Dear Ms Pedrosa (Part 2); The Eagleton example
I am sorry that your column was not published.
(Paragaph omitted)
Given that the incident happened...but under the current situation where both sides are still debating on this issue, and nobody would budge...to the public, I think this would take on the character of gossip.
I wrote, “How much can we rely on Pinoy “kantiyaw†humor...things said in anecdotal bantering of small party of friends?â€
If it is to say that one...especially one running for president... is a psycho knucklehead, then what I said about him would not amount for much — not to the passionately divided public, and certainly not in any court.
(Paragraph omitted).
An observation, that is no better than what you yourself see of Noynoy now. We happened to see the same thing in this person....and how many more do? Isn’t that something?)
(Paragraph omitted )
If the worse could happen...and from here, it looks like it is sadly happening, if we believe the RP newspapers...then you can tell the Filipinos in your column, “I TOLD YOU SO.†Then I’ll cheer on the sideline.
Thereafter, you will have a great time writing your columns for the next 6 years...if his vice-president doesn’t take over before his term ends.
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After that exchange of emails, I was invited to a press conference by a group of citizens who wanted to know more about the issue. I told them I was called by a trusted friend while I was on holiday in San Francisco to please write about it because she knew the psychiatrist in question but they were family friends and she would not breach the friendship.
It was déjà vu when I had to choose whether or not to go ahead with publishing “The Untold Story of Imelda Marcosâ€. As a journalist that was my job whatever others may feel about broken friendships. My task was to inform and hope that the right action will be taken by those who are responsible.
I was invited to join the “Citizens for the Right to Information†forum to share with them and media about my column last April 24, 2010 – The Clincher . It was wrongly reported that I was chairman of the group. I was a guest.
I went because I agree that if Noynoy has put himself up as a candidate to be President of the Philippines, voters have the right to know more his medical history, whether it refers to his mental or physical capability is very much the concern of Filipinos who will vote on May 10. “We must not allow partisans, political propagandists, agit prop to derail our right to know, †I wrote then.
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Here are some items that can be researched and worked on for the sake of Filipinos who do not want to go blindly.
“Noynoy said that he had a depression after his father was assassinated on August 21, 1983.†He also said that the psychiatrist’s family and the Aquinos were friends in Boston. He had been treated by a Dr. Agular but it was the wife who was a dentist, not the psychiatrist and that is where the discussion stopped.
Ninoy himself had asked Dr. Steve Agular to look at his son. Those who care about accurate information should do your own search instead of saying there is no entry for Agular or that there is no psychiatry department in the Newton Wellesley hospital where he worked.
As for attacks that I am a “pakawala†of his rival candidates, the same thing was said of me when I wrote the Untold Story of Imelda Marcos. I was daw the “pakawala†of the Lopezes who were allies of the Aquinos against the Marcoses.
Preemption was also at work with the two psychiatric reports when the false one was released ahead. The second one may be the more authentic but 86-year old Fr. Jaime Bulatao also denied signing it but it should be given more credence. Given other information and observations on how he talks and behaves, how he has performed (not performed is more accurate) as legislator, Ninoy was right that his son needed help. The Bulatao report also gives clues to why he behaves the way he does. The patient complained of hostility, anger and openly punitive in the interviews.
Noynoy himself had said that if he loses, he will call for people power. “The public has the right to know if the individual to whom they are entrusting their future is of sound mind and fully capable of withstanding the rigors of serving the country as its president,†said a retired lawyer who was part of the panel.
The psychologist in the panel said a person with a mental problem is never completely cured. He will act normally like any other but there remains a 20% margin that is vulnerable to stress and pressure that can activate anytime.
The call is not to condemn Noynoy as a person. The call is for the Filipinos to be informed. He must present an “authenticated medical history or undergo psychiatric tests. Well, it may be too late now because he is President but all our fears about what sort of President he will be have been confirmed and the country is in a mess. What do we do now or what can we do now constitutionally?
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The example of Senator Thomas Eagleton, the vice presidential choice of McGovern could have helped. When it was reported he was treated for depression he withdrew his candidacy voluntarily. A number of responsible people felt obliged to reveal what they knew. He could be president one day and his background should be scrutinized to the minutest detail of a president to be.
“The decision to pick Mr. Eagleton had been made without some crucial facts,†said an aide in the McGovern campaign.
“Today, one of the lasting legacies of Mr. McGovern’s choice of Mr. Eagleton — and the tumult it caused in his campaign — is the microscopic examination of the lives and records of potential vice-presidential candidates, a ritual involving teams of lawyers and consultants and reams of medical and financial records that the candidates are obligated to produce,†the report added.
A number of Eagleton’s friends knew about his health problems but they did not have definitive proof. These included members of Mr. Eagleton’s staff, political figures and reporters in Missouri, reporters for Time magazine and probably officials in the Nixon White House.
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