Treading fine lines, changing the past<\/p>\n
Juan Mercado, Inquirer News Service, Philippine Daily Inquirer,
\nAsia News Network, Mannila<\/p>\n
\"While editor, Sukarno and Soeharto jailed you,\" the late
\npublisher Joaquin \"Chino\" Roces told the tall Indonesian seated
\nnext to him. \"What would you advise us?\"<\/p>\n
The Press Foundation of Asia boardroom fell silent. Outside,
\nthe siyam-siyam monsoon pounded the city. Inside, the talk
\nswirled around impending governance by bayonets. Defense Minister
\nJuan Ponce Enrile's fake ambush to trigger Proclamation 1081 was
\nonly days away.<\/p>\n
\"First, be friendly with your guards,\" came Magsaysay Awardee
\nMochtar Lubis' measured reply. \"Second, keep busy. Third, don't
\nlet prison embitter you.\"<\/p>\n
Thirty-two years later, with detention behind us, I'd add:
\nSign a power of attorney for the wife. It will smooth things for
\nher.<\/p>\n
These flashbacks recur when the day dictatorship began rolls
\naround. Today is the 32nd anniversary of that imposition.<\/p>\n
Wherever held, columnist Ellen Goodman says, these rights are
\nabout the fine line we tread to honor a difficult past. These
\nobservances are about \"the moral costs of both forgetting and
\nremembering.\"<\/p>\n
We fear papering over \"searing moments that did injustice to
\nlives that were lost or forever changed\" by brutal rulers,
\nGoodman asserts in her Boston Globe column. Does remembering with
\nundiminished intensity over time make us \"curators of our
\nancestors' grievances? Can we acknowledge the past, and honor it,
\nwithout being trapped in it?\"<\/p>\n
Do memories of rattling, in a prison van from Camp Crame to
\nthe Marcos Supreme Court, embalm in greying journalists \"sterile
\nbaggage of the past\"?<\/p>\n
Among newsmen crammed into a \"Black Maria\" then were Daily
\nMirror's Amando Doronila, Evening News' Luis Beltran, Philippine
\nNews Service's Manuel Almario, Graphic's Luis Mauricio and
\nTaliba's Benny Esquivel.<\/p>\n
In court, our pro bono lawyer Joker Arroyo told us of a habeas
\ncorpus challenge (GR L33537 to 73). The self-effacing National
\nPress Club president Eddie Monteclaro sued on our behalf.<\/p>\n
Sen. Benigno Aquino and others followed shortly.<\/p>\n
Sen. Lorenzo Tanada, Sedfrey Ordonez, Joker and others were
\nthere for the Fort Bonifacio detainees. Summoned before the
\ntribunal a day earlier were Sen. Jose Diokno, Free Press' Teodoro
\nLocsin Sr. and Napoleon Rama, and Chino Roces, among others.<\/p>\n
It took guts to sue then. Few would, as Henry V said, \"stiffen
\nthe sinews, summon up the blood\/disguise fair nature with hard-
\nfavored rage.\" Provoking the dictator's anger resulted in drastic
\nreprisals.<\/p>\n
Manila Chronicle's Primitivo Mijares did not live to tell
\nabout it. So, many played it safe. Daily Express and Kanlaon
\nBroadcasting censored reports of the habeas corpus hearings.<\/p>\n
\"Whenever press freedom has been permitted, Filipinos have
\ndefended it with passion,\" David Rosenberg writes in Marcos and
\nMartial Law in the Philippines. \"Whenever it has been prohibited,
\nthey complied... with obsequiousness.\"<\/p>\n
\"No other case of such transcendental significance to the life
\nof the nation (has) confronted this Court,\" Chief Justice Querube
\nMakalintal wrote in September 1974, two years after justices
\ndawdled on the issue. Marcos sidetracked the case by piecemeal
\nreleases, rendering most suits \"moot.\"<\/p>\n
Were the justices cowed? Was it safer -- and more
\nrewarding -- to play ball? Compromise on the king's plan to
\ndivorce the queen and wed Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII's adviser
\nbadgered Thomas Moore. \"Think carefully Master Moore. Do not
\nprovoke the king. Indignatio principis mortuus est (The prince's
\nanger is death).\"<\/p>\n
An unruffled Moore replied: \"Is that all, my lord? What that
\nmeans is: I will die today and you will die tomorrow.\"<\/p>\n
In his last speech, Benigno Aquino wrote: \"It is ironic...that
\nthe Supreme Court, last April, ruled it can no longer entertain
\nhabeas corpus petitions for persons detained under presidential
\ncommitment orders. [This] covers all so called national security
\ncases and, under present circumstances, can cover almost
\nanything.\"<\/p>\n
This was Aug. 21, 1983, a year short of Orwell's cutoff point.
\nBefore Aquino could read his arrival statement, he was gunned
\ndown. Indignatio principis mortuus est.<\/p>\n
\"We don't want to transmit all burdens of the past,\" Columbia
\nUniversity's Carol Gluck says. To heal trauma, historian Gluck
\noffers three R's: Remembrance, reflection and responsibility. Do
\nwe meet those standards?<\/p>\n
Remembrance: \"There's no excuse for sending the past down
\nmemory hole.\" But eight out of every 10 Filipino students today
\nknow nothing of martial law. What can be recalled from a black
\nhole? But it can be shoveled full with distortions. Martial law
\nwas \"the most democratic period\" in our history, Imelda says.<\/p>\n
Reflection: Think through what really happened. From his
\nprison, Sen. Jose Diokno wrote in December 1972 that we \"must
\ndetermine what led to this madness and how, when it ends, it need
\nnever happen again.\"<\/p>\n
Responsibility: \"We must take responsibility for the past and
\ntherefore the present and the future.\" Has anybody gone to jail?
\nHas loot been returned? Did anybody apologize?<\/p>\n
Ferdinand Marcos Jr. snapped: \"Why should we apologize? All
\nthey want is the money.\"<\/p>\n
No, wonder the fourth \"R\" -- reconciliation -- never
\nmaterialized. In \"The Book of Laughter and Forgetting,\" Milan
\nKundera notes: \"The only reason people want to be masters of the
\nfuture is to change the past.\"<\/p>",
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