally remarked. "It has done you, my hermanos, no good. Did you know? The reason my old friend the late General Carlos P. Romulo was elected President of the United Nations General Assembly is because the Philippines belonged to the Hispanic and Latin American bloc. In every UN vote, whenever our compatriots from Filipinas posed a resolution, we would all vote solid: an automatic 29 votes (today, I might say but correct my arithmetic, 32 or more)."

The Senator snorted. "What did you get when you decided you were African-Asians, or something like that. The Africans pay you no heed, the Asians vote against you or ignore you! Is it too late to come ‘home’ to us, with whom you truly belong?"

That is the question.

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Despite so many people lining up to file "impeachment" cases against her yesterday (and former Vice-President Teofisto "Tito" Guingona – susmariosep – preaching civil disobedience), La Gloria must have enjoyed her sojourn in Madrid and her visit to her friends, His Majesty King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia.

By this time, she must also have met with Prime Minister/President Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, whose Socialist PSOE Party had defeated former President Jose Ma. Aznar’s then ruling Partido Popular (and its candidate Mariano Rajoy) in a stunning upset, carried over the top by 10.903 million votes in March 14, 2004.

Just as Winston Churchill had led Britain during the war years to victory over Hitler, but had been defeated and his party turned out of power in the first postwar elections, Aznar had propelled Spain to unprecedented prosperity in his eight years in office – only to see his foes, the Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE), grab 164 seats in parliament (Congreso de los Diputados), while the Partido Popular under Aznar’s successor Rajoy, garnered only 148.

The crushing defeat was attributed to last-minute accusations of a government cover-up in the terrible Estacion Atocha bombings of four packed trains the preceding Thursday which had killed 200 commuters and gravely injured 1,500. The Basque separatist guerrillas of ETA had initially been blamed by the Aznar government, but then it surfaced Saturday that, contrary to earlier assertions, Islamic terrorists had detonated those "movil" backpacks which exploded with deadly efficiency – the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades, reputedly a branch of al-Qaeda.

The irony of the situation is that my wife, Precious, and this writer had arrived on a flight from Manila only the night before. We had been met at Barajas airport that Wednesday (March 10) by our Ambassador, Joseph Delano "Lani" Bernardo y Medina, and Jose "Pepe" Rodriguez. I had remarked when we motored into Madrid that the capital looked too peaceful and serene for a place where the election campaign was in its last few days. Everybody had expected a Partido Popular win.

The following morning, about 7:35 a.m., blasts from the nearby Atocha station rattled the windowpanes of our hotel, the Westin Palace. Three powerful bombs exploded within five minutes of each other in three districts of the city – on trains bound for the centrally located Atocha. If the terrorists had got their timing "better," they might have obliterated a hundred more people waiting on the train platforms. In any event, the victims were executives, employees, workers, students, housewives, school children – coming into the heart of the capital for work or study. The second cluster of bombs exploded at the Estacion Santa Eugenia. A third at Pozo del Tio Raimundo devastated several coaches.

On the twisted rails it was a scene from hell. Blood and body parts everywhere.

That Day of Infamy will be forever remembered.

The pity of it is that I remember the city was sunny and bright, like a clear day in early spring. Madrid was as pretty as a picture. The sky azure blue.

Inside the station, there were grisly scenes of wrecked coaches, the dead with limbs blown off, the wounded being painfully carried off, blood streaming from face and body, to clinics, aid stations and overflowing hospitals.

At the strike of 1 p.m., a nation united in grief – prayed. Everybody from folk in the street, to Cabinet members, to "everyman" bowed their heads in silent prayer for the dead, and for succor for the dying. The cadavers piled onto the floor of the Convention Center – where international fairs are usually held – right in one of Madrid’s posh districts, signalled the shocking electoral turnabout of March 14. Terrorists, it was later said, "changed" the course of a democratic election.

This must never be allowed to happen again. In our country, the alarums may sound shrill and unnecessary. But remember Madrid!

What we should emulate is the courageous way in which the Spaniards responded.

Next day, the rain in Spain fell – not on the plain – but on millions of Spaniards marching in sorrow and fury in their cities and urban centers in the wake of the tragedy.

In Madrid, an angry and determined multitude of 2.3 million demonstrators paraded, although drenched by incessant downpours, holding flickering candles under their soaked umbrellas, the Madrileños expressed their solidarity and their condemnation of terrorism.

A letter sent to an Arabic-British newspaper late Thursday night tried to claim responsibility for the outrage in the name of the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades, a branch of al-Qaeda – but few believed it then, including President (Prime Minister) Jose Ma. Aznar and Interior Minister Angel Acebes, although both were careful not to completely absolve the Muslim terrorist movement.

Friday night’s surging crowds continued to chant, "Quien ha sido?" (Who did it?) followed by a wrathful "Asesinos!" (Assassins!).

When you consider that Madrid’s population is just three million, to have 2.3 Madrilenos pouring into the streets, jamming avenues, broad boulevards, and parks – a heaving sea of umbrellas and indignant, prideful, weeping humanity – you better believe that everybody in that metropolis turned out to demonstrate.

Some cried out, "No esta lloviendo – El Cielo esta llorando!" (It is not raining – Heaven is crying!). Nothing is more poetic and steeped in passion than the Spanish language.

Marchers were cheering, "Hoy, somos todos Madrilenos! Somos todos Españoles!" (Today, we’re all Madrileños! We’re all Spaniards!"). It was an expression, from the heart, of a mounting spirit of solidarity – no more "regionalism" to split this politics-wracked nation apart.

Let me just say that to be in Spain, at this poignant moment – to witness this "coming together" to glimpse the bravery and pain, the outpouring of national spirit was to feel privileged and somehow ennobled.

All day Thursday, after coming from the carnage of Zona Cero, this writer saw thousands lining up at vans marked "Donaciones de Sangre" (blood donations) to donate blood for the wounded and the dying, as well as clinics and hospitals. Flowers and candles were being placed at the Atocha, the Pozo and Santa Eugenia stations where the "Goma Dos" explosives, in 10 different explosions, had created such havoc and gore. Prayers were being said everywhere. Volunteers were queuing up to offer their services. Taxi drivers were offering free rides to the families of the victims as they searched for their loved ones, whether still living or already dead.

It was also admirable on the part of the authorities – within hours of the tragedy – to get the trains back on track and running. A nation fighting back refusing to be cowed, vowing justice and retribution.

And Friday night, Spaniards marched. In Barcelona, Spain’s second city – where the Catalans, too, are restive – 1.3 million demonstrated in "solidarity", unity and support, sharing the grief, holding up the ideal of one Spain. They were in the streets in Valladolid, Zaragoza, Oviedo, Valencia, Sevilla, Santiago de Compostela (up north in Galicia), Santander, Toledo, Pamplona, Teruel, Alcala de Henares – a roll call of Spanish cities. Even in Bilbao, in deepest Euskadi.

I wish our own people, so divided, fault-finding and fractious, could somehow find such unity of heart and purpose, not in sorrow – but in joy. We’re called, in a survey, 7th among nations who take pride in themselves. Pinoy Pride is what brought us to Everest, to victory in the SEA Games, to win through in so many unheralded ways.

We have inherited the Spanish flaws of character. Let us, however, not forget the iron in the Hispanic soul, which was shown on the battlefield, in the conquest of new worlds, in the soul-searching of poetry and literature which characterizes its literature. Our hero, Dr. Jose Rizal hated Spanish tyranny but loved Spain.

Which is why he sought not separation from the Mother’s womb, but for Filipinos to be treated with equality and respect. Does this make him a flawed hero? The brilliant thinker, writer and Ambassador Leon Ma. Guerrero, who was more amazingly literate in his cups then in his other, lesser moments, once wrote a book calling Rizal, The First Filipino. Perhaps this is true, not in the cynical sense, but in common sense.

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THE ROVING EYE . . . Supreme Court Senior Associate Justice Reynato S. Puno has been designated Acting Chief Justice in the absence of Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban who will be traveling to Spain and the Netherlands to meet with the Chief Justices of those two countries. This ought to presage things to come. Justice Puno – I’ve known him well since his days as a student editor – is a man of probity and an intellectual "giant" of a true legal scholar. Our friend, Chief Justice Panganiban retires on December 6 this year. Need I say more. I’ll sing the glories of Justice Puno another day. On second thought: he needs no praise. His entire life and career, his masterly legal writing, speak for themselves . . . Manila Mayor Lito Atienza is being unfairly criticized owing to a totally erroneous report that he joined President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in her European trip when, in fact, he’s been here in Manila all the time. Sorry for his detractors who were too quick to disseminate false information to the public, Mayor Atienza had declined the invitation of President Macapagal-Arroyo. Of course, Atienza had every good reason to join the President and meet with Madrid Mayor Alberto Ruiz Gallardon on the planned Tribune España Filipinas to be held in October in Manila. But Atienza opted not to go due to pressure of work and his commitment to his personal friend and World Boxing Council (WBC) International Super Featherweight Champion Manny Pacquiao to be on his corner during the fight against Mexican fighter Oscar Larios at the Araneta Coliseum on Sunday. It will be recalled that Mayor Atienza was also falsely accused of having been in Las Vegas during the Pacquiao-Morales fight when the Filipino boxing champ simply thanked him on television for his unwavering support while he was being interviewed after winning the fight several months ago. The truth is that the Manila Mayor was on the job in Manila and just watched the bout in SM Megamall.