Exile yardstick

“By their exiles, you will know them”. This is the updated maxim on knowing a tree from its fruits. It anchors Inquirer Amando Doronila's historical context for the National Bureau of Investigation riffling through Rodolfo Lozada's offices.

“It wasn't a raid” on the key witness in the $329-million national broadband scandal, insists NBI's Allan Contado. NBI asked for “certified true copies of certain documents”. Agent Marlon Tauli “was unarmed.” If an agent's pea-shooter is holstered, is a search warrant superfluous?

“It was a raid,” Lozada protested. No one asked leave to burrow through his papers. His faceless escorts haven't returned his laptop. Nor did they ask if he wanted to tour Dasmarinas and Los Banos, after his return from abroad. As in Orwell's “1984”, lies parade as truth. “Kidnap” is peddled as “protection”.

The NBI “isn't searching for evidence against officials close to the Palace, like former Commission on Elections Chair Benjamin Abalos”, Doronila adds. Wasn't this gentleman shushed to “moderate greed”? Selective slamming shows there are no “sacred cows” in government, Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita insists. He didn't blink.

“That men do not learn very much from lessons of history is the most important lesson history teaches,” Aldous Huxley wrote. Thus, Doronila gave a tutorial on the May 1972 NBI raid on Constitutional Convention delegate Eduardo Quintero's home.

The ex-ambassador stunned 319 delegates by revealing that Malacañang ladled P11,150 inside 18 envelopes on 18 different occasions. That was to lock in his vote for a parliamentary system. Ferdinand Marcos could then coast beyond 1973. (House Resolution 40 of 1997, to favor Fidel Ramos, and People's Initiative of 2007, to benefit Gloria Macapagal Arroyo reincarnated these aborted bids)

At the Philippine Mission to the UN, on East 66, New York City , I came to know – and respect – Quintero for self-effacing integrity. Years later, we met at the constitutional convention. Tensions were surging after Palace partisans spiked a petition that barred these from seeking the presidency: the sitting president (Marcos) former presidents, spouses (read: Imelda), plus relatives up to the fourth degree of consanguinity.

As an old friend, Quintero showed me the text of his denunciation. He marked the envelopes, stashed in a bank deposit box. These enabled me to write the Quintero story for the pre-martial law Manila Times. Working on the desk that night, the late Eddie Monteclaro edited the story.

In following uproar, “NBI agents raided Quintero's home and seized a suitcase filled with P379,200 in cash,” Doronila recalls. “Marcos denounced Quintero… and accused him of treason. Marcos vowed: “I will not rest until I have unmasked this pretender…”

As threats multiplied, Quintero retreated to his modest Tacloban family home. Committee on Privileges officials borrowed the Manila Times “Newsboy” plane to visit Quintero. And 15 minutes into the flight, Times publisher Chino Roces' voice crackled over the radio: “We have reports that Kokoy (Benjamin Romualdez) is all over the place. Watch it.”

Testifying before the Fraser committee, at the US Congress, Marcos aide Primitivo Mijares – later salvaged with his son – admitted he was among those tasked to smear Quintero. That strain was clear on the old man. His shoulders sagged. And he could barely keep his eyes open as Committee members pressed for his return to Manila – and Marcos pressures.

“Persecution drove Quintero to self-exile in the United States where, in December 1984, he died of heart attack at age 84,” Doronila adds. “He was vindicated by the Supreme Court in 1988, four years after his death.”

“By their exiles, you shall know them”. Exiles then included: Benigno and Corazon Aquino, Raul Mangalpus, Eugenio Lopez, Jr, Sergio Osmena, Herherson Alvarez, human rights lawyer Juan Quijano, Quintin Yuyitung – and yes, Eddie Monteclaro

Charito Planas slipped out the backdoor, to Sabah , disguised as a nun. Australia opened doors for journalist-painter Alfred Roces. “The Age” newspaper in Melbourne gave sanctuary for Amando Doronila and family.

“I know how men, in exile, feed on dreams,” Aeschylus wrote. Look at exiles that the Marcos, Estrada and Macapagal-Arroyo regimes tossed up.

Gen. Fabian Ver squeezed into exile helicopter bucket seats with businessman Eduardo Cojuangco and Co. Herminio Disni huddles in Austria for brokering the notorious Bataan nuclear plant. Police officials Michael Ray Aquino and Cesar Mancao ran before they could be asked about the mastermind in salvaging of publicist Salvador “Bobby” Dacer and his driver.

To avoid testifying on kickbacks, Estrada auditor Yolanda Ricaforte left no forwarding address. Neither did members of Erap's “midnight cabinet: Jaime Dichavez, Dante Tan & Co. Agriculture undersecretary Joc-joc Bolante skipped town to dodge questions on the fertilizer scam “By their exiles, you shall know them”.

This historical record weighs on jiggling of once-static political seismographs. “Cut Clean” is a calibrated statement, by 54 cabinet members, to Secretaries Joselito Atienza and Romulo Neri. “People have set aside their former paralysis…and started to do something,” notes Inquirer's Manuel Quezon. Trapos and communists, scrubbed of “dictatorship of proletariat” jargon, position to deal themselves in.

“The Spirit blows where it wills.” No one can predict how people will resolve this crisis. But is it early enough to draw up the next exile list?*

back to top