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Encounters with the Rich & Famous: Fidel V. Ramos
11/15/2010 3:28:24 PM
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| Sometime in the 2000s, I was waiting for my car in the lobby of Crowne Plaza Hotel in Mandaluyong City, Metro Manila. In the lobby waiting for his car was Fidel V. Ramos, former President of the Philippines. Ramos stood by himself, although he had an aide who was standing a few meters away. We were, in effect, alone in the lobby. I approached him and said, "Mister President, I think you were the best president our country has ever had." He replied, without hesitation, "That's because everyone after me looks so bad!" He was referring, of course, to Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, then the President, and to Joseph Ejercito Estrada, the President that immediately followed him. |
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Encounters with the Rich & Famous: Dolphy
9/20/2010 4:39:10 PM
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| Dolphy is one of the most famous Filipinos alive. He has accumulated a multitude of fans because of his numerous movies and television shows. He is also one of the wealthiest Filipinos, commanding huge amounts as talent fees. One would think that he would assume that everybody in the country knows him and he would not have to introduce himself but merely wait to be revered or gushed over. That is far from the case. I first met him face to face during a party sometime in the seventies. Someone introduced me to him, saying, "This is Isagani Cruz." Dolphy immediately then said to me, "I'm Dolphy." I was absolutely stunned and impressed. Like everyone else in the party (and in the country, of course), I knew who he was, but he nevertheless told me his name. To me, that is a sign of greatness. |
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Encounters with the Rich & Famous: Marcelo H. Fernan
8/27/2010 5:07:10 PM
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| When he was Chief Justice, Marcelo H. Fernan served as President of the Philippine Fulbright Scholars Association. I was, at that time, the Public Relations Officer of the association. One day, after a board meeting, he offered to give me a ride to De La Salle University in Malate, Manila. I rode in his limousine, supplied by the government because, after all, he was head of one of the three branches of government (the judiciary, co-equal to the executive and the legislative branches). When we reached the university gate, the guards did not see me and did not recognize him and asked him if he had previously arranged for his car to enter the parking lot. (The guards of the university were then infamous for sticking strictly to the rules, which said clearly that only cars of university faculty could park inside or even enter the campus. They have since been replaced by guards with a bit more common sense.) I apologized profusely to him and wanted to berate the guard. He placed his hand on my arm and said, quietly, "It's okay." I alighted from the car and waved thanks and goodbye to him. His driver drove him off, backing away from the gate. I told the guard that he had just stopped the Chief Justice from entering the campus. The guard did not look like he knew what a Chief Justice was. I should have been angry, but since Fernan himself did not get angry, did not feel offended, and did not pull rank, I followed his example and just kept calm. (I did, of course, report it to the Vice President of the university, who eventually replaced the overprotective but dumb security agency.) Fernan was a great person (a major bridge is now named after him in his native Cebu), and like other great persons, understood the limited brain capacity of lesser mortals. |
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Encounters with the Rich & Famous: Corazon Cojuangco Aquino
8/10/2010 3:23:28 PM
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It was after the murder of Ninoy Aquino and before Marcos announced a snap election. I was part of a group doing a video on Ninoy to be shown underground to Filipinos, so that people would know exactly why he was such a threat to Marcos that he had to be shot at the airport. I was working closely with the Cojuangco family. I met regularly with Cory in the Cojuangco building in Makati. I have so many memories of those days. Here's one: Cory and I were left alone in the room after everybody else had left. We chatted a bit about Ninoy (I will not break confidence!). What I can reveal is this: it was after dark and there was no one left on the floor where we were. At that time, Cory was not considered in danger nor a threat to the Marcoses, so she had no bodyguards, no secretaries, no one to care for her person. Cory said it was time for us to go home. She got up, went to the window, closed the blinds, checked the electric plugs, and as we went out the door, made sure the door was locked. There was absolutely no "presidential air" in the manner she went about making sure the office was okay before she left it. Right there, I knew that, if there were any chance at all, she should be president of the country. A few months later, Marcos announced the snap election. Of course, I wrote Cory's first speeches, including the proclamation speech at Liwasang Bonifacio. I wrote all the speeches in Filipino. One afternoon, when she and I were again alone in her office, she asked me, "Do you think I should be running for president?" I said, unhesitating, "Ma'am, you will make a great president." Then she asked me something that I will never forget. "Promise me," she said, "that if I become president, you will break through my cordon sanitaire." She was so afraid that she would be isolated from the people by the people around her. "I promise, Ma'am," I said. That is one promise that I never fulfilled, because when she did become president, no matter how hard I tried (and I knew the people closest to her), I could never get through her cordon sanitaire. After her term, it was much easier for me to get to her. I invited her to a couple of events I managed, and she always came. She even consented to swear me in as president of the Fulbright alumni association. But that was after her term. Before her term, I was fairly close to her. After her term, she was very nice to me. But during her term, I never got to see her. Sadly, she was indeed kept isolated by her unwanted cordon sanitaire. In one of my one-on-one meetings with Cory Aquino when she was running for Philippine president, she asked me, "What would you do if you were Secretary of Education?" Without hesitation, I answered, "I would make Filipino the medium of instruction." She said, shaking her head, "Sobra ka naman" [You're too much). That did in any possibility of my being named Education Secretary when she won the election against Ferdinand Marcos. Instead, she chose Lourdes Quisumbing, then president of Miriam College (formerly Maryknoll College), a much better choice than me. Quisumbing stayed in the Department of Education the whole time Cory was president, thus becoming the longest-serving Education Secretary in the history of the Philippines. Other Secretaries came and went, often without any impact on the educational system. Quisumbing introduced and advocated Values Education, a newer version of what I had during my elementary school days as "Good Manners and Right Conduct" or "Behavior." I will always remember that particular conversation with Cory not because I lost my chance at being a member of her cabinet (whew!), but because it showed that she chose her cabinet members not because they were personally known to her, but because of their beliefs or advocacies. Ironically, when she was President, Cory signed an Executive Order urging all government employees to use Filipino in their official transactions and communications. She was the only president to have done that. Other presidents have been, for political reasons, unwilling to comply with the Philippine Constitution, that mandates that Filipino be indeed the primary medium of official communication and the primary medium of instruction. |
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Encounters with the Rich & Famous: Imelda Romualdez Marcos
7/29/2010 6:56:31 PM
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I headed the Secretariat of the World Population Congress, held at the Philippine International Convention Center (PICC) in 1979. There was a typhoon then, devastating a number of places in Manila. Past midnight, I was alone in the huge Secretariat room, still proofreading the newsletter for the next day. Suddenly, Imelda walked in, alone. She went to the window, looked at the raging wind outside, and said, loud enough for me to hear (obviously meant for my ears), "We build, but nature destroys." (She said it in Filipino, "Kawawa naman tayo. Itatayo natin tapos gigibain lang ng bagyo.") At that moment, although I was no admirer of hers because I had worked in the anti-Marcos newspaper Imelda's Monthly in 1972 and had written the obviously anti-Imelda plays Tao and Halimaw for PETA in 1970, I could not help but be awed. She was then, as many who knew her then attest, extremely charming. After I had written the two anti-Imelda plays, she called me and a number of other PETA people to Malacanang. When she came face to face with me in the line of handshakers, she said, "So you're the one." (She said it in Filipino, "Ikaw pala iyon.") She didn't say anything else. A couple of weeks later, at the Cultural Center of the Philippines, in a huge crowd, she saw me across the hall and shouted, "Isagani!" I remember not being able to get through the crowd to shake her hand, but I felt very good then, since I thought she remembered my name. Now, looking back, I realize that an aide must have whispered my name and pointed me out to her. On the other hand, she is reputed to have a photographic memory. I would also have remembered a playwright who made a fool of me onstage! |
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