A book launch all his own

During a trip to Santorini in Greece last summer, a storekeeper in one of the island’s souvenir shops asked me where I was from.

“The Philippines,” I answered proudly.

“Do you know Steve Psinakis?” he responded, just as proudly. He seemed very proud of Psinakis and wanted to know if he really was well known in the Philippines.

I grew up knowing of Steve Psinakis’ role as a member of the political opposition to the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos. But why he was so involved in the struggle against Marcos seemed Greek (pun intended) to me at the time. After EDSA, and after reading through his book A Country Not Even His Own, I more than just understood.

We are all citizens of the world, and the cause of freedom makes it easy for a  virtual stranger to lay down his life “for a country not his own,” whether it is the Philippines, Myanmar, Tibet or Senegal.

We understand why people like Mia Farrow take up the cause for the victims of the civil unrest in Darfur, miles and miles away from her homeland. For in the end, it is more than just ideology that we fight for but the basic right of every member of the human race to live in peace and harmony. In that respect, we fight under only one flag.

Now, that is not Greek to me.

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It is unusual for a foreigner to put his life on the line with such passion as Steve Psinakis did for the cause of freedom during the dark years of the Marcos martial law regime.

“I immediately fell in love with the Philippines,” Psinakis explains in the introduction to his book A Country Not Even His Own, launched recently with former President Cory Aquino as special guest.

I immediately knew that Psinakis was invaluable to the struggle for the restoration of democracy to the Philippines, because Mrs. Aquino made an effort to be at his book launching at the Rockwell. The former President is currently undergoing chemotherapy to arrest the cancer in her colon, but she made sure she was there. (The good news is Mrs. Aquino’s health is improving remarkably, according to a source close to the family. Her cancer cell count is just a little above normal and she is painting again.)

Anyway, back to the book. Psinakis loved the white sand beaches, the delicious tropical fruits, the tastes, the smells, the weather in the Philippines. “But most of all, I got to know and love the Filipinos... I felt such a natural affinity between the Greek and Filipino cultures that, almost instantly, I felt a sense of belonging. From the outset, my closest friends were Filipinos and not my fellow expats.”

But more than just a retelling of the Philippine history from 1972 to 1986, Psinakis also tells his personal love story, and it is the stuff Mexican telenovelas are made of.

An expat working for Meralco, Psinakis, who was a divorced father of two at the time, falls in love with the Meralco patriarch’s only daughter, his “crown jewel” Presy.

Don Eugenio Lopez Sr. disapproved of Steve for his only daughter and warned that if she continued seeing Psinakis, Presy would be disowned and disinherited.

“That didn’t make any difference to us,” wrote Psinakis, “We had found in each other the reason to be, the perfect other half. Neither of us would give that up for anyone or anything.”

Presy, for her part, said, “I love him (Don Eugenio) dearly and I know he’s only thinking of my happiness, but I will not allow him to become an obstacle. So until he sees how happy I really am, we’ll just have to live somewhere else... Let’s leave the Philippines.”

Steve and Presy left the Philippines for Greece, where they lived just like everybody else and were very happy.

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But it was also because of Don Eugenio, whom the couple reconciled with, that Steve and Presy moved to San Francisco. Don Eugenio lived in exile in San Francisco, and in his dying days wanted his only daughter by his side as his eldest son Geny was in prison in Manila and two other sons Oscar and Manolo were left behind in Manila. From San Francisco, Steve was very active and effective in the struggle against Marcos.

He was also witness to his father-in-law’s “painful decision not to fight the dictator head on as long as Geny was in jail.”

“From 1972 to 1974, the old man gradually submitted to all the blackmail demands of Marcos, turning over to the dictator’s people one by one all the major economic interests of the Lopez family worth hundreds of millions of dollars.”

Psinakis also writes about how his association with Ninoy Aquino (who addressed him “Hey, Greek” when he was happy and simply “Steve” when he was distressed) and his (Steve’s) very interesting meeting with Imelda Marcos in New York (which he would later write about in a book Two Terrorists Meet).

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More than a book about the end of the Marcos dictatorship, Psinakis recounts his remarkable odyssey, starting from the events that inspired him to champion democracy in the Philippines to the ensuing US reaction, including his own arrest and trial.

Published by Anvil Publishing, the book takes its title from a citation from President Cory Aquino commending Psinakis for his work in restoring human rights and democracy in the Philippines during the martial law era.

In the book’s foreword, President Aquino wrote of Psinakis, a close friend of her late husband Ninoy Aquino: “Steve’s steadfast commitment all those years to the struggle to restore democracy in the Philippines was admirable and inspirational. For him, the Filipino cause took precedence over everything else and never did he waver in making whatever sacrifices were necessary.”

Psinakis, an American of Greek descent, came to Manila to work for Meralco in 1959. He expounds on his love affair with his adopted country in the book, as well as the story of how he took up the cudgels for the Filipino employees of Meralco, which was then still American-owned.

How Psinakis waged and won his battle for more responsibility and later, higher salaries for Meralco’s Filipino managers is considered part of Meralco lore.

A Country Not Even His Own is now available in National Bookstore and other leading bookstores nationwide.

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