PACITA laO MANGLAPUS: THE PERFECT WIFE

Known as Las Hermanas, they belonged to that rare breed of elegant, regal, brainy, courageous, and classy ladies. Their radiant and exceptional beauty could have easily launched more than a thousand ships and their images and smiles spoke not only a thousand words but moved the hearts, and turned the heads of an equal number of men. They were the most sought-after women in their generation. Men of wealth, men of wit, men of wisdom, and men of wonders pursued them relentlessly, absolutely convinced that any of them would be “the perfect wife.”

The laO sisters, Nena, Pacita, Techie, and Chita were Las Hermanas. Their husbands, Ding Manotoc, Raul Manglapus, Jimmy Velasquez, and Eugenio Lopez, Jr., respectively, were considered by many as the luckiest guys during their time.

My exposure to the lives of Tita Nena, Tita Techie, and Auntie Chita were limited. Even with such limits, I know they were as described above. Tita Nena’s life as the mother-in-law of two famous women (1970 Miss International Aurora Pijuan and Imee Marcos) and having to deal with the Marcos couple during the kidnapping of her son, Tommy; Auntie Chita’s ordeal during Tito Geny’s detention during Martial Law, and the now historic and famous escape from the Marcos dictatorship; and Tita Techie’s life as the wife of the most honest and most successful Customs Commissioner in Philippine history, and also known as the Master Planner of Makati City, could be subjects worth writing about.

But the case of Pacita laO Manglapus is very different. She is my mother-in-law—the woman who gave birth to the love of my life, my wife Tina—the reason why I consider myself the luckiest human being on Earth. For this alone, I am forever indebted!

I have known my mother-in-law longer than I have known my own mother, who died in 1975. Based on my knowledge of the former, and based on certain objective and subjective standards, I venture to say that Pacita laO Manglapus could be appropriately described as “the perfect wife.”

Many are of the belief that “there is no such thing as a perfect wife. There never was and it was all a figment of someone’s imagination. Women, despite what some men would like to believe, are human and therefore imperfect. Too many women still try all their lives to be this impossible and non-existent ideal.”

I could have easily be counted as one of those disbelievers—that is, until I met, observed, and came to know my mother-in-law. To begin with, and on the exterior side without much effort, she was extraordinarily beautiful, with a great sense of humor; classy, elegant, and regal, but down to earth; and very smart and wise. She could count (Math major) and she could sing (Music minor); she was economically upper class, cultured, well-educated, and very sophisticated. That’s womanhood in the most objective superlative sense.

But Pacita laO Manglapus became a wife, married to Raul S. Manglapus, who had strong beliefs, hopes, dreams, visions, missions, ambitions, and goals. Without the former, the latter would not have become the man he was. First, she had an undying love and total devotion to an equally loving husband. Second, she believed in him. For better or worse, she stuck with him, became part of his visions, dreams, and all that he was fighting for. Third, she was committed to a lifetime partnership that entailed struggles, risks, challenges, and sacrifices. A strong believer of the God Almighty, she was the dependable wife and partner in both their life endeavors.

Whether as a Guest Speaker, Foreign Affairs Secretary, or Senator, Raul Manglapus always required that his wife be included in the invitation. There was absolute dependence. When he had to leave the country without her and Martial Law was declared, he planned to fight against Marcos in exile but he could not launch his fight without her. Since Marcos refused to let her join him the normal way, she bravely traveled through the back door in disguise via kumpit, or pump boat. There she endangered her life, putting herself at risk of facing pirates, pro-Marcos forces, or worse, both. Before she left, I remember reading a letter coming from my father-in-law to her, which my wife Tina showed me. The letter said that he loved her, missed her so much, and that he appreciated her decision to risk taking the perilous journey, and face the drastic life changes that residing in the United States would require. He was obviously referring to such sacrifices as the absence of maids and drivers, and having to do your own laundry and dishes.

With my mother-in-law by his side, her husband freely and confidently formed the Movement for a Free Philippines—a movement that sought to restore democracy in the Philippines by advocating changes in U.S. Foreign Policies toward the Philippines. While my father-in-law was aggressively fighting for his causes, their cash reserves were being depleted and, except for some grants, he was not earning enough to cover the costs of living in the U.S. and raising some children who were still going to school. She was good at taking care of her children. She was even better at caring for her grandchildren. She was actually great with children, period. This is when she decided to start a day care center at her home in McLean, Virginia. The earnings paid for the mortgage, the sustenance of the home of political exiles escaping from the Marcos dictatorship, hosting political operators, and, of course, family needs.

The day care was actually a joy for all the residents of the house. My mother-in-law felt satisfaction for being a breadwinner and a real partner of my father-in-law’s visions and missions. The latter actually became a partner of the day care, too. A jazz piano player, his music pleased the babies and children. The late Sorsogon Governor Boni Gillego and the late Asian Institute of Management (AIM) President Gaston Ortigas escaped from the Marcos dictatorship following the route that my mother-in-law took. They lived with us and were inspired by my mother-in-law to help in caring for the children, as was the late Mayor Cezar Climaco of Zamboanga City. The visits of the late Senators Lorenzo Tanada, and Ninoy Aquino were not long enough to merit child-care experience, Pacita-style.

Pacita laO Manglapus accepted Raul Manglapus for who he was. Although almost flawless himself, there were definitely some characteristics she would have liked to change about him. But she made him feel that she loved him for who he was. She was indeed the wife of Raul Manglapus, by Raul Manglapus, and for Raul Manglapus.

She knew how to smile at her husband’s jokes, even though she didn’t consider all of them funny. She wouldn’t remind him that he had told a joke before, even though he had. She would embrace the old jokes as if they were brand new.

She mastered the art of communications and compromise. In some cases, “silence was the language of her heart.” She knew when to talk and when to just listen. In a compromise, her wishes always got granted. In silence, her views actually prevailed.

Paraphrasing the words in Chapter 31 of the book of Proverbs, the “perfect wife” is one who: is of noble character; brings him (her spouse) good, not harm, all the days of her life; opens her arms to the poor and extends her hands to the needy. Strength and honor are her clothing. She speaks with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on her tongue. Many women do noble things, but she surpasses them all.

Pacita laO Manglapus was all of them!

Theirs was a “match made in heaven.” Heaven made sure the “perfect husband” married the “perfect wife.” They were a perfect couple.

They were so in this material world. They definitely are in ETERNITY.

RAUL S. MANGLAPUS and the Future of Christian Democracy

On July 25, 1999, Raul S. Manglapus died. Several institutions to which he once belonged commemorated him. One of them was the Lakas-NUCD-UMDP-Kampi Coalition. I had the honor of being chosen to deliver the response.

In honor of his death anniversary, I am re-publishing my response.

RSM and the Future of Christian Democracy

by Benjamin G. Maynigo

Vice-President Macapagal Arroyo, Senators Guingona and Cayetano, Speaker de Venecia, leaders and members of the Lakas-NUCD-UMDP-Kampi Coalition:

In 1968, as Student Council President of San Beda College, I was one of the lucky few student leaders recruited to join what was then called Christian Social Movement, or CSM. After undergoing a series of seminars, indoctrinating sessions, and getting exposed to many of the intellectual giants, such as Fathers Francisco Araneta and Jose Blanco, Jose Feria, Edgardo Kalaw, Jeremias Montemayor, F. Sionil Jose, Jose Concepcion, and many others led by Raul S. Manglapus, we were encouraged to form the youth arm of the CSM—and we did. We called the youth group Young Christian Socialists of the Philippines (YCSP), reflecting our solidarity with RSM in his firm belief and desire to create “a just and human society—based on human dignity, built on justice, and dedicated to progress—where every man may develop and fulfill himself according to his ability and in the service of his fellowmen.” I became its first Chairman and, eventually, also its first Secretary General. I was fortunate to have represented the group in the International Union of Young Christian Democrats (IUYCD), which was brought to Europe and Latin America, and whose young leaders then went on to become Prime Ministers, Cabinet Ministers, Congressmen/Parliamentarians, and national leaders of their respective countries today.

Being chosen to deliver the response before this august political body, therefore, was more than coincidental. While it is true that my marriage to the Manglapus family’s only daughter, Tina, is what primarily qualifies me, it is equally true that my involvement with the origins of Lakas-NUCD prompted our family to let me respond today.

I learned earlier in life that there are several ways of immortalizing a man—the most noted of which were: by raising good children, by writing a book, by planting a tree, and by setting up a foundation in one’s honor.

Raul S. Manglapus, or RSM, and my mother-in-law, Pacing, raised not only good children but great ones. I should know. I married one. I am very proud to have been associated with my brothers-in-law Toby, Raulito, Bobby, and Francis. Like my wife who is now a college academic counselor in Washington, D.C., they have been successful in the careers that they have respectively chosen, and who in their own humble ways and without fanfare, are carrying the torch that their father passed on. I am as proud to have closely known their respective wives, Ana, Diane, Ria, and Lynn. They have been extremely supportive of the Manglapus ideals and displayed the greatest of love and affection not only to their husbands but to our parents-in-law as well.

Through the children that he raised, and the grandchildren that he helped develop and grow to be great human beings, RSM will forever be immortalized.

Everyone in this group has read or heard about the books that RSM wrote and published. Faith in the Filipino: the Ripening Revolution; Revolt Against Tradition; Land of Bondage, Land of the Free; Philippines: the Silenced Democracy; Manifest Destiny; A Pen for Democracy; Will of the People. These books and many more reflect the thoughts and dreams of a great visionary who influenced the lives of several generations—the generation of Manuel L. Quezon, the generation of Ramon Magsaysay, that of Ninoy Aquino, then of Evelio Javier, and the current young idealists, who like the Man from La Mancha, all followed Quixotic lives, “dreaming impossible dreams, fighting unbeatable foes, reaching unreachable stars—no matter how hopeless, no matter how far; to be willing to die so that honor and justice may live.”

I know my father-in-law loved planting trees and vegetables. I remember him planting kamatis and okra in our home in McLean, Virginia, during the exile years. But what I think would make him immortal are the seeds that he planted in the hearts and minds of millions of people worldwide—the seeds of commitment to Christian and democratic ideals; the seeds of responsibility to serve others. Seeds when sown and grown, moved not only human hearts but human minds, not only human minds but communities, not only communities but also nations.

A Raul S. Manglapus Foundation has not been established. I don’t know if a decision has been made to do it. But this I know. He wanted to build the foundation of a strong political party supported by a movement that believes in Christian ideals and democratic principles—and he did. He wanted to build the foundation of a party with an ideological direction composed of and led by an awakened and enlightened group of Filipinos—and he did. The party is the NUCD, which is now merged with Lakas, UMDP, and Kampi. The movement is the Christian Social Movement, whose vision for the Filipino people are political equality, economic parity, and social equity.
Yesterday, the Philippine Inquirer did a beautiful editorial on my father-in-law. For this we extend our greatest appreciation. There is, however, an item that I think is relevant to this group today. The editorial says, “Manglapus’ main political projects—third party reformism and ideologically defined parties—have been political failures. His death leaves uncertain the future of the Christian Democratic movement.”

This group is in a better position to respond to this item. But I dare say: My father-in-law’s political projects are not failures. For he does not believe in failures. To him, these so-called failures are just suspended successes. I don’t think that his death leaves uncertain the future of the Christian Democratic movement. On the contrary, his death should inspire and motivate us all. There is a saying, “the best way to predict the future is to create it.” A political prisoner once said, “The future lies in the hands of those who are strong enough to give reasons for living and hoping.” At this point in our history, the group of leaders who are present today must show and provide the necessary strength and commitment to a despairing and restive people and give them reasons for living and hoping. Together, we shall predict a bright future, because we are all committed to build it. It took a Christian woman, Cory Aquino, with the highest moral values, to lead the restoration of Philippine political democracy. It might take another woman of equally great moral integrity na ating ka-Kampi to lead us in achieving Christian economic and social democracy.

Raul S. Manglapus is dead. For this we mourn. To many that have grown dependent upon his ways, upon his views, upon his leadership, we ask, borrowing from that old song, “Who can I turn to? My heart wants to know and so I must go where destiny leads me. I’ll go on my way, and after the day, the darkness will hide me. But maybe tomorrow, I’ll find what I am after. I’ll throw off my sorrow, beg, steal or borrow my own share of laughter.”

Raul S. Manglapus is dead. For this we celebrate. For his is the beginning of a new life—a life where his visions for Love, Justice, and Charity become absolute reality.

To our friends in the Lakas-NUCD-UMDP-Kampi, thank you for your kind words, and for sharing our family’s grief.

To my mother-in-law, the rest of the Manglapus family, and to all of you here, let me end by borrowing another quote from the poem, “Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood”:

"Though nothing can bring back the hour / Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower; / We will grieve not, rather find strength in what remains behind..." —William Wordsworth

Thank you. # # #

THE COUNTRY’S HISTORY AS MANGLAPUS SAW IT UP CLOSE

By Belinda Olivares – Cunanan – Political Tidbits

Philippine Daily Inquirer – August 16, 1999



Three week ago, former Senator and Foreign Secretary Raul Manglapus passed away after months of battling cancer. As a close family friend, I attended the various necrological services for him. As I listened to all the eloquent speakers eulogize him, I realized that what I was hearing was not only the story of one man’s life of service to country, but its history as well.

The necrological speakers talked about segments of Philippine history as gleaned from the experiences of the 80-year old Manglapus, whose public service career – as former resistance leader against the Japanese and Ferdinand Marcos, legislator, politician, Cabinet member, avowed democrat and renaissance man – spanned just about 60 years, indeed, from Manual L. Quezon to Fidel Ramos. I thought I already knew a lot about Manglapus, but listening to the various eulogy speakers, I realized there were many gaps in my knowledge of him, as well as Philippine history.

It was then that I decided to cite some bits of his history in this column, as culled from his life, so that perhaps the younger generation may be made aware. In these times of political turbulence, when certain freedom appear to be under siege, perhaps it’s even more crucial to recall the past.

Vice President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, the main speaker at the Lakas party’s necrological rites for its chair, recalled how Raul’s Progressive Party of the Philippines (PPP) forget an alliance with President Macapagal’s Liberal Party in 1961. That year saw Cong Dadong’s election as president and Raul topping the senatorial elections. Manglapus, in his speeches for Lakas presidential standard-bearer Joe de Venecia during the 1998 campaign, would joke about how the PPP, which represented a bunch of idealists that was later to comprise a third force against the two established national parties, would be taunted as the "Patay-Patay Party." In the Visayas, he joked, it stood for "Pamahaw-Paniudto-Panihapon" Party.

In 1965, Raul tried to harness this third force for his presidential ambition, but it got nowhere against the two giant political machinery’s. As Sen. Nene Pimentel recalled at the Senate necrological rites for Manglapus, who had stood as Nene’s wedding sponsor, it was only in Cagayan de Oro where the third force won in the election.

Former Vice President Emmanuel Pelaez recalled at the necrological services held by the Department of Foreign Affairs that Manglapus was among the younger leaders in the early ‘50s which included Pelaez himself, Manny Manahan, Ambrosio Padilla, Narciso Pimentel, Francisco "Soc" Rodrigo, Enrique Quema, Primitivo Ferrer, Frisco San Juan and others, who saw in Defense Secretary Ramon Magsaysay "the out-standing qualities for a national democratic leadership needed to make the Philippines a truly democratic society." They decided to support Magsaysay’s presidential bid against Elpidio Quirino in 1954, and Manglapus served as his undersecretary of foreign affairs. After The Guy’s death in 1957 and as Carlos P. Garcia’s term was ending, the group decided to strike a "Grand Alliance" with Macapagal’s LP.

Vice President Arroyo recalled that when President Macagapal decided to launch land reform to abolish tenancy, his obvious choice to lead the reform legislation was Sen. Raul Manglapus, who had imbibed social reform ideas from his Jesuit mentors. Pelaez recalled that even as a young student at the Ateneo de Manila, Raul was already pursuing this idea of land reform. In an oratorical contest where President Quezon was the guest of honor, Raul’s stirring oration, which he titled "Land of Bondage, Land of the Free," attached the injustice and evils in the country’s land tenure system. Today that oratorical piece remains a classic favorite among high-schoolers.



But more than his outstanding gift for oratory, what was remarkable about the piece was the timing. As Senator Sergio Osmena III pointed out in his own eulogy in the Senate necrological rites. "this was in the ‘30s, when nobody, but nobody spoke of land reform and concepts like ‘stewardship’ and ‘subsidiarity’ in deeply feudal Philippines’. So impressed was Quezon that he invited the young Raul to Malacanang so that they could continue their discussion on the evils of the agrarian system. Thus, said Manny Pelaez, "Raul’s seminal ideas opened the ground for the infusion of social justice in the work and lives of our peasants and farmworkers." These "seminal ideas" opened the ground for the infusion of social justice in the work and lives of our peasants and farmworkers." These "seminal ideas" later took specific forms. Senator Pimentel recalled how Manglapus and Pelaez collaborated on the "the first barangay empowerment legislation in the country," the "Revised Barrio Charter" as well as on the "Decentralization Bill of 1964," which broadened the powers of the local officials by decentralizing executive power. These twin laws, pointed out Pimentel, became the precursors of the Local Government Code of 1991, of which he was the principal author.

In the earyly ‘60’s, as Vice President Arroyo recalled, the idea of land reform met with awfully stiff resistance. Manglapus found his land reform bill going against the interests of his landed colleagues in Congress, as well as his own relatives and those of his wife, Pacita La’O, a wealthy Manilena. The anti-land reform groups made use of some 200 amendments to delay or defeat the measure. As a result, the regular session of 100 days ended without passing even the national budget and certainly, not the land reform bill. Arroyo recalled that her father summoned Congress to a special session on June 5, 1963, to pass these two measures; while the two chambers finally passed the budget, the landlord-dominated Senate refused to act on the land reform bill. Macapagal extended the special session, but again it came to naught.

Vice President Arroyo stressed that her father, in a show of political will, extended the special session no less than seven times, in order to get the land reform bill moving. It thus became the most debated legislation in local history. She recalled how Senator Manglapus phoned her father and informed him that the group opposing the land reform law, perhaps now convinced of Macapagal’s determination, was ready to allow the bill to pass with amendments. Should he accept them? Manglapus wanted to know. Macapagal said yes in the belief that even if the bill were watered down, it could be corrected and improved with subsequent legislation.

On July 12, 1963, Congress finally approved the land reform bill, a full 26 years before a more comprehensive land reform law was passed during Corazon Aquino’s term. Arroyo pointed out that while its principal author, Manglapus, was a man of many achievements, that legislation was "probably his greatest contribution to the life of our nation" because, she stressed, historians judge land reform as "the most profound structural change in the first century of our country".

RAUL MANGLAPUS: DO NOT STAND AT MY GRAVE AND WEEP

Make My Day – Hilarion Henares, Jr.

The Philippine Post – August 12, 1999



The Greeks called it arete, the ideal which the Jesuits try to instill in their students – an all-around wholeness in one’s intellectual, physical, moral and spiritual development. In these days of specialization and unisex, the Atenean takes pride in his liberal education in humanities, and acquires the graces of a cultured life, eloquence in the forum and with the pen, appreciation for poetry, literature and the arts, courage in combat, gentle manliness and heterosexuality, and superiority in athletics. No Atenean ever prides himself to be a power-mand faggot, a coward, a traitor, and an uncultured babbit.

The American Jesuits who taught our present leaders, were of third generation Irish stock driven to the USA by the potato famine, and in may ways the lower class in American society during the Depression years. These Irish American priests undertook to educate the sons of the aristocratic ruling class of Filipinos – and succeeded in giving most of them a schizophrenic split personality, combining belief in Social Justice, American acquisitiveness, Filipino patriotism, and a belief in the superiority of the White Man. Ultimately this is a tragedy of the Atenean – an aristocrat with the heart of a peasant, a patriot with a colonial mentality, a religious Dr. Jekyll and materialistic Mr. Hyde, Raul Manglapus was an exception and exemplar.

Passionate yet never fanatic, coldly analytical while being provocative, traditional without being conservative, Raul Manglapus was imbued with a sense of dedication to a cause. He really believed what the Jesuits taught him, that Man is imperfect and must be made perfect, that the world is imperfect and must be changed for a better. And that is the reason Raul was the best revolutionary of his day, the most articulate vanguard of revolutionary reform.

We in this world are often appalled at so much injustice and evil around us. But those of us whose lives have been touched by Raul Manglapus, so beloved of God, marvel as well at the existence of so much good in this world.

With his infectious smile, his generosity and kindness, his unfailing goodness, his towering intellect, his involvement in all facets of our lives, as an orator, composer, pianist-drummer, senator, foreign secretary, above all as an idealist, Raul Manglapus has put all of us in his debt – so unrepayable that we must perforce pay it to others in need.

To us Raul Manglapus is not dead, he will always be there, wherever and whenever truth, beauty, and goodness touch our hearts.

When we comfort the afflicted ,the poor and the hungry among us, the friendless, the cheated and the beaten – Raul will be there.

When we raise our voices against injustice, corruption, hatred, cruelty, bigotry and intolerance – Raul will be there.

When we take arms against the redoubts of drug addiction, low-intensity conflict, rape, murder, treason, and so on into the long and lamentable catalogue of human crimes – Raul will be there.

When we say a prayer, compose a poem, sing a song, kiss our wives without being asked; when we make love with God’s blessing, give birth to a child, and prepare him for life here and hereafter – Raul Manglapus will be there, saying:



Do not stand at my grave and weep, I am not there, I do not sleep

I am the million starts that glow, I am the thousand winds that blow

I am the gentle drops of rain, I am the sunlight on ripened grain.

I am the quiet birds in circled flight. I am the soft hush of restful night.

Do not stand at my grave and cry. I am not there, I did not die.

RAUL PLAYED DIXIELAND JAZZ

Make My Day – Hilarion M. Henares Jr.

The Philippine Post – August 11, 1999

Centuries ago as time is counted by the very young, in the year 1958, a group of business executives led by Bert del Rosario, president of Treble, and Bobby Manosa, one of our brightest architects, got together and formed the Executive Combo, which later became the Executive Band, led by Raul Manglapus, Senator, Cabinet Secretary, and the schoolboy hero of a whole generation of Ateneans, and their latest recruit, no less than the First Lady Mrs. Ming Ramos. I am an honorary member of the Executive Band, and my TV Producer Dr. Luis Esteban Latorre, former Priest of the Opus Dei, is a banofide member of it, they played the trumpet.

For 3 years, they played with the legendary king of jazz Duke Ellington (piano), Lionel Hampton (piano), with King Bhumipol of Thailand (clarinet) and his princess daughter (trumpet), Prince Norodom Sihanouk (saxophone) of Cambodia, with President Bill Clinton (tenor saxophone), with Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir (voice) Ambassador Kulas Platypus (voice), of course the First Lady (piano). They serenaded Pope John Paul II, Frank Sinatra, and other international celebrities. They have performed all over the Philippines and the world. And all for charity as ambassadors of goodwill of the Filipino people. Only recently they departed for Oslo, Norway, and Rome, Italy and Madrid in Spain to serenade the Pope and the great economic heroes of the Philippines today – the OCW’s the overseas contract workers.

White Americans who denigrate the blacks often forget that at the leading edge of American dominance of the world, it its jazz culture whose beginnings can be traced to Negro spiritual music during the time of slavery.

Jazz has many forms: Dixieland that enlivened even funerals in New Orleans; the blues with its earthy lyrics and songs of sorrow, those of Gershwin and Ella Fitzgerald; the syncopated polyphonic Ragtime of Scot Joplin whose piano music you enjoyed in the movie The Sting; soft swing and sway, with Sammy Kay, Artie Shaw, Bing Cosby, and Frank Sinatra; the harmonic Be-Bop, Boogie Woogie, Rock and Roll, Hard Metal, the Rap ,and the noise you hear over NU 107 – all these are different forms of jazz.

Jazz music is mostly innovative and improvised. Its sounds, composed while being played, have natural flowing melodies that express strongly felt emotions – with such instruments as trumpet, trombone, the long-neglected saxophone, harmonica, and the guitars.

What started out as American Negro music now belongs to the world. It belongs more to Filipinos than to any other Asian country, and to such Filipino jazz greats as saxophonist Eddie Catindig and singer Louie Reyes. The Executive Band is one of the more purist of jazz players, practically the only one in the Philippines specializing in Dixieland jazz, the grandfather of all jazz forms.

This is the band we chose to send the world, to serenade our contract workers, and the Pope in Rome, in Oslo and in Madrid, and with whom our ex-First Lady chose to play with in public concerts. And this is the band that played in Raul’s funeral, as per hi request, "When The Saints Come Marching In."

RAUL’S ‘YANKY PANKY’

Hilarion Henares, Jr. (Make My Day The Philippine Post August 10, 1999)


The musical play Yanky Panky was written as a unique final thesis during Raul Manglapus’ fellowship in Cornell. The musical is Raul Manglapus’ legacy to his people, a testament of his nationalism as his life’s journey finally converges with those of Rizal, Recto and Diokno.

It is amusing, witty, delightful, lyrical, with tunes that remind us of the great musicals of Rodgers & Hammerstein. But most of all, it is the history of America’s conquest of the Philippines, when American troops fresh from the Indian Wars and "55 days in Peking" during the Boxer Rebellion, turned their fury on Filipinos, employing the zona and the water cure and perpetrating the massacre of women and children in Samar. It is the beginning of America’s imperialistic drive to "Christianize the Catholics" and have a colony of their own to exploit.

Foreign Secretary Raul S. Manglapus, war hero, once the youngest foreign secretary , senator, freedom fighter in exile, linguist and public speaker, writer and composer, pianist and politician – a Renaissance Man, if there ever is one in these days of narrow specialization – wanted to make political statement and piece of entertainment at the same time, and succeeded. He made us laugh and sing, and see the truth about the Americans … and ourselves.

All the characters in that part of our history are there, singing and dancing, and playing their roles to the hilt with wit that is incisive and delightful:

Teddy Roosevelt in that part of our history are there, singing the will to set the world alright! Backstopped by the conquerors of the past, Pharaoh, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, etc.

Sen. Beveridge, the ultimate imperialist, who wanted America to supply the markets of the Orient, who said that the Anglo-American race is superior to all (That’s giving God too much credit, said Roosevelt)

Commodore George "Knucklehead" Dewey who won the Battle of Manila Bay over the Spanish Admiral Bobo Montojo, You may fire when you are ready, Gridley!

Spanish Governor General Jaudenes who connived with Americans for a sham surrender to avoid being beaten by Aguinaldo , We’ll fire over the Yankee’s head …. We’ll give up bowed but brave…at least our conquerors are white!

President William McKinley, ridiculous in his night gown, kneeling and praying for heavenly guidance: I prayed for light to God Almighty! So heaven said: You must take them, to civilize, to educate and Christianize! We must Christianize the Catholics!

William Jennings Bryann, the anti-imperialist: I will not develop markets overseas by trampling on the dignity of smaller nations. Millions for defense, and not once cent for conquest!

And interwoven in the plot were:

American soldiers singing an authentic war song of the Philippine American War: Damn, damn, damn, the Filipino, pockmarked khakiak ladrone civilize them with a Krag (rifle)!

American carpetbaggers: Our mission is to sell them commodities even if they may not need them…then draw from their soil their gold!

The friendship between Emily the American and Carmen the Filipina. Carmen’s loving Here on my plot of earth, my own land of birth! Counterpointed by Emily’s What is freedom to you? Is it not the heart unbound, the throbbing unchained, the soul that worships unrestrained?

The love between Emily and Navy Lt. Brumby, who decided to stay in the Philippines and teach: Is it possible after you slapped your neighbor, to offer him your hand?

They are all there in the musical Yanky Panky, as if it were an instant playback-the hypocrisy, the deceit, the betrayal, the vicious greed, the love-hate that characterizes Philippine American relations today as we prepare for the invasion of American soldiers under the Visiting Forces Agreement.

RAUL GETS US SPY TO EAT ‘BALUT’

Make My Day – Hilarion Henares, Jr.

The Philippine Post – August 9, 1999



We had a lot of fun, Raul Manglapus and the rest of us, pursuing the objectives of Fiestas for Progress. We descended into town fiestas determined to do some good. We were welcomed into homes, into churches, even into cockpits where we found ourselves watching this barbaric sport, and comparing it with the bullfighting of Spain. We were given permission to speak in the cockpit. They did not even bother to boo us, they just ignored our presence amidst the babble of betting. We came out with the conviction that cockfighting is ingrained in the Filipino soul, its gambling practices etched in his character, and nothing short of an atom bomb can put them asunder.

Our most amusing experience concerned John Esterline of the USIS propaganda agency, about whom so many unkind things were written and said. He wanted to maneuver the Philippine American Cultural Foundation into an outright American propaganda agency. The Americans contributed $1 million, while asking for a Philippine contribution of P14 million in cash and land plus continuing tax exemption. At the same time the Americans made it clear that they will run the whole show. Ridiculous.

Esterline was also pilloried for perpetrating the "bomb hoax" that accused Filipinos of trying to bomb an American school house full of children – an incident that triggered a series of demonstrations against the US Embassy. Editorial writer Adrian Cristobal wrote a series of editorials on the bomb hoax that won him the year’s prestigious Esso Award (later abolished).

After receiving the award, Adrian was promptly fired from the Evening News at the instigation of Esterline, whom they accused of being a CIA agent spying on a friendly people.

If Esterline was a spy, he was not a successful one, and maybe that was shy was so likeable. The only time he was able to advance the interest of America was during the Pateros fiesta when he tagged along with Raul Manglapus and my self in one of our Fiestas for Progress sorties.

"Hey, Esterline, know what is the greatest riddle of all time? It is this: Which comes first, the chicken or the egg? Well, you know you see before you answer to that riddle, a balut. My friend, you eat a balut and you acquire the wisdom of the ages, for the balut is both and chicken and the egg. Care to try?"

This is the acid test Filipinos should apply to their American friends. Only one out of a thousand Americans would try. And 99 out of a hundred who try would get sidelined for a week, absolutely sick.

But our friend Esterline nonchalantly ate five baluts – soup, chick, yolk, white hard core, and all – smacker his lips and asked for more! In shocked desperation, we handed him a pack of cheap, smelly, black, bittersweet Pagkakaisa cigarillos. He did not smoke them, he ate them too!

Later Esterline turned the table on us. He picked out a US marine, trained him for the balut-eating contest in Pateros, and watched with a toothy grin as the marine won the contest hands down, swallowing 18 baluts in 5 minutes, face smeared, mouth drolling – while the Filipinos in the audience turned pale-green absolutely sick with nausea.

TALKING LIKE MANGLAPUS

By Leandro V. Coronel – Commentary

Philippine Daily Inquirer – Opinion August 18, 1999



Talking about Manglapus, most of the written tributes to him simply repeated the litany of attributes in his obituary. And in one such tribute, he was depicted as having shiveled because of his illness. I was privileged to see him a few weeks before he died, and he looked well considering what he had gone through.

More than the loss of an obviously multifaceted man, Manglapus’ demise further accentuates and passing of a generation of politicians who honored their fellow Filipinos by gracing the falls of government and enhancing the glory of the august positions they occupied. Long gone are Manglapus’ contemporaries such as Lorenzo Tanada, Jose Diokno, Francisco Rodrigo, Lorenzo Sumulong, Diosdado Macapagal and yes, Ferdinand Marcos. What do we have today, who do we have today, debating the searing issues of our time.

More than the multiple talents of Manglapus, I appreciated his decency. When we were both living in the United States, I once praised him for being a decent politician, instead of basking in the glory of that remark, he replied: "Oh, there are many other decent Filipino politicians." Manglapus and I shared common stand on many political issues. But more than a comrade-in-politics, I consider Raul, his wife Pacing and his children (especially Bobby, my tennis partner) as family friends. I miss him already.

FIESTAS FOR PROGRESS WAS WORTHWHILE PROJECT

Make My Day – Hilarion Henares, Jr.

The Philippine Post – August I`8, 1999



Raul Manglapus was my schoolboy hero, the champion orator and composer of the Ateneo’s signature song, "Blue Eagle." `He was at the time Senator of the Republic, and aspiring candidate for the presidency of our land. I was at the time president of the Philippine Chamber of Industries, and soon to be appointed to the Cabinet of President Diosdado Macapagal as chairman of the National Economic Council and Presidential Administrator of Community Development (PACD).

Senator Raul Manglapus and I organized the "Fiestas for Progress" movement, of which I was president and he was chairman and moving spirit. Economist Augusto Cesar Espiritu, later Ambassador to West Germany was vice president. Jesus Tanchanco, soon to be NFA administrator, was treasurer; and Jorge Lorredo was PRO. Also Arturo "Bong" Tangco later to be Minister of Agriculture and indefatigable lover boy.

Mrs. J.B. widow of Col. Arsenio de Borja, who headed the movement in Pateros, sent me a pamphlet we issued for Fiestas for Progress, which set up pilot projects with four basic objectives:

To cut down on excessive expenditures on food and drink during the fiesta, to minimize games of chance and contests like dancing and beauty pageants, and give more importance to contests for the best pig, chicken, cow and the biggest vegetables grown, highest yielding land use, and other useful pursuits.

To use fund-raising activities like lotteries and cockfights, reserving part of the winning to accumulate capital for Credit Unions and Cooperatives.

To minimize borrowings for the fiesta celebration, minimize extravagant expenses caused by opening one’s doors indiscriminately to strangers, many of whom flit from one fiesta to another cadging free food and drinks. It is better to entice out-of-towners with special events like the floating flower festival. Hal Bira, and church festivities, and ask them to pay for their own food and shelter, as we ask foreigners who come to our shores.

To prove to the nation that investments, increased incomes, and economic progress are possible if there is cooperation and willingness to change.

The bottom line is that fiestas should bring more money into the town instead of out of the town; and such money should be used to create opportunities for economic advancement. Unfortunately, the word spread that we were abolishing the fiesta, and we became the objects of jokes and were laughed at behind our backs.

The Pateros experiment showed that the people served less food and drinks in their homes during fiesta, holding family reunions without going into debt. Money came into Pateros as visitors patronized stores and vendors, and the people were able to set up with their savings one of the biggest credit unions in the country, through which they sent their children to school, revived their faltering industries and setup new ones, and freed themselves from the clutches of loan sharks.

RAUL MANGLAPUS NEVER BANNED FIESTAS

Make My Day – Hilarion Henares, Jr.

The Philippine Post – August 7, 1999



In the latter part of June 1991, Senator Heherson "Sonny" Alvarez, chairman of the committee on natural resources and ecology, proposed that experts study the possibility of strategic bombing of selected spots around Mt. Pinatubo to divert mudflows from populated areas.

And everyone snickered. Derision in the press consigned Alvarez’s Pinatubo bombing to such nincompoopery as Congressman Vera’s outlawing of typhoon’s President Ramon Magsaysay’s abrogation of law of supply and demand, and Raul Manglapus’ abolition of fiestas.

Hehehe Alvarez can take satisfaction from the fact that such strategic bombing was used successfully in the 1935 eruption of Mauna Loa in Hawaii, but he cannot escape the derision of the press.

Vera’s bill was a perfectly valid proposal to study the typhoon while the view of diverting it or dissipating its force. Today it is possible to seed hurricanes, even bomb the storm’s eye to divert and dissipate it. Up to now, long after he’s been dead Vera is still known to have attempted to abolish typhoons.

Ramon Magsaysay’s remark about abrogating the law of supply and demand is a complete fabrication, a politician’s joke to show Monching’s lack of sophistication. But the joke acquired a life of its own and will probably last forever.

Manglapus’ proposal regarding fiestas sought not to abolish them but to utilize them for capital formation and productive endeavors, like pig raising, duck raising, credit unions, scholarship funding – instead of conspicuous consumption and give-away hospitality. A perfectly valid movement which I headed as president of Fiestas for Progress was practically laughed out of existence.

My friend, Raul Manglapus, screamed with pain every time he saw reprinted for the nth time the canard that a senator he introduced a bill to abolish fiestas. Max Soliven in 1987 wrote that Raul "proposed a law banning fiestas" and that he was "jeered and booted out of the Senate in the 1967 elections". And Teddy Benigno did the same thing in his Star column dated March 21, 1997, writing that Manglapus "got off a Senate Bill to ban fiestas and was bopped bowlegged by a fiesta loving citizenry and Congress." Well, Max and Teddy, pardon me but I was there as the president of Fiestas for Progress, and I know that:

Raul never filed a bill banning fiestas. We proposed not to ban the fiesta but to use it for productive purposes, such as saving capital for projects like balut and salted eggs in Pateros, where our experiement became successful. No need for a law.

Raul did not lose an election to the Senate simply because he did not run for the Senate in 1967. I did, along with Ninoy Aquino, Soc Rodrigo, Camilo Osias, and Maria KK the Censor; only Ninoy won. Nobody could have jeered Manglapus then, nor booted him out in an election he did not participate in.

The next time Raul Manglapus did run was his third party (Progressive) bid for the presidency in 1965, and he and Macapagal lost to Ferdinand Marcos. He then ran in 1970 for the Constitutional Convention. He won in the first district of Rizal with the highest number of votes in the entire country.

RAULS RIVALRY WITH MANNY PELAEZ

Make My Day – Hilarion M. Henares, Jr.

The Philippine Post – August 6, 1999



There was a time when Raul Manglapus and Emmanuel Pelaez, both prominent Ateneans, strode into the political arena together, sometimes in partnership, sometimes in rivalry. Manny Pelaez was not a wartime hero as Raul Manglapus was, but during the Occupation, he spent hours at home singing ‘God Bless America." During the war, Raul Manglapus fought in Bataan, was incarcenated and tortured by the Japanese, made a dramatic escape from the Los Banns POW camp, and participated in the Liberation of Manila. After the war Manny, a bar topnother, became a special prosecutor in the People’s Court. He was with Magsaysay and the NP along with the Rah Rah boys of Raul Manglapus. Manglapus composed the famous campaign song Mambo Magsaysay, and tutored Magsaysay in oratory, specially the famous Moises Padilla speech that ushered Magsaysay into the presidency. He served Magsaysay as Secretary of Foreign Affairs. After Magsaysay died, Manny and Raul ran for the Senate under the Grand Alliance (PPP+disgusted LP’s and NPs), and lost.

In 1961 as an LP, Manny Pelaez became Vice President under Diosdado Macapagal, in whose Cabinet I served. Manglapus topped the Senate race, and distinguished himself with the sponsorship of the Land Reform Act. Manny wanted to be president, but with Macapagal eyeing a second term, both he and Marcos left the LP to join the NP. Marcos won the nomination, and Pelaez drifted back to the PPP with Manglapus as presidential candidate.

"When I come back from Cairo, I’ll campaign for you." Pelaez told Manglapus in 1965. Pelaez never showed up ; instead he ran with the LP (and Macapagal) and on TV asked the voters not to waste their votes on Manglapus.

In 1969, Pelaez was back with NP, campaigning for Marcos whom he once called a "most dangerous man". In 1972, martial law was declared, and three senators were immediately ordered arrested – Ninoy who was imprisoned seven years, Pepe Diokno in prison for two years, and Raul Manglapus who escaped and was in exile for 13 years. Pelaez became Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, and defended Marcos from the attacks of Manglapus in Hawaii as late as 1980. And stayed with Marcos till he was ambushed by persons unknown after which he laid low, while the rest of us were fighting the February Revolution. I never saw him in a public rally.

Manglapus was to be Ambassador to the USA, but somehow Pelaez ingratiated himself with Cory and got the appointed instead. Manglapus was elected into the Senate. Eventually Cory appointed Raul Manglapus as Secretary of Foreign Affairs, and as such he negotiated with Americans on the US Bases, and did his best to promote, protect, and defend Philippine interest in the face of his boss President Cory Aquino’s determination to accommodate the Americans. A majority of 12 senators led by Jovito Salonga, Wigberto "Bobby" Tanada, and Erap Estrada opposed and rejected the Bases Treaty.

Raul Manglapus accepted the position of chairman of the Philippine National Oil Co., in the administration of President |Fidel V. Ramos, and spent many time playing with his Executive Band with First Lady Ming Ramos as pianist, and once with US President Bill Clinton as saxophonist when he was here on a visit.

During Erap’s term, Raul Manglapus retired, contracted throat cancer, and passed away peacefully.

MANGLAPUS: SOUL OF SOCIAL AND POLITICAL REFORM

By Amado S. Lagdameo ,Jr.

Member, National Directorate, Lakas NUCD-UMDP-Kampi

(Eulogy delivered at the necrological service for the late chairman of the party Raul S. Manglapus on July 30 at the St. James Chapel, Ayala Alabang, Muntinlupa)

How does one take the measures of this man, Raul S. Manglapus who, like Michaelangelo’s statue of David, was poised, ready to pick up a stone and put it in his slingshot to slay his Goliath? Or who, like Michaelangelo’s epic status of Moses, sits in judgement over his people and is poised, ready to stand up and throw down in anger the two Tablets of the Law given to him by God?

With Raul as our David ready to slay our Goliath, or as a Moses, ready to lead his people to the Promised Land, where down one begin to tell the story? Where does one end it?

Friends have made accounts of their personal encounters with the man. Speakers have covered the historicity’s of his life. Perhaps what we can do is try to say something about some of the ideas which fired him, and the sentiments which made him the soul of social and political reform in our day, the way Jose Rizal himself was the soul of Philippine Revolution in his day.

Without doubt, Raul courted disaster, while fortuitously avoiding it, in the same way that Rizal courted it. While Rizal did not escape the disaster that eventually overtook him, Raul had the fortunate blessing of a peaceful death in the bosom of his family. But this does not make Raul any less heroic, for he too went through his own crucifixion for his love of country, democracy and freedom.

Agrarian Reform

From the time Raul delivered his famous oratorical piece, Land of Bondage, Land of the Free in 1935 before the presence of President Manuel Quezon at the Metropolitan Theatre in Manila, to today when we take for granted the existence of the Department of Agrarian Reform , some sixty year have passed. Yet, the history of agrarian reform is tied to his own historicity.

In 1967, together with like-minded reformers, he launched the Christian Social Movement which eventually spearheaded the move to call for a Constitutional Convention and which actually took place in 1971. He was in that Convention and later historians will relate the exact nature of his participation in that assembly.

What is little known is that prior to the launching of the CSM, a small group of Filipinos met at Mirador, the retreat house of the Jesuits in Baguio, to explore ways of implementing the social teachings of the Church, especially Populorum Progressio byPope Paul VI.

And here we find the key idea which fired Raul, who was in that small group: the idea that the social teachings of the Church – from Rerum Novarum of Pope Leo XIII, down to Populorum Progressio – can and should be the guiding principles in creating a just and humane society. But how does one translate these principles into practical social, economic and political terms?

Later developments showed that his basic idea of bringing the social teachings of the Church into the mainstream of Philippine political life can be done and has been dome. The present Lakas-NUCD-UMDP Kampi, originally founded in 1984, is a logical expression of this basic idea, and it is the only viable idea that can articulate a distinction between this party and the other parties in our land.

In 1972, Raul and Michael Mastura prepared the first Muslim-Christian Manifesto, but its publication was delayed by several years because of the intervention of martial law. But that manifesto also had a logical outcome, namely, the emergence of 1986 of the United Muslim Democrats of the Philippines (or UMDP), as the joint partner of the National Union of Christian Democrats (or NUCD) founded two years earlier in 1984 when, in 1986, both merged into one political party. For once, this event recognized the true role of our Muslim Filipinos in the governance and development of our country.

Human dignity is inviolate

Some of the basic ideas which were quite revolutionary at some point in our past included the idea that human dignity is inviolate, including the dignity of the unborn from moment of conception. There was the idea of property as not being absolute, but that its ownership carries with it a social responsibility.

There was the idea that political parties must articulate their philosophical positions out of which they should devise their programs of government so that the electorate can have real choices. There was the idea that an electoral system should not be held hostage by political parties through a lopsided election-inspector system. And so on.

And from whose oratory did these ideas find expression in our consciousness? From the oratory or Raul. As well as from his deeds.

But all these were not just food for oratory. Raul was not content with just what is proper or not. If so, then propriety would simply be the consequence of behavior, and behavior can be learned. Neither was he content with just what is correct or not. If so, then an idea would simply become a question of hypothesis and proof, and therefore a question of science and technique, and this, too, is still within the horizon of the pragmatic.

What he was after is to answer the question of what is morally right and what is morally wrong. Then, the issue becomes one of ethics, and therefore, an issue of conscience. And once an idea becomes an issue of conscience, then to espouse that idea would require character, courage and a large degree of heroism, all of which he had in great abundance.

It is this heroism which made him an iconoclast. And in words of Impossible Dream from Man from La Mancha, one could see Raul in the songs as Don Quixote pursuing his quest:

"To dream the impossible dream;

To fight the unbeatable foe;

To bear with unbearable sorrow;

To run where the brave dare not go;

To right the unrightable wrong;

To love pure and chaste from afar;

To try when your arms are too weary;

To reach the unreachable star.

THE SECRET OF SENATOR MANGLAPUS

Senate Mouthful – Pamsy Tioseco Journal July 31, 1999


"Come over and make us laugh, my men are so disoriented here in Manila," so appealed Col. Warlito Sayam, then 5th GHQ Battalion, whole entire unit was airlifted from Zamboanga during the time of the attempted coups against the Aquino administration to protect television installations all over the National Capital Region from renegade forces.

The high command, unable to distinguish among the ranks who were for the government and who for the rebels, decided to airlift to Manila an entire battalion just to protect these powerful mass media equipment.

"My men are used to the mountains; but here in Manila they are lost. I had to go to National Bookstore just to buy a map because they did not know where Channel 4 or 7 was. "

"One of my men who entered Shoemart didn’t even know how to get out till he decided to tail a family whom he was certain would later go home."

It was on behalf of Col. Sayam’s men that, one evening just after Senate sessions had ended, I approached then Senator Raul Manglapus who, prior to his being appointed secretary of Foreign Relatins by then President Corazon Aquino, was the Senate’s chairman of the committee on National Defense and Security.

Sen. Manglapus didn’t really know me.

I introduced myself as a staffmember of another senator and told him that I had an appeal from Col. Sayam and his men.

"Sir, they are not asking for an increase in pay or a pat on the back but blankets, even used ones, because it could be very chilly at night, up in the Sierra Madre mountains where some of the television facilities, which they need to protect, are located." I had to summon all my courage and keep my fingers crossed as I relayed the matter to the late Senator.

"How many men are they?" Sen. Manglapus asked me."

"Nine hundred, sir," I answered . And that was it.

"I will see what I can do, " were his parting words.

A few days later, Col. Sayam called me up profuse of gratitude because apparently, not only did 900 brand new blankets arrive in their camp but also 900 folding beds!

Maring Feria, an officer from the Office of Senator Manglapus, explained that the Senator told his prayer group about the request of the soldiers and a nun went to Col. Sayam’s camp and asked the first soldier she saw at the camp entrance: "Where do you sleep?"

"On the floor, but the lucky ones who can afford it have folding beds," the soldier replied.

A few more questions apparently convinced the Sister of the needs of the 5th GHQ Battalion’s soldiers.

"Some of my men were in tears as they received the blankets because they felt the assistance and conern of government for them and their responsibilities and mission," Col. Sayam enthused.

"They felt they were really being warmly welcomed in Manila, and now are certainly more spirited and committed to fulfilling their duties and responsibilities, " Col. Sayam added.

"Guess where Senator Manglapus was earlier," Maring Feria greeted me one afternoon a couple of weeks thereafter at the Senate Session Hall.

"He went Col. Sayam’s camp and brought rice, chess sets and volleyballs and he was really happy about the experience with the soldiers."

A few days ago, Senator Manglapus’s remains were brought back to the halls of the Senate and his esteemed colleagues …….

WHO WILL EVER FORGET MANGLAPUS’ MAMBO MAGSAYSAY

Point of Order Jose L. Guevara Manila Bulletin

Raul S. Manglapus of the Ateneo was the big idol of the youth before the war. People wanted to be like him more than they wanted to be like Leon Ma. Guerrero, himself in a pre-war idol.

The admiration for Raul went even farther than our youth. We idolized him during the war and after the war.

We idolized him for his guerilla exploits, his sacred attempts to be prez of the Philippines, his senatorial aspirations and his heading the Foreign Affairs Dep’t.

We read his superb reporting as a journalist for a liberation newspaper.

But the youth of the land really wanted to be like him, a silver-tongued orator and a song-writer whose songs catapulted a fellow pro-American like him to the prez of the land. Who’ll forget Mambo Magsaysay?

Even now his fame as a song-writer has not faded with his 2 songs advertising CAP which sound like very good music to TV viewers.

On the eve of his retirement from public service, to which he has dedicated his life a number of years, he said it’s about time he made some money serving the private sector.

I hope he did with several private companies availing of his services as board chairman or director.

THE MANGLAPUS I KNEW

Little Notes – Alfredo G. Rosario

The Philippine Post – July 30, 1999



I came to know Raul Manglapus when he was running the Magsaysay for President Movement sometime in 1953. I was co-editing a fledgling magazine and I went to see him for an ad. He was warm and accommodating enough to oblige me with a whole page.

I never had a close encounter with him again, except when I had to attend the election rallies at Plaza Miranda where he was one of the outstanding speakers. He was running then for the Senate.

Manglapus’ reputation as a brilliant orator had preceded him and I took delight listening to him. He was a raconteur par excellence as well.

In one of his campaign speeches, he related an anecdote about himself being led on a tour of Britain’s Hall of Fame in England by his host, an important government functionary.

Before every marble statue of Britain’s famous heroes, they stopped and his host would point to each as the country’s best writer, best athlete, best physician, best painter, best hero, and so on and so forth.

At the end of the brief tour, Manglapus said he told his guide: "We have all of them in the Philippines – your best writer, best athlete, best physician, best painter, and best hero. But he was only a one man – Dr. Jose Rizal."

It was a touching story that inspired national pride. And Manglapus said it with surging pride in his soul.

Freedom, Democracy alive and vibrant

Manila Standard Emil P. Jurado

Wednesday, July 28,1999



A lot has been said of the passing of former senator and former Foreign Affairs Secretary Raul Manglapus. All I can say is that he was a true Atenean, an idealist and visionary, who imbibed and lived the humanities that the Jesuits taught him, having been a freedom fighter not only during the Marcos years, but during the dark days of the Japanese occupation as well., and public servant for many years.

Every Atenean knows who Raul was – the pride of his school, the composer of "Fly High, Blue Eagle," the schools banner song which I used to sing at the top of my lungs during the NCAA days. And who can forget Raul with his "arrneow" accent, perhaps the best example of Ateneo’s proficiency in English and diction. Well, it’s good thing that Erap didn’t have the accent. He could never have made it to the presidency.

Raul’s idealism and vision were best shown when he ran as a third Force for president together with another unforgettable Atenean – Manny Manahan. Would you believe that I joined their Progressive Party of the Philippines because I believed in their vision and ideals?

Both are history now, but in my heart they are the true Ateneans, the true Filipinos in this millennium.

Talk of the Town

The Philippine Post Wednesday, July 28, 1999

CARMEN GUERRERO NAKPIL

Raul S. Manglapus, who lies in the state, this week at a four-stop wake at the Ateneo, Petron, the Philippine Senate, and at St. James in Alabang, was always a popular fighter for freedom. The American Jesuits taught him all the civic passions: democracy, justice, honesty, freedom. He defended them while heavily besieged by the Japanese "kempeitai", the Marcos dictatorship, the bureaucracy and its unworthy politicians, the backwardness of his own people and the American military agreements.

But I knew him best as a brilliant piano player who could bang out any tune on our family piano in the living room, of our home in Ermita , while swapping jokes with my brothers, Leoni and Mario, who was also his classmate at the Ateneo. He couldn’t read a note, but music of ineffable quality issued from the piano when he played it: Verdi, Duke Ellington, Cole Porter, kundiman, opera, jazz, swing or Sousa’s marches.

The piano playing he turned into the executive band and the anti-American musical "Yankee-Panky," later. But it became an indication of his true nature. Music, like his life and works, was a work of art.

He had a true ear for the right note and the perfect rhythm, the heart-rendering melody and the syncopated chords that could cause explosions. He had the intelligence and the will and the turn-of-phrase. Like his music, he was brave, strong and true.

Without him, I am afraid we shall have cacophony.

THE LAST "MAN OF LA MANCHA"

Under the Sun Raul L. Contreras

Metro Today – July 28, 1999



Another warrior is dead. Raul S. Manglapus died before dawn broke, after having lived long enough under the sun to enjoy the freedom he fought for and help regain for us after 14 years.

My encounters with my tocayo (that’s how he called me) over 43 years were sporadic. We first met at a merienda cena for visiting foreign students in 1956 in the lovely residence of the incorruptible and the indefatigable Rodrigo Perez Jr., Fr. Bobby’s and Spanky’s late father Raul Manglapus then was the boyish-looking Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs, while Papa Rod was chairman of the Commission on Elections (and later secretary of finance in the Macapagal government) Ramon Magsaysay had drawn the best, the brightest and the cleanest to his governance.

Approaching the buffet table filled with every delectable Filipino merienda dish prepared by Mama Etang Perez, I was right behind the undersecretary. We chatted about my experience as Philippine delegate to the NewYork Herald Tribune Forum the year before as he insisted on filing my plate in addition to his.

My closest friends then – Spanky Perez, Buddy Gomez, Joey Ortiz and Esty Juco, among others – worked their tails off when Manglapus ran for senator in the ticket of Manuel Manahan and Vicente Araneta, presidential and vice-presidential candidates, respectively, in 1957. I was too young to vote but still ended up cheering for Claro M. Recto. The first vote I ever cast for a president in 1961 went to Raul S. Manglapus. He was also first in my ballot during the election for the Constitutional Convention in 1970. Of course, he was my top choice each time he ran for the Senate.

As soon as I arrived in the United States for a self-imposed exile in February 1973, the late Robert Hinchman Jr. of Texaco, and I called Raul, who was then living in Ithaca, New York. He was by then teaching in Cornell University. We agreed to meet as soon as he could make it to Manhattan or I could make it to Ithaca. We were eager to discuss what could be mounted in the United States to end the Marcos dictatorship. Raul was happy to learn that I was already in touch for the same pupose with Skeezix, the late Jesuit genius Horacio dela Costa’s nom de guerre. Fr. Dela Costa then was based in Rome.

We never met in New Yo0rk because of time and distance limitations but stayed in touch by telephone. My family and I were based in Arlington, Virginia, where we lived with my in-laws while I looked for a job in either Washington, D.C. or New York. I had told Raul that if I had my way, I would not take a job in the business sector again and preferred to go with a non-government agency or a private think tank.

Although his career had become unsettled and his family had not escaped from the Philippines, he promised to help me. Soon he visited Washington, D.C. and began talking to his influential American friends to help find me a job. At a gathering of predominantly US officials who had been posted in the Philippines before martial rule, he introduced me formally. He said: "I want you to meet the latest freedom fighter to arrive in the United States. I also want you to know he needs a job."

Joey Ortiz served as Raul’s official greeter, driver and baggage boy. He lived in neighboring Anandale, next door to Arlington. One late evening as I was being driven home, Raul asked about my private life, to whom I was married, etc. Upon hearing my father-in-law’s name, Raul told me that Dr. Jose Guetierrez spoonfed him as the liberators of Manila spirited him out of prison in 1945. He was that weak and emaciated.

I attended a few more meetings with the Manglapus group even when I moved to Manhattan. Then I lost touch with them as I worked instead with Fr. Dela Costa by mail and with a key member of the Council of Churches based also in Manhattan. But I always had news about the activities of Raul’s group, the hardships they encountered, the frustrations they underwent and , worse, the taunts they got from Philipines, particularly from those in the media who were in the left and right pockets of the dictator.

Raul and company were not the "steak commandos" that Teodoro Valencia derisively called them. I knew that Raul in particular was dead broke, but he was fortunate enough to have his family, especially his wife Pacing and his friends, who believed in the nobility of his cause. We were to meet again in the lobby of the Cojuangco Building on February 27, 1986. He came directly from the airport. He couldn’t wait to rejoin the people who made our homecoming possible.

There can be no better eulogy for Raul Manglapus than the story of his entire life, which for the greater part he devoted to his country and people. He was the last "Man of La Mancha". I wonder how many more of Raul’s dreams for our country remain unfulfilled and how many more battles he would have fought in defense of democracy and freedom had he lived longer in good health.

Have a joyous reunion with Skeezix, Ninoy, Ka Pepe, Chino, Soc and Celing, tocayo.

By Julius Fortuna – East and West

Journal – July 28, 1999


We won’t let the week pass without writing about Raul S. Manglapus, foreign affairs chief in two administrations, senator since we can remember, founder of the Christian Social Movement (CSM) and chairman of the Lakas-NUCD-UMDP.

Congressman Heherson Alvarez, in a statement released on Monday’s SONA, put premium on Manglapus oratorical prowess.

Manglapus may truly be of the last breed of men who practiced oratory as an art form, a reputation that is known in Southeast Asia.

It was said that ASEAN foreign ministers always demand that Manglapus be placed as the last speaker in every regional forum because no one else would listen after he spoke. In one critical meeting Manglapus was tasked to make the opening speech to persuade Sihanouk to accept the ASEAN peace plan for Cambodia. That performance, in our mind, was one of Manglapus’ finest moments.

Manglapus, in the worlds of Alvarez, was a "towering giant of intellect, mind and spirit," but we will try to summarize in this column his core beliefs.

First, Manglapus wanted a world and country guided by Christian democracy. He started this crusade in his Grand Alliance which he used to run for president. He was frustrated in this bid. But in 197, he continued his crusade with the formation of the Christian Social Movement.

Our generation was on the other side of the ideological spectrum, condemning the CSM as a foreign-and Church-inspired movement meant to confuse the issues. But Manglapus, was not daunted by this criticism, pursuing his goal through the National Union of Christian Democrats.

Second, he was an exponent of political pluralism. His dream was to install a political system that completed in terms of ideological programs and not with personalities or celebrities. We suspect he is really for a parliamentary system. But he could not pursue this goal because of political considerations.

In economic reforms, he was for a mixed economy which meant that he was partly socialist and capitalist. My impression was his economic thought were undeveloped because – in his writings – he could not specify which sector should be sate and which part private.

One thing is certain though: He was for "land reform in an emotional way. He adopted the slogan of land for the tiller but he wanted it carried out within the constitutional system.

My impression was that he wanted a country peopled by a large middle class that would be created through land distribution.

Happy Warrior

Nelson Navarro (Manila Standard)

In the late 1970s, I was supposed to have been Raul Manglapus biographer. Our lonely struggle against the Marcos dictatorship deserved to be committed to paper. But the day Raul and I sat down for a tape interview, I began to see him less as a politician and more as a Filipino who had lived a very charmed life.


Just before I left on my recent vacation to Europe, I ran into Ben Maynigo, an old Washington –based friend of, the old student movement days, in one, of those coffeeshops in Greenbelt. As with all our meetings over the years. I would a ways inquire about his in-laws, The Manglapuses. Ben being married to Tina, the family’s only daughter.

" Dad’s not very well". he said. " " We expect him to go any moment now". The cruel particulars had a ring of finally, and this saddened me very much.

" Incidentally." Ben continued his sad account," whatever happened to your notes and interview with my father in-laws? Can you still dredge them up? I know it’s late, but he really needs to have a biography, something to his story."

Then I remembered that way back when, in the late 1970’s, I was supposed to have been Raul Manglapus biographer. The plans wee really vague. We didn’t even have a publisher in mind. But don Raul, as we fondly called him in those days, had quickly warmed to the idea that our lonely struggle again in the Marcos dictatorship deserved to be committed to paper. It was only incidentally that the personal history of the man at the helm of the exile movement in the U>S would have to be told.

But the very first day Raul and I sat for a tape interview. I began to see him less as a politician and more as a Filipino who had lived a very charmed life. At that point, I did not want to write a biography, which seemed presumptuous since I still hadn’t published a book, but the reminiscences of the in his own words.

And so I made the shuttle between Washington and New York for the interviews. Sometimes, we would meet in his residence out in Virginia, which was on the road to what was to become the mall-infested Tyson Corner area. Other times we would be holed up in the movement for a free Philippines office at the National Press Club Building in downtown Washington. As everybody knows, MFP was the original pro-democracy group Raul put together in the first days of martial law. When quite a lot of people thought he was crazy to think of challenging the Marcos regime even from the relative safety of the United States.

Conceived with all enthusiasm, this rather ambitious project was not to be. Somewhere along the way, Raul felt we should shelve it for some reason or another. Eventually, we were superseded by events like the "Great Escape" of Geny Lopez and Serge Osmena and of course, the "defection" of Ninoy Aquino who had at first come to the US for medical treatment and opted to fight Marcos from afar, After that, Ninoy assassination, the long march to the Edsa Revolution and rest is history.

Raul reclaimed his rightful place in the political firmament by getting elected again to the senate and then trading this high office to serve as Cory Aquino’s Foreign Affairs secretary. After that he went into semi-retirement as chairman of Petron and also chairman of ruling Lakas-NUCD Party during the Ramos administration.

From time to time, I would bump into Raul in hotel lobbies and on social occasions. We would have a little chitchat about the good old days and to get in touch today. I kick myself for foolishly believing that the man, indestructible as he seemed, would live forever and that I would have all the time in the world to ask him to continue the tapings where he had left off some 20 years ago.

What kind of man was Raul?

He was a gentleman of the first order. I recall one incident, not included in his reminiscences. Where he and former President Diosdado Macapagal had a rather awkward encounter in Washington.

Macapagal had come one day in 1979, an ex-president without staff excepts his loyal daughter Gloria who functioned as his secretary, lugging around documents and press releases in one huge and heavy bag that never left her side.

Apparently, the Macapagals had over looked giving prior notice to Raul and he felt somewhat slighted. Suddenly, father and daughter were in town and that very morning they were on their way from their hotel to the NPC Building. Sonny Alvarez, who was then working with Raul but who had once served as Macapagal’s private secretary, was caught right in the middle because it was out of the question for Raul to come down to meet his old political rival ( they clashed in the elections of 1965 and the Con - Con of 1971 ). Sonny had to rush to meet the ex-president and give him his due according to protocol.

Saying something about Raul being inexplicably detained upstairs. Sonny gently led the Macapagals up to Raul’s office, fearing a clash of titans. To our utter surprise, as soon as Dadong entered, Raul got up from hi chair, rushed to the door and warmly greeted hi visitor. Those of us in the room could only sigh with relief.

Moving quickly to the auditorium, Macapagal delivered an impassioned speech calling for America to help restore democracy and all that. During the question-and –answer period, he was asked, may taunted, about whether the opposition had even one candidate with enough brilliance and guts to take on the impregnable Marcos.

Unshaken, Macapagal shot back: " We have a number of very qualified men who could be better presidents than Marcos." Prudently excluding himself, he rattled off: Pepe Diokno, Gerry Roxas, Ninoy Aquino, saying nice things about each man. By this time those of us in the Filipino group could sense trouble brewing. Raul was breathing heavily. "And last but not least", Macapagal thundered with the kind of aplomb only politicos of the old school could muster, " there’s this young man who has been leading the movement in exile ". All indications wee that he was going to name Sonny Alvarez. Raul’s face had turned dark. " none other than Raul Manglapus."

Raul was ecstatic. It was much akin to the " And the winner is…" moment in the Miss Universe pageant. The two leaders fell on each others shoulders. Everybody was cheering. There were two great gentlemen in politics who could fight each other and still have fun, and never once lose what’s so badly missing this days, something that used to be called "cultura civil"-the courtesy of civil society.

Of Raul’s 15 years or so of exile, which more or less coincided with mine. All I can say was that the man behaved with utmost discretion and grace. It is the nature of exiles to eat each other up, but Raul always managed to stay above the fray.

The Manglapuses went for broke against Marcos. In 1981 when Marcos came for a state visit, some people made fun of the Manglapuses because they(nine of them, including kids and maids) were the only ones who turned out the Washington monument to protest against the dictator exile leaders were forever pitting Raul against Ninoy Aquino, but, in fairness, the men always tried to present a brave common front.

Personally, it was my privilege to somehow get glimpse of the other Raul before and outside politics. One little detail: when he was in grade school, this only child of an adoring rich mother moved into a mansion in San Juan which had belonged to another rich family whose spoiled son amounted to nothing. Although living in the style of Richie Rich, Raul followed a different path. He became Mr. Ateneo and developed a lifelong passion for politics and the common man. Over and above that, he was most devoted to his sweetheart Pacing and he just loved music.

RAUL MANGLAPUS, THE QUINTESSENTIAL ATENEAN

August 4, 1999 for Post Hilarion M. Henares Jr.



I. Raul Manglapus, The quintessential Atenean

There is such thing as a Great Upian, because as a concept UP does not exist. There are only the UP fraternities, and they are eternally at war with each other. There are no Great Opus Dei, either, for they are all under the Spaniards, and they have no other purpose in life but to accumulate wealth and power, disdain the poor, and serve the foreigners.

There are no Great La Sallites because there is no such thing as a La . There are only the La Sallite Mestizos, the cono boys subsidized by the Sorianos and Zobels; The La Salle Chinese who own the Philippines; and the poor La Salle Filipinos who are left to fend for themselves; and the three are not even talking to each other. They don’t even understand each other, for one speaks Spanish, another Fokien and the other Taglish. There are two who might have ben great Filipino La Sallites, Lorenzo Tanada and Jose W. Diokno, but they have never been honored as such. The only ones so honored by the Christian Brothers are the ones who pursue wealth, like the del Rosario brothers, Concepcion twins, Danding Cojuangco and someone called Chris Concepcion before he ran off with somebody else’s money.

The greatest Ateneans are Jose Rizal and Claro M. Recto, men of genius and Renaissance spirit. But they were repudiated by their foreign Jesuit mentors because they were Filipino patriots. Other great Ateneans were Horacio de la Costa and Leon Ma. Guerero. But Horace became more of a Jesuit than a real Atenean, and Leonie became a patriot prematurely, hitting the Americans when the Filipino people were still under the spell of Americans. On the other hand, Emmanuelle Pelaez remained a pro-American even after we became independent. Only Raul Manglapus can truly be called a Great Atenean. He was pro-American when the American Jesuits still controlled Ateneo, and became a patriot when Filipino Jesuits took over. The Jesuits and the students of Ateneo never faltered in their admiration and support for raul Manglapus, for in their eyes and in the eyes of many, he was the quintessential Atenean. Every other Atenean was measured by the standards set by Raul Manglapus. His Arrneoow accent and facility with a dozen dialects and languages was legendary.

Raul Manglapus was school-boy hero. As a boy, I was there when he delivered his speech "land of Bondage, Land of the Free," lost the oratorical contest, and was publicly commended by President Quezon as the one who should have won. I was there when he delivered his famous speech "His Excellency, Labor," with which he won the First National Oratorical Contest. I was there when he composed "Blue Edge The King," to cheer our teams to victory. I was there when he graduated summa cum laude.

I bore witness to his incarceration and torture by the Japanese, his dramatic escape from Los Banos POW camp, his exploits as a guerilla, and eventually, after Liberation as the only Filipino to attend the surrender ceremony of the Japanese on the Battleship Maine in Tokyo Bay.

My wife Cecilia and I spent our first visit to Disneyland in the company of Raul and Pacing Manglapus. I followed him wherever he led us, into Magsaysay’s Rah Rah Boys, supporting him as our youngest Foreign Affairs Secretary under Magsaysay. When Magsaysay died, I joined him and Manahan in the latter’s failed bid for the presidency. I was with him in the Progressive Party, and in the Grand Alliance in his quixotic for political recognition.

II. Raul’s rivalry with Manny Pelaez

There was a time when Raul Manglapus and Emmanuelle Pelaez, both prominent Ateneans, strode into the political arena together, sometimes in partnership, sometimes in rivalry. Manny Pelaez was not a wartime hero as Raul Manglapus was, but during the Occupation, he spent hours at home singing "God Bless America." During the war, Raul Manglapus fought in Bataan, was incarcerated and tortures by the Japanese, made a dramatic escape from the Los Banos POW camp, and participated in the Liberation of Manila. After the war Manny, a bar topnotcher, became a special prosecutor in the People’s Court. He was with Magsaysay and the NP along with the Rah Rah boys of Raul Manglapus. Manglapus composed the famous campaign song Mambo Magsaysay, and tutored Magsaysay in oratory, specially the famous Moises Padilla speech that ushered Magsaysay into the Presidency. He served Magsaysay as Secretary of Foreign Affairs. After Magsaysay died, Manny and Raul ran for the senate under the Grand Aliance (PPP + disgusted LPs and NPs), and lost.

In 1961 as an LP, Manny Pelaez became Vice President under Diosdado Macapagal, in whose cabinet I served. Manglapus topped the senate race, and distinguished himself with the sponsorship of the Land Reform Act. Manny wanted to be president, but with Macapagal eyeing a second term, both he and Marcos left the LP to join the NP. Marcos won the nomination, and Pelaez drifted back to the PPP with Manglapus as presidential candidate.

"When I come back fromCairo, I’from Cairo campaign for you," Pelaez told Manglapus in 1965. Pelaez never showed up, instead he ran with the LP (and Macapagal), and on TV asked the voters not to waste their votes on Manglapus.

In 1069, Pelaez was back with the NP, campaigning for Marcos whom he once called a "most dangerous man." In 1972, martial law was declared, three senators were immediately ordered arrested – Ninoy who was imprisoned seven years, Pepe Diokno in prison for two years, and Raul Manglapus who escaped and was in exile for 13 years. Pelaez became Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, and defended Marcos from the attacks of Manglapus in Hawaii as late as 1980, and stayed with Marcos till he was ambushed by persons unknown, after which he laid low, while the rest of us were fighting the February Revolution. I never saw him in a public rally.

Manglapus was to be Ambassador to the USA, but somehow Pelaez ingratiated himself with Cory and got the appointment instead. Manglapus was elected into the Senate. Eventually Cory appointed Raul Manglapus as Secretary of Foreign Affairs, and as such he negotiated with asshole Americans on the US Bases, and did his best to promote, protect and defend Philippine interest in the face of his boss President Cory Aquino’s determination to accommodate the Americans. A majority of twelve Senators led by Jovito Salonga, Wigberto "Bobby" Tanada and Erap Estrada opposed and rejected the Bases Treaty.

Raul Manglapus accepted the position of Chairman of the Philippine National Oil Co., in the administration of President Fidel V. Ramos, and spent many a time playing with his Executive Band with First Lady Ming Ramos as pianist, and once with US President Bill Clinton as saxophonist when he was here on visit.

During Erap’s term, Raul Manglapus retired, contracted throat cancer, and passed away peacefully.

III. Raul Manglapus never banned fiestas!

In the last part of June 1991, Senator Heherson "Sonny" Alvarez, Chairman of the committee on natural resources and ecology, proposed that experts study the possibility of strategic bombing of selected spots around the Mt. Pinatubo to divert mudflows from populated areas.

And everyone snickered. Derision in the press consigned Alvarez’s Pinatubo bombing to such nincompoopery as Congressman Vera’s outlawing of typhoons, President Ramon Magsaysay’s abrogation of the law of supply and demand, and Raul Manglapus’ abolition of fiestas.

Hehehe Alvarez can take satisfaction from the fact that such strategic bombing was used successfully in the 1935 eruption of Mauna Loa in Hawaii, but he cannot escape the derision of the press.

Vera’s bill was a perfectly valid proposal to study the typhoon with the view of diverting it or dissipating its force. Today it is possible to seed hurricanes, even bomb the storm’s eye to divert and dissipate it. Up to now, long after he’s been dead, Vera is still known to have attempted to abolish typhoons.

Ramon Magsaysay’s remark about abrogating the law of supply and demand is a compete fabrication, a politicians’s joke to show up Monching’s lack of sophistication. But the joke acquired a life of its own and will probably last forever.

Manglapus’ proposal regarding fiestas, sought not to abolish it to utilize it for capital formation and productive endeavor, like pig raising, duck raising, credit unions, scholarship funding – instead of conspicuous consumption and give-away hospitality. A perfectly valid movement which I headed as president of Fiestas for Progress, was practically laughed out of existence.

My friend, Raul Manglapus screamed with pain every time he sees reprinted for the nth time the canard that as a senator he introduced a bill abolish fiestas. Max Soliven in 1987 wrote that Raul "proposed a law banning fiestas" and that he was "jeered and booted out of the Senate in the 1967 elections." And Teddy benigno did the same thing in his Star column dated March 21,1997, writing that Manglapus "got off a Senate bill to ban fiestas and was bopped bowlegged by a fiesta loving citizenry and Congress." Well, Max and Teddy, pardon me for living but I was there as the president of Fiestas for Progress, and I know that :

1. Raul never filed a bill banning fiestas. We proposed not to ban the fiesta but to use it for productive purposes, such as saving capital for projects like balut and salted eggs in Pateros, where our experiment became successful. No need for a law.
2. Raul did not lose an election to the senate simply because he did not run for the senate in 1967. I did, along with Ninoy Aquino, Soc Rodrigo, Camilo Osias, and Maria KK the Censor; only Ninoy won. Nobody could have jeered Manglapus then, nor booted him out in an election he did not participate in.
3. The next time Raul Manglapus did run was his third party (Progressive) bid for the presidency in 1965, and he and Macapagal lost to Ferdinand Marcos. He then ran in 1970 for the Constituional Convention.

IV. Fiestas For Progress was a worthwhile project

Raul Manglapus was my school-boy hero, the champion orator and composer of the Ateneo’s signature song, "Blue Eagle." He was at the time senator of the republic, and aspiring candidate for the presidency of our land. I was at the time the president of the Philippine Chamber of Industries, and soon to be appointed to the presidential cabinet of President Diosdado Macapagal as Chairman of the National Economic Council and Presidential Administrator of Community Development (PACD).

Senator Raul Manglapus and I organized the "Fiestas for Progress" movement, of which I was President and he was Chairman and moving spirit. Economist Augusto Cesar Espiritu, later Ambassador to West Germany, was with us as vice president. Jesus Tanchanco, soon to be the NFA Administrator, was treasurer, and Jorge Lorredo as PRO. Also Arturo "Bong" Tangco later to be Minister of Agriculture and indefatigable loverboy. Raul was chairman.

Mrs. J.B. widow of Col. Arsenio de Borja, who headed the movement in Pateros, sent me a pamphlet we issued for Fiestas for Progress, which set up pilot projects with four basic objectives:

o To cut down on excessive expenditures on food and drinks on fiesta, to minimize games of chance and contests like dancing and beauty pageants, and give more importance to contest for the best pig, chicken, cow, and the biggest vegetables grown, highest yielding land use, and other useful pursuits.
o To use fund-raising activities like lotteries and cockfights, reserving part of the winnings to accumulate capital for Credit Unions and Cooperatives.
o To minimize borrowings for the fiesta celebration. Minimize extravagant expenses like opening one’s doors indiscriminately to strangers, many of flit from one fiesta to another cadging free food and drinks. It is better to entice out-of-towners with special events like the floating flower festival, Hala Bira, and church festivities, and ask them to pay for their own food and shelter, as we ask foreigners who come to our shores.
o To prove to the nation that investments, increased incomes and economic progress are possible if there is cooperation and willingness to change.

The bottom line is that fiestas should bring more money into the town instead of out of the town; and such money should be used to create opportunities for economic advancement. Unfortunately, the word spread that we were abolishing the fiesta, and we became the subject of jokes and laughed at behind our backs.

The Pateros experiment showed that the people served less food and drinks in their homes during fiesta, holding family reunions without going into debt. Money came into Pateros as visitors patronized stores and vendors. And the people were able to set up with their savings one of the biggest credit unions in the country, through which they sent their children to school, revived their faltering industries and set up new ones, and freed themselves from the clutches of loan sharks.

V. Raul gets a US spy to eat balut

We had a lot of fun, Raul Manglapus and the rest of us, pursuing the objectives of Fiestas For Progress. We descended into town fiestas determined to do some good. We were welcome into homes, into churches, even into cockpits where we found ourselves watching this barbaric sport, and comparing it with the bullfighting of Spain. We were given permission to speak in the cockpit, they did not even bother to boo us, they just ignored our presence amidst the babble of betting. We came out with the conviction that cockfighting is ingrained in the Filipino soul, its gambling practices etched in his character, and nothing short of an atom bomb can put the asunder.

Our most amusing experience concerned John Esterline of the USIS propaganda agency, about whom so many unkind things were written and said. He wanted to maneuver the Philippine American Cultural Foundation into an outright American propaganda agency. The Americans contributed $I million, at the time worth P4 million, while asking for a Philippine contribution of P14 million in cash and land plus continuing tax exemption. At the same time the Americans made it clear that they will run the whole show. Ridiculous.

Esterline was also pilloried for perpetrating the "bomb hoax" that accused Filipino of trying to bomb an American school house full of children—an incident that triggered a series of editorials on the bomb hoax that won him the year’s prestigious Esso Award (later abolished).

After receiving the award, Adrian was promptly fired from the Evening News at the instigation of Esterline, whom they accused of being CIA agent spying on and subverting a friendly people.

If Esterline was a spy, he was not a successful one, and maybe that is why he is so likeable. The only time he was able to advance the interest of America was during the Pateros Fiesta when he tagged along Raul Manglapus and myself in one of our Fiestas for Progress sorties.

"Hey, Esterline, know what is the greatest riddle of all time? It is this: Which comes first, the chicken or the egg? Well now, you see before you answer to that riddle, a balut. My friend, you eat a balut and you acquire the wisdom of the ages, for the balut is both the chicken and the egg. Care to try?"

This is the acid test Filipinos should apply to their American friends. Only one out of a thousand Americans would try. And 99 out of a hundred who try, would get laid up for a week, absolutely sick.

But our friend Esterline nonchalantly ate five baluts – soup, chicken, yolk, white hard core and all – smacked his lips and asked for more! In shocked desperation, we handed him a pack of cheap, smelly, black, bittersweet Pagkakaisa cigarillos. He did not smoke them, he ate them too!

Later Esterline turned the table on us. He picked out a US marine, trained him for the balut-eating contest in Pateros, and watched with a toothy grin, as the marine won the contest hands down, swallowing 18 baluts in 5 minutes, face smeared, mouth drooling, nose dripping with what-not—while the Filipinos in the audience turned pale-green and hectic blue absolutely sick with nausea.

VI. Raul’s YANKY PANKY

The musical play Yanky Panky was written as a unique final thesis during Raul Manglapus’ fellowship in Cornell. The musical play is Raul Manglapus’ legacy to his people, a testament of his nationalism as his life’s journey finally converges with those of Rizal, Recto, and Diokno.

It is amusing, witty, delightful, lyrical, with tunes that remind us of great musicals of Rodgers & Hammerstein. But most of all, it is the history of America’s conquest of the Philippines, when American troops fresh from the Indian Wars and "55 Days in Peking" during the Boxer Rebellion, turned their fury on Filipinos, employing the zona and the water cure and perpetrating the massacre of women and children in Samar. It is the beginning of America’s imperialistic drive to "Christianize the Catholics" and have a colony of their own to exploit.

Foreign Secretary Raul S. Manglapus, war-hero, once the youngest foreign secretary, senator, freedom fighter in exile, linguist and public speaker, writer and composer, pianist and politician—wanted to make a political statement and piece of entertainment at the same time, and succeeded. He makes us laugh and sing, and see the truth about Americans… and ourselves.

All the characters in that part of our history are there, singing and dancing, and playing their roles to the hilt with wit that is incisive and delightful:

* Teddy Roosevelt who incited the Spanish American War, singing The will to set the world aright! Backstopped by the conquerors of the past, Pharaoh, Alexander the Great, Julius Ceasar, etc.
* Sen. Beveridge, the ultimate imperialist, who wanted America to supply the markets of the Orient, who said that the Anglo-American is race superior to all (that’s giving God too much credit, said Roosevelt).
* Commodore George "Knucklehead" Dewey who won the Battle of Manila Bay over the Spanish Admiral Bobo Montojo, You may fire when you are ready, Gridley!
* Spanish Governor
General Jaudenes who connived with Americans for a sham surrender to avoid being beaten by Aguinaldo. We’ll fire over the Yankee’s head…we’ll give up bowed but brave… at least our conquerors are white!
* President William McKinley, ridiculous in his night gown, kneeling and praying for heavenly guidance: I prayed for light to God Almighty! So heaven said…You must take them, to civilize, to educate and Christianized! We must Christianize the Catholics!
* William Jennings Bryan, the anti-imperialist: I will not develop markets overseas by trampling on the dignity of smaller nations. Millions for defense, and not one cent for conquest!

And interwoven in the plot were:

* American soldiers singing an authentic war song of the Philippine American War: Damn, Damn, damn, the Filipino, pock-marked khakiak ladrone (may bulutong, color tae at magnanakaw), civilize the with a Krag (rifle)!
* American carpetbagers: Our mission is to sell them commodities even if they may not need them… then draw from their soil their gold!
* The friendship between Emily the American and Carmen the Filipina. Carmen’s loving Here on my plot of earth, my own land of birth! counterpointed by Emily’s What is freedom to you? Is it not the heart unbound, the throbbing unchained, the soul that worships unrestrained?
* The love between Emily and Navy lieutenant Brumby, who decided to stay in the Philippines and teach: Is it possible after you slapped your neighbor, to offer him your hand?
* They are all there in the musical play Yanky Panky, as if it were an instant playback—the hypocrisy, the betrayal, the vicious greed, the love-

VII. Raul Manglapus played Dixieland Jazz

Centuries ago as time is counted by very young, in the year 1958, a group of business executives led by Bert del Rosario president of Treble, and Bobby manosa, one of our brightest architects, got together and formed the Executive Combo, which later became the Executive Band, led by Raul Manglapus, senator, cabinet secretary and the school boy hero of a whole generation of Ateneans, and their latest recruit, no less than the First Lady, Mrs. Ming Ramos. Iam an honorary member of the Executive Band, and my TV Producer Dr. Luis Esteban Latorre, former priest of the Opus Dei, is a bona-fide member of it, playing the trumpet.

For 35 years, they played with the legendary king of jazz Duke Ellington (piano), Lionel Hampton, with King Bhumipol of Thailand (clarinet) and his princess daughter (trumpet), Prince Norodom Shihanouk (saxophone) of Cambodia, with President Bill Clinton (tenor saxophone), with Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir (voice) Ambassador Kulas Platypus (voice), of course the First Lady (piano). They serenaded the Pope John Paul II, Frank Sinatra, and other international celebrities. They have performed all over the Philippines and the world. And all for charity as ambassador of goodwill of the Filipino people. Only recently they departed for Oslo, Norway, and Rome, Italy and Madrid in Spain to serenade the Pope and the great economic heroes of the Philippines today – the OCWs, the overseas contract workers.

White Americanss to denigrate negroes, often forget that at the leading edge of American dominance of the world, is its jazz culture whose beginnings can be traced to negro spiritual music during their time of slavery.

Jazz has many forms: Dixie-land that enlivened even funerals in New Orleans. The blues with its earthy lyrics and songs of sorrow, those of Gershwin and Ella Fitzgerald. The syncopated polyphonic Ragtime of Scott Joplin whose piano music you enjoyed in the movie The Sting. Soft swing and sway, with Sammy Kaye, Artie Shaw, Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra. The harmonic BeBop, Boogie Woogie, Rock and Roll, Hard Metal, the Rap, and the noise you hear over NU-107 – all these are different forms of jazz.

Jazz music is mostly innovative and improvised. Its sounds composed while being played, have natural have natural flowing melodies that expresses strongly felt emotions – with such instruments as trumpet, trombone, the long-neglected saxophone, harmonica and guitars – instruments rarely used or given importance in classical music.

What started out as American negro music now belongs to the world. It belongs more to Filipino than to any other Asian country, and to such Filipino jazz greats as saxophonist Eddie Catindig, and singer Lui Reyes. The Executive Band is one of the more purist of jazz players, practically the only one in the Philippines specializing in Dixieland jazz the grandfather of all jazz forms,.

This is the band we chose to send into the world, to serenade our contract workers, and the Pope in Rome, in Oslo and in Madrid, and with whom our ex-First Lady chose to play in with in public concerts. And this is the band that played in Raul’s funeral, as per his request, "When The Saints Come Marching In."

VIII. Raul Manglapus: do not stand at my grave and weep

The Greek called it arete, the ideal which the Jesuits try to instill in their students—an all-around wholeness in one’s intellectual, physical, moral and spiritual development. In these days of specialization and unisex, the Atenean takes pride in his liberal education in humanities, and acquires the graces of a cultured life, eloquence in the forum and with the pen, appreciation for poetry, literature and the arts, courage in combat, gentle manliness and heterosexuality, and superiority in athletics. No Atenean ever prides himself to be a power-mad faggot, a coward, a traitor, and an uncultured Babbitt.

The American Jesuits who taught our present leaders, were of third generation Irish stock driven to the USA by the potato famine, and in many ways the lower class in the American society during the Depression years. These Irish American priests undertook to educate the sons of the aristocratic ruling class of Filipinos—and succeeded in giving most of them a schizophrenic split personality, combining belief in Social Justice, American acquisitiveness, Filipino patriotism, and a belief in the superiority of the White Man. Ultimately this is the tragedy of the Atenean – an aristocrat with the heart of a peasant, a patriot with a colonial mentality, a religious Dr. Jekyll and materialistic Mr. Hyde. Raul Manglapus was an exception and an exemplar.

Passionate yet never fanatic, coldly analytical while being provocative, traditional without being conservative, Raul Manglapus was imbued with a sense of dedication to a cause. He really believed what the Jesuits taught him, that Man is imperfect and must be made perfect, that the world is imperfect and must be changed for the better. And that is the reason Raul was the best revolutionary of his day, the most articulate vanguard of revolutionary reform.

We in this world are often appalled at so much injustice and evil around us. But those of us whose lives have been touched by Raul Manglapus, so beloved of God, marvel as well at the existence of so much good in this world.

With his infectious smile, his generosity and kindness, his unfailing goodness, his towering intellect, his involvement in all facets of our lives, as an orator, composer, pianist-drummer, senator, foreign secretary, above all as an idealist, Raul Manglapus has put all of us in his debt – so unrepayable that we must perforce pay it to others in need.

To us Raul Manglapus is not dead, he will always be there, wherever and whenever truth, beauty and goodness touch our hearts.

When we comfort the afflicted, the poor and the hungry among us, the friendliness, the cheated and the beaten – Raul will be there.

When we raise our voices against injustice, corruption, hatred, cruelty, bigotry and intolerance – Raul will be there.

When we take arms against the redoubts of drug-addiction, low-intensity conflict, rape, murder, treason, and so on into the long and lamentable catalog of human crimes – Raul will be there.

When we say a prayer, compose a poem, sing a song, kiss our wives without being asked; when we make love with God’s blessing, give birth to a child, and prepare him for life here and hereafter – Raul Manglapus will be there, saying:

Do not stand at my grave and weep. I am not there, I do not sleep.

I am the million stars that glow. I am the thousand winds that blow.

I am the gentle drops of rain. I am the sunlight on ripened grain.

I am the quiet birds in circled flight. I am the soft hush of restful night.

Do not stand at my grave and cry. I am no there, I did not die.