Carmen Guerrero Nakpil never disappoints.
The second volume of her memoirs “Legends & Adventures” (post-war, 1946-1983) is as absorbing and engaging as the first, “Myself, Elsewhere” set in pre-war Manila.
Narrating her life as a journalist, Mrs. Nakpil gives a glimpse of the good old days of Philippine journalism: “What I enjoyed about my newspaper job was being in the thick of things. I did not grasp, until I became a journalist how cloistered, how impossibly recondite, my incarceration in Ermita had been.
“Now when I walked into the Roces Building every morning, it was entering into the throbbing real world. I would exchange notes with D.H. Soriano of the Manila Times or Jim Halsema of the Associated press, or Mr. Agustin Fabian, who led all the Roces publications, on what terrible things had happened the night before.
“In the elevator, I would run into Melchor Aquino who covered the foreign affairs and dressed like a diplomat, and was sure to start a conversation about Washington, DC or Japan; Arsenio Lacson, craggy, well muscled, witty, soon to be Mayor of Manila; Doroy Valencia, scurrilous and funny from the Post; or Celso Cabrera, the scourge of politicians.”
It was their group that built the National Press Club building. “It was around this time that the world of periodistas was taken up with the idea of a national press club building. It was the age of clubs and clubhouses. Inspired by the peculiar lifestyle of their craft and their growing political influence, the men and women of the press began to plan for an after-hours meeting place that would be financed by the government.
“The punditocracy, exemplified by Doroy Valencia, the seniors reporters covering Congress, the cabinet and Malacañang got president Elpidio Quirino interested enough to turn over a prize piece of government land at the foot of Jones Bridge along the Pasig to the National Press Club.”
Mrs. Nakpil said Architect Angel E. Nakpil designed the building and newshen Enriqueta (Etang) Perez who was also wife of the finance secretary wangled a deal with the banks and the PLDT, which leased one half of the donated land for its own main building. “The journalists running society and home pages and the business editors held benefit movie and film premieres, other fund-raising socials, and we were giddily on our way.”
The NPC building, she said, was inaugurated by President Ramon Magsaysay on Rizal Day, 30 December 1955 “in a blaze of happiness and achievement.”
“Not even the most dour and pessimistic newshound or guest present that afternoon would have foreseen the godawful mess the national Press Club building got itself into during the last few decades of its existence:malversations, schisms, law suits, dirty elections, bankruptcy.”
At the time the book was written, NPC’s latest controversy with the Neo-Angono artist for defiling a commissioned mural on press freedom to please the powers-that-be had not yet been exposed.
Legends & Adventures addressed the chagrin of many of Mrs. Nakpil’s admirers about becoming what she so wittily described as Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos “amen batallion.” It had something to do with her daughter Gemma Cruz and her son-in-law Tonypet Araneta, both activists who were arrested when martial law was declared.
Mrs. Nakpil wrote: “.. I had exchanged my freedom to dissent for the freedom from jail for my daughter and son-in-law, and had been in hock, a philosophical captive since 1975, when I began to cooperate, by representing the Philippines at an Afro-Asian Writers symposium in the Soviet Union, and a Writers Union that would host the succeeding symposium in Manila.”
She related, “People kept asking, sullenly even offensively, ‘Why are you working for Marcos’?
“I would ask myself that question very so often. My reply would usually be a forthright soliloquy. It’s not really just that I compromised myself by pleasing for clemency and freedom for my activist daughter and son-in-law, or that I like the projects at the Technology Resource Center where I work, but also, at bottom, because Marcos is doing important things that I swear by. For one thing, he’s nationalsitic, I would tell myself.”
“I guess you might say that after so many years of being indebted to him, I got to like him.”
Mrs. Nakpil’s puts so exquisitely the implication of the shots that rung out of the international airport on August 21, 1983: “Ninoy did not die on that sunny Sunday afternoon in August 1983 at the Manila International Airport, for that was when he began to live forever in the hearts of his countrymen. It was Ferdinand Marcos who died that day and he knew it.”
We hope to get a copy and read Mrs. Nakpil’s Legends & Adventures one of these days.
Mrs. Nakpil is maybe one of those who believed Marcos was not responsible for Ninoy’s death and many share the same perception. The killing of Ninoy which resulted to the abruptly cutting short Marcos’ reign was like the proverbial killing of two birds in one shot. It’s getting curiouser and curiouser.
Marcos is INNOCENT
Imelda is Guilty…
Yan naman ang totoo eh. Si Imelda ang utak. Sa pag patay kay Ninoy.
If Imelda is quilty, she should be excommunicated by the Catholic Church, but for all the she is, I doubt this accusation that she has anything to do with the death of Ninoy.
Please remember that she herself tried to convince Ninoy not to go home because there were already rumors even then that he would be assassinate as part of the plan to ruin Marcos and pull him down.
As long as they are not able to find the real culprits, I think we should stop pointing fingers unless we have full-proof evidences like the evidences we have for example against the short woman and her cahoots.
Patalsikin na, now na!
…he would be assassinated….
Kung hindi sana napatay si Ninoy,baka maganda ang kasaysayan ng Philippine history na isusulat sa libro ni Gregorio F.Zaide.Baka si Ramos is serving a life sentence,baka si Gloria ay labandera pa hangga ngayon,o kaya magkakaroon ng milyong pirasong cinderilla shoes si Cory.Baka ang lahat ng kumander ng NPA ay commissioned sila sa military.Biruin ninyo ang laking perwesyo ang ginawa ni Sarhento Martinez.Siya at ang kanyang mga kasamahan ay mga mass murderer.Hindi lang si Ninoy ang pinatay nila kundi milyon-milyong Pilipino ang namatayan ng pag-asa.Baka wala tayong OFW ngayon kung buhay si Ninoy,Baka tayo ngayon ang mag-iimport ng DH from the middle east at Hong Kong.
Baka nga,dahil mahilig tayong mga Pilipino sa mamoy,manok at maka.Tapos itong presidenti natin na may tuliling ay pardonan si Erap at si Pablo dahil 70 anyos na raw sila.Asus! Maria! Kung iyan ang gagawing batas na pagdating ng setenta ay hindi ka na makukulong sa kasalanang ginawa at pardon ka na,marami na ang lalabas na mga senior citizen na mang-holdap ng bangko,drug pusher,hired killer at mga rapist tutal mahatulan man sila ay pardon sila agad dahil 70 na.Kaya kung gusto mong yumaman sa maling paraan ay maghintay ka ng 70.save your virginity at pagdating mo ng 70 ay ripen mo na ang kursunada mong babae,lahat ng magiging kaaway mo sabihin mo na sa kanila na maghintay sila at may araw din sila pagdating mo ng 70.
yuko,
it was macoy and not imelda who tried to convince ninoy not to come home because of rumored threat against his life once he steps in the philippine soil.
as i have said before, it was most likely that late gen ver was one of the masterminds of the plot to kill ninoy in cohort with some politically ambitious personalities who also wanted to inflict harm in macoy’s administration and wanted him (macoy) out of malakanyang in a way no one would suspect they have their fingers dipped in shit.
Kung buhay sana si Ninoy ngayon, ano na lang ang role nina Suharto-Mahathir-Lee Kuan Yew-Lee Teng Hui ngayon?
Baka ngingisi ngisi lang si Chun Doo Hwan at si Roh Tae-Woo ngayon.At itong mga nuclear missiles ng North Korea ay malamang mga kwitis na lang yan.
Nagkakaputukan pa rin kaya ngayon sa Cambodia?
Scrapped pa rin ang Bataan Nuclear Power Plant, pero hindi kasing tindi ng IPP/PPA scenario na gaya ng inihain ni FVR.
Malamang natapos ni Macoy ang term ng 1987, at destined na maging lider ng bansa si Doy Laurel. Makikinita mo ito dahil si Doy Laurel lang ang may kakayahang makipag dialogue sa mga sundalo at binisita pa nya ang mga kampo matapos ang mga nabigong kudeta noong panahon ni Cory.
Maiiba ang pananaw ng mga International Strategic Studies enthusiast sa Cold War. Dahil walang people’s power noong 1986, girian pa rin ng girian. Psycological and Propaganda Warfare is a thing of the past.
Berlin wall as a symbol of Cold War will remain as a venue of grafitti of expression against East-West ideological rivalry.
Bonn might be a symbol of a re-emerge Prussian power.
Dun sa 500 peso bill, baka naka-dekwatro pa si Ninoy imbes na nakapangalubaba.
Kung hindi namatay si Ninoy, malamang makakapal ang bulsa ng mga trabahador tuwing sweldo. Limang tig-iisang daan na violet, imbes na isang kulay dilaw lang?
Pero dahil mahilig pa rin kumilatis ang mga Pinoy ng political dynasty, mananatili pa rin ang 500 pesos bill. Sino ang dapat sa nasabing bangko sentral note?Syempre iyong may kakayahang imanipula ang inflation rate.
Ang Socialism ay isang Hype sa South East Asia.
Saan ka nakakita ng simbolo ng bahay na lumalakad sa gitna ng inyong kalsada.
A Marcos-Ninoy type of ‘Bayanihan’ inspired by Jose Blanco paintings.
Kung nabigyan pansin lang ang Imeldificplomacy, mabibigyan kaya ng pansin ang Islamophobia?
Kakamot kamot ng ulo siguro si Musharaff at nanghihinayang na sana binigyan pagkakataon makapagbago ang bansa nila sa pamamagitan ng lider na babae.
Pero hindi na natin pa maibabalik ang nakaraan.
Ang nakaraan ay nakaraan na, ngunit may mga bagay tayong dapat na matutunan sa kasaysayan.
“Ang nakaraan ay nakaraan na, ngunit may mga bagay tayong dapat na matutunan sa kasaysayan.”
huwang nang muling magpaloko!
I will get my copy. I am on the same frequency that Marcos did not order the killing of Ninoy. The steak commandos planned a sham shooting for for the bulletproof vest but the CIA did not see it as the solution to their national interest. The CAL plane that left hurriedly was never investigated due to its sovereignty. But who sez the crew were not the CIA. The US calls the shots in Taiwan. Pero napaganda tuloy dahil babayaran na sila ng $10B.
dig the archives, get a copy of the mr & ms magazine where the late ninoy was cover in its issue sometime in september the year he was assassinated.
a quite blurred picture of an unidentified man from inside the plane behind ninoy was pointing a pistol in his (ninoy’s) head.
galman was shown dead beside a parked van after ninoy was killed, how could he be the assassin?
Magno: it was macoy and not imelda who tried to convince ninoy not to come home because of rumored threat against his life once he steps in the philippine soil.
*****
Magno,
If you review old news articles, you will find articles about Imelda’s visit to Ninoy a few months before his trip to the Philippines. They were skeptics who would not even believe the sincerity of Imelda’s visit, but everybody knew all about the covert operation that Ninoy was even willing to participate in.
LaRouche in fact had a good report about it. I recommend that if you can, please get ahold of old issues of EIR which the LaRouche Society had published about the operations in removing Marcos.
As I have said above, for all that she is, Imelda, being a very religious woman unless she is possessed by the devil likewise, could not have ordered Ninoy killed. She was confident enough that she was popular and killing Ninoy would not be necessary.
I would point accusing fingers more toward Ramos and Enrile regarding the death of Ninoy. Ramos for instance proves to have more reason to want to have Marcos removed by killing the hero of the Martial Law that flamed the EDSA 1 revolution. At the time Ninoy was cooperating even probably with his wannabe assassins, Marcos was already too sick and dying to think of doing something evil that he knew would instantly have the doors of heaven closed to him.
When we saw Marcos in Hawaii in November 1986, he was in fact almost blind! A few months after that he was dead.
…There were skeptics…..
I would love to get a copy of this book of Mrs. Nakpil, and give it to my mother, who is a blood relation of the late president.
Mrs. Nakpil is right. Apo Marcos did love his country and people.
The fraternal brothers of both Makoy and Ninoy in Upsilon Sigma Phi silently conducted a thorough investigation of the assassination. They had members who belonged to the cream in the areas of business, politics, military, law, and the academe. Many who were sympathetic to Ninoy were there, too. They concluded it was not Makoy who was the mastermind.
These bright boys believed that Makoy was fast losing to his disease and since he had no Vice President, the fight for succession could be disastrous. Only those who have their own political ambitions were, at that time, at the risk of losing what might be their only chance at the throne.
Killing Ninoy would definitely take its toll on Makoy leading to his ouster, taking down with him all his lapdogs (and possible successors)including Imelda, Ver, Enrile and Ramos. This will shatter all of their ambitions. Except for two. But Makoy called for snap elections and a Makoy victory would extend that agony and the possibility of someone else inheriting the throne.
Gringo becomes Plan B.
The other story, a more recent version, is that Makoy had actually signed a will to bequeath all his money and gold to the Filipinos. (Even Imelda concedes that. She has enough for her own stock stashed somewhere.) Those who were against it were those who thought they were shortchanged in the split they wanted to get even with Makoy.
This is the reason these two “very old politicians” haven’t retired yet. At least one, officially, is.
They need to exert their influence on succeeding Malacañang occupants until they get their hands on the loot! And this well-tailored theory fits actual events since 1986.