WE MUST be in our early 20s when University of the Philippines’ (UP) Political Science graduate Nestor Beltran Pulido and this MLQU (Manuel L. Quezon University) fresh Journalism graduate in the early ‘70s were addressing a group of Varsitarians in a plush hotel in Dagupan.
We were then branded as Joe-Ma’s “minions” in Pangasinan.
Clad in bush jackets, we held an audience of Philippine society’s elite spellbound with our “anti-establishment” rhetoric.
Nestor, a student of Joe-Ma, was editor of the feisty Pangasinan newspaper “The Agno Valley News” while we were a columnist of the “Courier”, the veteran of local newspapers in Pangasinan province.
Finding the local press too engrossed with local issues, Nestor and us who figured in our university politics decided to “shake up the establishment” in the province brimming with idealism and imagined youth power. It was this columnist who baptized our group composed of student and local leaders, media men, etc., as “New Pangasinan Alliance.”
Our bravado later put us in hot water because the Philippine Constabulary or PC would connect us to the New People’s Army or NPA because of the acronym.
This was followed — to our shock! — by our incarceration at Camp Aquino for 30 days, and for Nestor, maybe two months. By sheer Divine Providence, the head of the Philippine Constabulary then was General Fidel V. Ramos, which should explain the military’s kid gloves treatment to us, most of us, anyway.
Then and now, we haven’t deviated from our ideology or belief system that is enshrined in our adherence to the majority rule philosophy. What sometimes, if not, often would stand against forging common understanding is our approach of implementing our course of action.
With the advent of knowledge, we believe there should be no reason for discord or misunderstanding among Filipinos if not in fact any peoples of the world.
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Amid the welter of pro and con in the Duterte-Sereno standoff pending actual impeachment which looks like a “done deal,” we picked this reminder from Associate Justice Marvic Leonen while reminding Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno on her controversial SALN (Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth).
Leonen said: “Integrity is not measured only by pieces of paper. It is helpful to catch someone with unexplained wealth, but not to catch someone with unexplained poverty.”
He added: “It is a tool. It is not by itself a measure of integrity, then God help us. The measure of integrity is the ability of a justice not to be swayed by pressure from yellow, red, black or whatever political color.”
End of quote.
We are not a lawyer, and in the light of the convulsions rocking and rolling the legal establishment, what with the Supreme Court being put to the torch again (!), we are glad we are not, which allows us to take a detached, neutral, stoic, it not tongue-in-cheek attitude to the Sereno controversy.
We hope, in fact, we pray with all our hearts that the nation under a radical president would be able to steer clear of any dastardly dark implications of the ongoing showdown between the executive and the justice departments.
The President has shown in many instances an uncanny skill (we call it political savvy) to stay standing after the tempest. And whatever the antis are saying, the Philippine ship of state remains in place even if it cruises the most perilous of waters in this time and place.
Cross your fingers! (juanitomvelasco@yahoo.com/PN)
