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| Reference Material |
| (The following article was emailed to Tapatt) The Harry Stonehill and Dado Macapagal Story Harry Stonehill was just about the most successful American businessman in the Philippines when Diosdado Macapagal ran for the presidency of the country. Coming out of World War II as an American soldier, Harry built a business empire and owned, among other things, the US Tobacco Corporation. He also owned most of the politicians as evidenced by his "blue book" that had names, dates and amounts listed neatly. With Macapagal as president, Harry got into trouble because, before a congressional committee, he kept mum, refused to say anything, whether to explain or defend himself. Thus, he was held in custody. In 1962, when Harry Stonehill refused to answer questions in the House Committee on Good Government headed by Uncle Jovy Salonga, he was promptly declared in contempt and detained in the chamber. But, President Diosdado Macapagal connived with Speaker Kune Villareal and Speaker Pro Tempore Salipada Pendatun to release him without Uncle's knowledge. DM then quickly deported Harry. Uncle was aghast and said: "Harry Stonehill was deported but who can deport the truth?" Supposedly, among the items in his "blue book" was the name of presidential candidate Macapagal and the amount of P3,000,000 when, as the old folk say, "money was money." As the story goes, Harry was told by CIA operative Edward Lansdale to help out since America was keeping a low profile in the election between President Carlos Garcia and Vice President Macapagal. Macapagal's problem was his former brother-in-law Rogelio de la Rosa who was a third candidate in the election. The Americans' problem was Garcia because of his "Filipino First" policy. (A similar policy with a bias towards the bumiputra obviously worked for Malaysia, since they are now so far ahead of us.) Harry supposedly gave Macapagal the money, of which a million bought off Senator Rogelio de la Rosa, who, because of the buy-out, lost the next time he ran for the Senate. (Rogelio later was a standout Philippine ambassador in Cambodia and The Hague.) Among the sidelights of the Harry Stonehill case was Meinhart Spielman, an American executive of US Tobacco Corp. Meinhart was a government witness against Harry Stonehill in a tax evasion case, who suddenly disappeared. The report was that Spielman was killed in Siasi, Sulu. As the story went, a Badjao boatman was hired to spirit Meinhart away in his kumpit. As proof of the story, Spielman's Rolex watch, his shoes and clothes were still in the kumpit many days after Spielman had disappeared. Then Secretary of Justice Jose Diokno, who was eventually axed by Macapagal probably for his part in the Stonehill affair, saw the kumpit story as a set-up. Diokno dismissed the evidence and the story. Eventually a charge of murder was filed against a real estate businessman who was, of course, acquitted because there was no corpus delictus and no witnesses to any murder. I bring this up simply because, to me, the present times have the same feel to it as those times in 1961 when the Stonehill story hogged the headlines. By the way, the Harry Stonehill affair also led to the filing of an impeachment charge against Cong Dadong. What happened to Harry? Cong Dadong's pals in Congress snuck through a resolution pushed by Speaker Kune Villareal releasing Stonehill from the House committee's custody. Upon his release, Stonehill was then immediately deported, citing national security as the reason. He died some years ago at the age of 84 in Bangkok. Harry's wife was a Filipina.***** |