Inside Philippine politics & beyond

My book on Marcos Martial Law will be formally launched March 31 in Ateneo, QC

Share:
LinkedIn0
Pinterest0

My dear colleagues in Cyber Plaza Miranda, Facebook, Twitter and the Internet, 

Martial Law signageI wanted to announce to you first when the formal book launching will be – two Thursdays from now, on March 31, 2016 in the afternoon at the Ateneo de Manila University.

I would very much appreciate it if you and your friends could come.

It’s OPEN TO THE PUBLIC. FIRST COME, FIRST SERVED, THOUGH. So you’ve got to come early.

I promise, those who don’t want their real identities to be known, your names will be safe with me. Just e-mail me that you are coming and I will submit your handles as your names.

A “Collector’s Edition” of the fully illustrated coffee table-size book will be available for P2,500 each. It’s hardcover, full-color on glossy paper and I must say it looks very good, thanks to the book designer Felix Mago Miguel. And it contains much, much more information than the regular coffee-table book.

We are also preparing a “Student Edition” – a black and white version, soft cover edition of the exact same book. This will be priced much, much lower, probably a little over the cost of two Big Mac Burger meals at McDo. 

Someone who has seen the book has described it as “disturbingly beautiful”. I think Senator Rene Saguisag, who wrote the Foreword, called it “chilling”.

For now, I call it exhaustive and exhausting.

This was one project where I like a Ferdinand Magellan or a Christopher Columbus. I had a rough idea of the project, but, like the seas the two sailors sailed, the project just kept getting bigger and bigger. And researching on mayhem, cruelty, atrocity and greed took a lot out of my mental reserve.

I pushed on in the knowledge that I had to do my bit in preventing the Marcoses from erasing their dark past, thus opening the avenue for another dictatorship — not necessarily from someone in the Marcos family but by any future charismatic politician who would use Marcos’ Martial Law as a playbook to install himself as another tyrant.

In my entire career as a professional journalist, I have never MISSED DEADLINES, which is why I thrived as a freelance writer all these years. Because my editors in Hong Kong, or Singapore or Malaysia or London or Riyadh knew that when I said I would deliver by a certain date, I did. If I didn’t, the run-off was just a day or two.

With this book, for the first time, I kept missing deadlines I had set with the publisher. First because it proved to be bigger than I thought it would. I had to run after and interview: a sitting President and an ex-President; the leader of the Communist Party, several military sources some of whom had been identified as torturers by their victims; and several victims. Second, because I could not let a book come out that would be below my professional standards as a writer, as an investigative journalist. I could have submitted much earlier, but I did not want to give a puwede na book. In conscience, I could not.

When one has long been in a career, one knows instinctively when something is not quite right. when something is missing.

I would like to tell you now, guys, this is one book I can be proud of now. I placed everything in it – all my knowledge in writing and investigating. And so did Alan, the book editor, who conceptualized the book, laid down the chapters and titles, guided the flow of the text through adds and rewrites, and drew up the initial bibliography.

Still, I ran out of pages for the last Chapter. There were so many other things I still wanted to say but I simply did not anymore have the pages. In fact, I had to ask for some more pages to include the Appendices.

After you read this book, tell me what you think about it.

I would also like to ask your help to tell others about this book.

Meanwhile, here’s a glimpse of the Introduction:

The Boy Who Fell From The Sky

On the morning of May 31, 1977, residents of Antipolo — a mountainous municipality just east of Manila — saw a military helicopter circling low over a deserted area. Minutes later something fell out of the helicopter onto the rocks below. Then the aircraft clattered away.

Curious residents ran to see what had fallen.

They found the bloody, battered corpse of a young man. He had been cruelly treated. His head was bashed in, there were burn marks and dark bruises all over his body. On his torso, an examining doctor would later count 33 shallow wounds apparently gouged with an ice pick. Several meters away from where the body had fallen, somebody found an eyeball.

The police came, took the corpse to a funeral parlor and started the process of identifying the remains. Somebody remembered a news story about a teenager who had been missing for more than two weeks. He was 16-year-old Luis Manuel “Boyet” Mijares, son of Primitivo, a former aide of the dictator, President Ferdinand Marcos.

Later that day, the phone of Manila Judge Priscilla Mijares rang. Journalist and family friend Teddy Owen tried to break the news about her son gently to her, advising her to send somebody to the Filipinas Funeral Parlor to identify the victim.

The person she sent called back with the devastating news: “It’s your boy.” All that remained of her good-looking boy was a mangled, tortured body.

He had been kidnapped, because shortly after he vanished the family had started receiving phone calls demanding a ransom of P200,000.By then, Boyet’s sister Pilita recalled, a Philippine Constabulary official named Panfilo Lacson (who became a Philippine Senator in 2001) had been assigned to the case and managed to trace one of the calls to a building inside the University of the Philippines (UP) in Diliman, Quezon City.

Although the family told the kidnappers they would pay the ransom, the calls suddenly stopped.

Over the objections of the police, Judge Mijares had followed Owen’s advice to leak the news of her son’s kidnapping to the dailies. The news came out on May 30.

The next day, Boyet’s mangled body was found.

There was a huge turnout for Boyet’s wake, his mother told me in an interview.

He had just finished third year high school at Lourdes School of Quezon City and it seemed all the students attended.

After burying her boy at Marikina’s Loyola Memorial Park, Judge Mijares set out to solve his murder, starting with May 14, 1977, the day he disappeared.

She was not satisfied with how the case had turned out. Soon after Boyet was buried, Lacson’s anti-kidnapping unit claimed it had solved the case with the arrest of four UP students. Boyet, the police announced, was a victim of “hazing” — a violent initiation ceremony into a college fraternity. The three alleged killers (a fourth suspect was let off for lack of evidence) all came from UP’s Tau Gamma fraternity. Rolando Po and Emmanuel Patajo were sentenced to death but both managed to escape — Po from Pasig jail and Patajo from a maximum security prison by feigning an asthmatic attack. A third accused surnamed Abude died of a heart attack in detention.

None of the alleged killers was ever heard of again.

But why would Boyet want to join a college fraternity? He wasn’t even about to enter college, he still had a year of high school to finish.

And why would anybody want to kidnap him? The boy had no enemies. His hobby was harmless — catching butterflies and dragon flies and sticking them onto cotton to display them. He wanted to take up law like his parents.

Judge Mijares’ suspicions grew that her son’s case was not some random abduction.

It all came back to his father.

A journalist who had become a propagandist and confidant for Ferdinand Marcos, Primitivo “Tibo” Mijares had served his master faithfully since 1963 and had been privy to government’s high-level doings, its dirty little secrets and many of Marcos’ innermost thoughts.

When Marcos declared Martial Law in 1972, Mijares became a de facto “media czar”, a Cabinet member in all but name. A year later he was literally a mouthpiece of the dictator, his newspaper columns directly dictated to him by the President.

By then Mijares had also become a man with two secrets.

One will be explained in Chapter 1 of this book.

The other was that he had become disenchanted with Marcos. Mijares realized that the dictator’s goal wasn’t to save the country but to hold on to power indefinitely.

His wife recalled that “he was already fed up. He told me, nakakasuka na (it’s enough to make me vomit). I cannot swallow it anymore.”

In 1975 Tibo did the unthinkable. He convinced Marcos to send him to the US for an important propaganda mission and when he got there, he abandoned the regime and sought political asylum.

The confidant became a whistleblower. He appeared before the House International Organizations Subcommittee of the US Congress and testified about Marcos’ plot to grab power, his corruption and his regime’s human rights abuses. As if that wasn’t enough, Mijares later on published a 499-page book, The Conjugal Dictatorship of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos I,which pulled no punches in exposing what the erstwhile propagandist knew. He regaled readers with detailed exposés on the crude and vicious avarice and misdeeds of the Marcoses, their relatives (such as Benjamin “Kokoy” Romualdez), cronies (such as Juan Ponce Enrile) and flunkies (such as Information Minister Francisco Tatad). He talked about Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos’ backgrounds, crimes, corruption and record of prevarication.

In his book, Mijares unloaded feelings he had apparently bottled up for years, calling Ferdinand Marcos a “tinpot dictator”, his wife Imelda an “old beauty queen” and their chief lackey Fabian Ver, a “pimp”. He also made mocking and sardonic remarks about the First Couple’s sexual proclivities, complete with not so veiled allusions to the parentage of one of the Marcos children as well as Imelda’s anatomy.

“Imelda was very angry with my husband because of this book,” Priscilla Mijares flatly told me during the interview, pointing to a copy of Conjugal Dictatorship.

It was the sort of publication that would have earned its author a horrible fate, if he were still in the Philippines. But Tibo was safe in the US, out of reach of the dictator. Or so he thought.

Apparently, in the third week of January 1977, Primitivo Mijares went to Guam on a speaking engagement. There, he was somehow lured to go back to Manila. According to Priscilla, “doon siya kinuha ni (that was where he was taken by) General Ver because Imelda asked General Ver to fetch him. He (Tibo) was (residing) in the US and then they went to Guam.”

“They” referred to Tibo, Ver and a newsman surnamed Makalintal, a nephew of Marcos’ former Chief Justice Querube Makalintal. Mijares described the newsman Makalintal as a “bata ng administration” (lackey of the Marcos administration).

I asked her why Tibo would even go with General Ver and she told me, “because my husband is matapang (brave), small but terrible. Fearless yon. (He’s fearless.)” Tibo was only five foot two inches tall, she said, which was why he was called Marcos’ “niño bonito” (wonder boy).

January 23, 1977 was the last time Primitivo Mijares had called home and asked to speak to every member of the family.

Four months later, his youngest son was kidnapped and murdered.

Recalling the day Boyet vanished, his mother said he had asked her permission to watch the movie Cassandra Crossing with some friends at Ali Mall — the country’s first shopping mall built in 1976 to celebrate boxer Muhammad Ali’s “Thrilla in Manila” victory over Joe Frazier. She had agreed but stipulated that “you wait for the car. The car will bring you there” after dropping her off somewhere else first.

“But he left the house without waiting for the car. He just asked the maid (Inday) to give him 20 pesos and some barya (coins),” Mijares recalled.

Later, the maid would reveal what Boyet had excitedly confided to her that day: “He said, Inday, I’m going to see my daddy today. So I will not wait for mommy. I will just use a bus in going to the place.”

“And it was my boy who told my maid that he was talking to his father (on the phone),” she told me.

The maid would also remind the Judge that the same man who had invited Boyet to watch the movie had been calling Boyet several times that month of May 1977. Mijares recalled there were times that the maid had told her that Boyet had been talking to “his phone pal”.

Through the years, the Judge gathered enough information to guess what had happened, but told only a few, like human rights lawyer and former Senator Jose Diokno. Judge Mijares would wait for over a decade before joining in the filing of a civil lawsuit against Marcos for the murder of her son and the disappearance of her spouse. She became one of the lead claimants in the damage suit filed in Hawaii by 10,000 human rights victims. Later, they collectively became known as “Claimants 1081”, named after Marcos’ infamous Proclamation 1081 imposing Martial Law.

In an oral deposition that she made for the Hawaii lawsuit, Judge Mijares called the family tragedy the result of “a political vendetta involving my husband Primitivo and our son Boyet.” As proof, she narrated the following facts of her case. She said that on October 23, 1974, her husband had left the country. On February 5, 1975, he had issued a “defection statement” in the US. In 1976, he had published his book on the conjugal dictatorship of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos.

Then she said: “In January 1977, after the publication of the book Conjugal Dictatorship, my husband was lured into joining Philippine government agents, particularly Querube Macalintal, to come to the Philippines for a visit. That after my husband was lured into coming back, he was unheard of and could not be located until now.”

“That after my husband’s disappearance my youngest son, who is Manuel ‘Boyet’ Mijares, was kidnapped and brutally murdered on the last day of May 1977,” she said. The Judge linked in no uncertain terms her spouse’s disappearance with her son’s murder. She said she had obtained a lot of information that “during the torture of my son the father was made to appear by the torturers to witness his son’s agony. That the Commission on Human Rights then under the stewardship of Jose W. Diokno (in 1986) conducted an investigation. However, after his death, the case was never continued.”

In an interview on February 6, 2016, former Senator Panfilo Lacson confirmed to me that he was the “case officer” in the Boyet Mijares kidnap-for-ransom-slay case. He said it was the family who had informed him that the boy’s body had been found on May 31, 1977 but was unable to recall whether a military helicopter had dropped the corpse. Neither could he remember how the body ended up in Antipolo. He also said that while there were reports of a homosexual angle, he was not able to independently confirm it and “I did not have the heart to ask” the family.

He confirmed that the three suspects who were tried in court were all college students belonging to one fraternity. They all denied any hand in the kidnapping and murder. He did not know if they were convicted since he was not made to attend the court hearings.

When Boyet went missing in May 1977, Lacson said Priscilla Mijares never told him about any link between the boy’s abduction and the disappearance of her husband Primitivo four months earlier. In fact, he said, Mrs. Mijares “seemed elusive” in talking to Lacson about her husband. “Sensing that, I did not pursue the matter further,” he said.Lacson also recalled that long after the murder suspects were tried in court, he learned that Mrs. Mijares continued to quietly investigate the death of her son. He said he did not know why. He said that while he was on the case, he had treated it as a simple kidnap-for-ransom incident.

She said she had obtained a lot of information that “during the torture of my son the father was made to appear by the torturers to witness his son’s agony.”

– Introduction, Marcos Martial Law Never Again by Raissa Robles, pages 17-19.

Comments

  1. Ateneo wasn’t locked down because of the book…

    A prankster…possibly one who failed to study for the exam today…caused the great inconvenience…

  2. What time is it tomorrow? It’s 2:30’s birthday…

    In a chance interview in Manila, Roxas was asked by the media for his thoughts on Duterte’s wish for other presidential candidates to reach the age of 120. Duterte said it must be quite difficult to live at that age.

    Roxas just gave a curt, “Happy birthday, many happy returns to him.”

    – See more at: http://www.gmanetwork.com/news/story/560597/news/nation/roxas-ignores-duterte-s-wish-greets-davao-mayor-on-71st-birthday

    • Consistently inconsistent?

      Well…in at least one issue Laine Bringuelo and Maegan Gaspar asked, “Is that so?”

      Is that so? Duterte’s inconsistencies on case of acts of lasciviousness
      MARCH 28, 2016

      PRESIDENTIAL candidate Rodrigo Duterte said in a speech to the Rotary Club of Manila last Jan. 14 he was once charged with acts of lasciviousness. But in the first presidential debate in Cagayan de Oro on Feb. 21, he denied such cases.

      – See more at: http://verafiles.org/is-that-so-dutertes-inconsistencies-on-case-of-acts-of-lasciviousness/

  3. “Golden age” of Marcoses’ plundering?

    https://www.facebook.com/TheNewPCGG

    I fear that if VP Binay/Bongbong Marcos win the Presidency/Vice Presidency, VP Binay might invoke the ‘doctrine of condonation’ as he wanted it applied in Makati and return all these assets to the Marcoses!

    Nalintian na!

      • mukhang pre-arranged e. pano alam ng mga photographers na pupunta si grace sa simbahan at that exact moment in time? imbitado ba sila? got tip off? I can understand ordinary churchgoers taking selfies of grace habang nakaluhod, patago-tago and at a distance dahil nasa house of god sila and must observe silence and decorum, at hindi basta-basta makalapit. but photographers completed with special lenses, dressed in black pa and turning their backs to the hostia? anong klaseng mga tao sila?

        ang bilis naman nilang nakapag-assemble ng camera, ang bilis nakahanap ng parking. dapat sana, duon sa holy water font nakuhan ng pic si grace, bilang paggunita sa origin of the foundling.

        nothing is sacred talaga, from sementeryo in guimaras, and now, the house of god, lahat pinatulan ni grace.

  6. REFLECTION OF BINAY

    As Christians, personal life is the center on the 3 greatest Christian public holidays.
    On Christmas, we celebrate Life in a Present JOYFUL, HAPPY setting
    On New Year, we make PROMISES and WISHES to Life for a better Future
    During Easter, we Reflect on Past Life.

    Yes, the single task every adult Catholic look forward annually during Easter is Reflection of Past Life. What had we done, right or wrong? What did we do to help our families, friends others? What made us successful or failed? What are we planning to atone ourselves just as Christ atoned our sins. It’s not only going to Church during Holy Week that is important. It is how we Reflect on our past deeds to make amends as Christians.

    Cardinal Tagle’s Easter message about corrupt politicians was aimed to both the corrupt and Filipino voters. He was reminding them to Reflect on the evils of corruption, “shun it” to the perpetrators and to the voters “don’t vote for them anymore” bringing us to the most corrupt candidate in our midst.ttttttttt

    Binay’s Easter Reflection?
    What did Binay do wrong that his candidacy is spiraling down so fast like a heavy rock down a cliff?
    1. Greed

    • Continuation
      1. Greed is a sin. When one does not know when to be satisfied with what he has, he is bound to fail. Gluttony is a form of greed. What happens? Body becomes obese, get sickly leading to death. Same as riches. no money is a problem but less than too much money. The saying goes “who is rich? One who is happy with what he has”. Binay and family succumbed to Greed leading to his downfall.
      2. Abuse: being abusive is an acquired trait usually nurtured by riches and power. Drug addicts are usually the illness of those who have easy access to money, wealthy or thieves. Binay and family has both riches and power thus its noot surprising that they have capacity to abuse. What’s surprising is that despite their education they committed abuse as a family. Ever since it is known that YMCA Makati was closed because Binay ordered its closure due to rejection of his non member children from entering the facility. Painting the letter B in public buildings as if the Binays own Makati. Of course, the infamous scourging of Dasmarinas guards by JunJun which the entire Binay can condoned.
      3. Bad company: they say, “tell me who your friends are and I will tell you who you are”. Binay’s companions on his quest to the presidency is a worst than the “dirty dozen”. Enrile, Estrada, Tatad, Maceda,etc.
      4. Hypocrisy- Binay claims that every corruption hurled against him are only allegations and only the court can declare him corrupt. Yett every time someone accuse him he runs to Makati judges in his pocket to file malicious charges against them, including the Ombudsman and PNP officials who are only doing their official duties. He asked his presidential rivals to sign their AMLA waivers on their bank accounts when he knows his accounts were investigated for pending cases while his rivals have none. Besides Binay sued the Ombudsman.
      5. Silence: is really golden. A golden opportunity of Binay to make it an excuse not to ask his bagmen, Limlingan, Baloloy, Subido to come out from hiding. They say “flight is a sign of guilt”. So is Silence! Binay has refused to appear in Senate so as not to incriminate himself but brought bank and SALN documents
      during debate in which he knows they could not accepted in court because they are not sworn
      documents.
      6. Panderer: Binay the Greatest Panderer in the philippines. In his campaign sorties, every group of people he addresses, he maks promises involving the giveaway of government money. He met Chinese businessmen and he promised to get rid of Kim Henares who runs after tax evaders in which Chinese businessmen are notorious. He met Barangay officials and he promised them not to hold Barangay election this year and fixed salaries from govt funds. He met the labor group and he promised to eliminate their income taxes. He went to Negros province, the bailiwick of Roxas and he promised to appoint at eves, an aging Negrense to become his Sec of Finance. The only thing that Binay was not promising his give away his and children’s wealth.
      7. Liar: ” Liar pants on fire” if this were true, Binay would have become the symbol of a living burning effigy. How many times he lied to the Filipinos? Hacienda Binay is a perfect example. When he and his wife were mayors, they use to host groups of professional elite in the hacienda showing and bragging their orchids and beautiful retreat house. Even their grandchildren flaunted their property on social media as their own. He lied that he was poor yet when asked about his wealth he claimed he inherited properties from his parents. he lied that his piggery business was the source of his and children’s wealth. Nancy and Abigail Binay insisted that they made millions from their piggery business. If this were true, how come they were not featured in any business magazine as one the most successful piggeries? How they sold a ” goose laying golden eggs? Liar, liar pants on fire!
      8. Ingrate: a trait despised by Filipino Elderlies. When he was elected Vice President, he sided with Noynoy with one intention, his self interest to become the next president by using government money. His greed was already evident from the beginning when he asked to live in Coconut Palace, wanting to become DILG secretary which controls large amount of unaccounted bribe money from Jueteng, PNP and LG units. After enjoying all govt freebies, he criticized and lambasted Aquino administration as inept, corrupt and anti poor. We all know that even before Martial Law, Makati was rising as the business center of the Philippines built by the Ayalas. Yet Binay is claiming that as mayor he was responsible for the rise on top of Makati as the business center without paying tribute to the Ayalas because they don’t support his candidacy.
      9. Exploitative: Binay is an expert on how to exploit people. He pretended to be a social justice fighter during martial earning the trust of Cory, Saguisag, Joker as well as other human rights defenders. All the while his primary intention was to empower and enriched himself carved by his long range plan. If he were really a human rights defender why did he ask to become mayor instead of being a humans rights commissioner or UN official Phil rep on human right. No money in those positions but Makati mayor is stepping stone. he used people to hide his riches. The worst exploitation Binay has committed is to exploit the Illness and Death of his OWN MOTHER in a TV commercial for his presidential campaign. He dug the graveyard of his mother to put himself in a pedestal. How pathetic that is!
      10. Atonement: Self flagellation practiced by many sinners during Easter, a form of personal atonement of sins and reflection on past bad deeds. Binay’s downfall is a result of him declaring himself too early for the presidency. On his way to this path he committed all the blunders of the above. Before his evil ways were exposed he has reached the pinnacle of his glory and fame. As the saying goes” after the peak, the downward slide is the only way to go”. Probably not an accident, his downward spiral coincided with the revelations on his filthy riches and corruption hurled first not to Jejomar but to his son JunJun. This son was so greedy and irresponsible by putting an elevator in his 3 story mansion. Power really dulls the mind.Fittingly, a family secret is exposed by its own member. Binay is a family of corrupt officials brought down by their own greed. See, life is a cycle. Binay’s Reflection starts with Greed and ended by Greed.
      Binay must be beating himself to death blaming his son!

      Happy Easter
      As Bugs bunny says–So long Folks!

      He he he!

  7. Kung Telecom Company ang Presidentiable

    Poe – Globe  Telecom, Star Mobile, at PLDT dahil dumayo na ito sa Amerika at naging Amerkana pa. May Global perspective pero malakas sa mga mahihilig sa artista ngunit walang konek sa mga Netizens. Suportado ng Aquino kaya pati PLDT ay may kasunduan sa koneksyon.

    Binay – Sun Cellular at Sky Cable dahil matagal ng nabilad sa araw at napakatayog ng pangarap nito abot sa ulap at gagawin ang lahat ng pagnanakaw para mapondohan ang pangarap. Malakas ang signal sa Makati pero minumura ng mga dating kustomer sa kamaynilaan at Sister Cities dahil naloko lang pala sila.

    Santiago – Talk n Text di lang sa satsat magaling ito kundi padadalhan ka pa ng text ng mga Stupid is forever jokes nya. Kalimitan walang signal dahil maraming sira.

    Duterte – Touch Mobile,  Digital Telecom, at Red Mobile dahil mahilig itong manghipo at minsan gamit pa ang finger/digit para isuksuk sa mga babae. Kapag ikaw ay lalaki at piptsugin na drug user o pusher, yung Davao Death Squad will keep in touch with you for disconnection. Malakas din ito sa kabundukan lalo na sa mga lugar na sakop ng mga komunista.

    Roxas – Smart, BayanTel, ABS-CBN Mobile, PLDT, at Dream Satellite TV dahil matalino na at para sa bayan pa ang adhikain. Supportado ng mga Lopez at Aquino kaya malawak ang suporta sa ABS-CBN at PLDT koneksyon. Mapangarap itong ituloy ang tuwid na daan kahit na kaliwat kanan ang kakumpentensya. Kasama nya si Leni Robredo ng Bayan Tel na sikat sa kabayanan at mga babae, at silang dalawa ay tinaguriang Dream Team. Dahil malakas eh grabe ang demolition at pagbomba sa mga cell towers nila ng mga kakumpetensya.

    Parekoy
    03-27-2016

    Wala akong signal dito sa Caramoan, Cam Sur. Staying for a week in Tugawe Cove Resort-Paradise! Able to send this tonight when we visited the palengke at Caramoan proper. Chillax CPM!

    • On Roxas – I beg to disagree on your “dahil malakas eh grabe ang demolition at pagbomba sa mga cell towers nila ng mga kakumpetensya” unless their favorite survey ratings of # 4 would improve to # 3, dislodging binay who insists he is not magnanakaw but only accused of plunder and graft and considered innocent until proven otherwise.

      • A smart person will always be curious why all his opponent candidates are ganging-up on Roxas kung mahina pala sya sa surveys?

    • Ang sabi nga ng marami tungkol sa Talk N’ Text: May ka-Talk ka na; may ka-Text ka pa.

      • @Lurker no 1

        sa bikol ang Ka-Talk or pronounced as Katok ay may tama sa ulo!

        So fitting!

        :)

    • @parengInggo

      Very predictable talaga ang mga Inggitero. Karamihan ay mayayabang. Madaling gumawa ng dahilan para makapagyabang sa buhay nila, kung ano kinakain, biniling bagong kotse o kung Nasaan sila Pero tunay na intention ay mgyabang para magpainggit ng tao kasi insecure sila sa buhay. Typical na typical ang psych profile. Madali pa silang mag Deny na insecure sila pero nagmamayabang sa kabuhayan nila. We don’t each other personally so Who cares where they are vacationing or what riches they possess or nice things they bought. You spot them easily on social media like this blog.

      May NBS dyan bumili ka ng value edition ng kahit anong libro May libreng wifi signal at kasamang French fries. Hi hi hi.

      Inggit Inggit itim ang singit
      Inggit Inggit ugaling pangit.

      • @johnny

        Wow, you caught me!

        I concede, I am dumbfounded!

        erratum:

        I am founded by a dumb…

  8. This Easter Sunday’s Inquirer Editorial — An Edsa education,

    http://opinion.inquirer.net/94016/an-edsa-education

    relates to a subject we have discussed here in the blog about Martial Law and the youth or millennials not being aware of what happened; and the efforts of some to make that awareness — much as the effort of Raissa to write her book.

    • maybe those naghari-harian during the martial law years will also write book about how excellent life was then, when everything and anything was done for them, when people give them right of way all the time. top of the food chain sila nuon, always obeyed, acknowledge and prioritized. their feet nearly kissed by grateful people. sana, they will also write book about how the sky suddenly fell down on them, all because of edsa uno.

      palagay ko, raissa’s book is just the beginning. there will be other similar books now that it is safe to write about the inglorious past. I hope, old people will write about what was done to them, or what they did to others.

      • dapat lang talaga ilabas ang libro na ito. who knows? pag nanalo si Binay at Marcos, ipagbawal nila ang pagbasa nito like the Conjugal Dictatorship ni Primitivo Mijares at bilhin nila lahat ang libro ni Raissa (huwag naman sana at baka wala nang matira para sa mga bibili pa) at ipakulong ang mahuling meron nito at tawagin kang subversibo.

        • raissa has copyright of the book, and if push comes to shove, she can have the book subcontracted and published in hongkong, malaysia, o kaya, sa singapore, then sold in the internet. I doubt if the marcoses can control what is being sold in the internet. there is option for audio books too. so unlike the time of primitivo mijares.

  9. Hi Raissa;

    the UP students arrested Rolando Poe (not Po) and Emmanuel Patajo are members of Kappa Epsilon. This was a big scandal in the campus.

    • That’s quite interesting.

      Because Senator Lacson and the Mijares family specifically and separately told me the two students belonged to the Tau Gamma Fraternity.

      By the way, what happened to them both?

      They simply disappeared.

      • i have no info on the fate of the two. That Boyet was thrown from the helicopter was not in the news. Previous to this incident, Judge Mijares convicted Kappa Epsilon members for double murder and the rape of the companions of the murdered. The media was saying that the torture and murder of Boyet was in revenge for the conviction of their fellow members. At that time, most fraternities were clearly identified in opposing camps. Kappa Epsilon was identified as being “pro administration” together with other fraternities associated with Enrile, Marcos and Binay.

        • Interesting angle you just opened up.

          I will ask Senator Lacson if he ever considered that angle.

          I’ll ask him to read this.

          The Mijares family and Lacson never mentioned this angle.

          All we know right now is –

          Judge MIjares’ son was murdered.

          Her husband disappeared.

          And two of the convicted disappeared.

          the third died in jail.

        • Allow me to reiterate. The media was controlled and they were doing the spin that the death of Boyet was not related to Primitivo. I doubt if Judge Priscilla even care which fraternity is being implicated knowing that it is the military that were truly guilty. Lacson in more likelihood forgot the lies that they were telling us at that time. In any case, many members of fraternities in UP opposed to the regime were arrested and disappeared. At that time, the fraternities with their brand of espirit de corps were hardest to “infiltrate” with government agents also because of their initiation procedures.

        • I agree with you.

          But I have to write this closely hewing to what the sources told me and what the PC said about the boyet Mijares case.