Know more about the Philippines and Filipinos before you go to that place:

  • Philippines Quotations
  • Imelda Marcos Quotations
  • Joseph Estrada Quotations
  • Filipino newspapers exposes
  • Conrado de Quiros columns
  • P. J. O'Rourke quotes
  • Miriam Defensor-Santiago
  • Filipino Politician Quotations
  • Crime in Manila Philippines
  • Travel to Manila
  • Filipino Police Corruption
  • Claire Danes visit to Manila

 

“Cory Aquino is the most upright, kindly, and honorable person running a country in Asia today. Given the other people running countries , that’s probably safe to say. And there doesn’t seem to be anything particularly wrong with the men and women she’s got helping her, especially compared with the pack of muck spouts, scissor bills, jacklegs and goons who used to be in charge.”

(P. J. O’Rourke, Holidays in Hell on one of the only honest Filipino politicians ever to exist)

“You have spent many lives and much treasure to bring freedom to many lands that were reluctant to receive it. And here you have a people who won it by themselves and need only the help to preserve it.”

(Corazon Aquino, Filipino politician;  To US Congress; in Time magazine, 29 Sep 1986)

I was still in the taxi coming in from the airport when I realized how dreadful a city Manila really is. It’s not just bad. It’s a hell pit. If you took Calcutta, Bangkok, and Jakarta and mixed them together, that would give you just a hint of how chaotic and confusing Manila is. . . It took our cabdriver about an hour and a half to get to our hotel through gridlock like I’d never seen before in my life. The cars had no mufflers, and the pollution was so foul you had to roll the windows up, though of course the air conditioner was so weak it cooled only the driver.

That first night we couldn’t sleep because a woman kept singing Tracy Chapman songs to a deserted outdoor pavilion. I swear her audience never numbered more than six people, yet she went on until two in the morning. . . The next night, the woman singing Tracy Chapman songs was out again. Desperate, we went down to the front desk and demanded rooms on the other side of the hotel. No sooner were we resettled than a bulldozer started up outside our windows. By then I’d had enough San Miguel beers to go raving out and scream, ‘Stop it!’  I just yelled at the bulldozer driver, ‘Stop it this minute!  It’s eleven o’clock at night, and this is no time to be driving a bulldozer!’ The driver actually turned off his machine.

Sorry, sir,’ he said sympathetically, ‘but this is a government project.’ He started up the bulldozer again, and it just roared all night long. . .

We flew up to Baguio, an hour’s trip. It was in the mountains, cooler and calmer than Manila. We found an inexpensive hotel that had no view but did have lots of dogs that barked all night and made us nostalgic for the bulldozer.”         

(Spalding Gray on his visit to Manila Philippines)

(Australian electronics company Elane Pty Ltd., Internet website message describing its experience with Filipino government customs and tax authorities’ rampant extortion and corruption, 1997)

“[Filipinos are] . . . the worst criminals living on earth and appear so damn Holy but behave like a bunch of lawless criminals . . . We have been f***ed by these corrupt bastards hundreds and hundreds of times. Now we have closed our factory as simply we cannot do business any more. The extortion started on the onset of the Christmas holidays and that government officials, particularly those at the Bureau of Internal Revenue and the Bureau of Customs were charging them 'exorbitant fees' for every single document or permit. In one of its messages, Elane said: "Incoming shipment of components into the Philippines requires lots of pocket money from us for 20 or more Customs officials to sign documents which were in our case perfectly in order. The Philippine government has hundreds of unpublished rules and regulations and when a foreign investor makes a mistake, the fine would be just paying the official 30 percent for them to overlook it. There is a chapel inside the Customs house at South Harbor, Manila, and after their confession every day they go out and cheat some more!"

"We are glad to have shipped out 100 percent of our operations to a friendlier and non-corrupt country.”

"This country (Philippines) screws foreign businesses."

Many Filipinos reacted strongly against the messages and demanded (and got) an apology from the company. ... In a web message to Lothar Wollman, managing director of Elane Australia, Lani Garcia said, "There is definitely no excuse for what you have been through in the Philippines and I fully understand your hatred and frustration. However, there are millions of other Filipinos who choose to live decent and honest lives.  We feel disgraced with the rampant corruption in the Philippines but most Filipinos are neither criminals and lawless." Garcia said.

Elane Pty, under pressure from incensed Filipinos, was forced to apologise for telling the truth about its business experiences in the Philippines.

[ CLICK HERE FOR SCANNED ARTICLE ]  

Letter to the Editor, Philippine Daily Inquirer, September 11, 1998,  titled CLAIMING ONE'S LUGGAGE AT NAIA CUSTOMS

If you are planning to send unaccompanied luggage back to the Philippines, please think twice. I made the mistake of doing that and the experience was horrendous.

... the traumatic experience started when I claimed my luggage at the Bureau of Customs Pier Cargo, located across from the Old Duty Free Building. A total of 35 people signed the release papers. I arrived there at 9 a.m. and finished at 11:20 a.m. Following are the 18 steps, more or less, that I had to take.

1. Get a pass from the Customs Police (ground floor) -- pay P20 for the plastic, which is reimbursed upon return of the plastic. The pass will allow you to go in and out of the Customs area.

2. Secure gate pass (second floor) -- pay P300, no official receipt, but according to the man in the window, it is for documentary stamps worth P65, P65 and P70 or a total of P200. The balance is for the printing of the forms -- eight copies, not carbon-less paper, which you have to fill out manually. If you need carbon paper you have to buy or bring it yourself. After filling out the form, they asked me to photocopy it with my ID.

3. Photocopy of the gate pass (ground floor) -- P2 per page/short bond paper. It's a good thing the operator advised me to make six copies of the airway bill.

4. Back again to the gate pass window (second floor). Got copies of the gate pass. They asked me to proceed to the receiving window for Formal and Informal Cargo. I was asked to photocopy the airway bill (ground floor), made two copies for security.

5. Back to the Formal and Informal Window (second floor), paid P32.50 to be encoded in the computer.

6. Proceeded to Custom's Informal Cargo. This is where about 12 people signed my papers. I do not know what they do, but all they did was sign, stamp and record.

I could not help but tell the person in the Public Service Unit that I strongly believed that their department was overstaffed by 90 percent! There were brokers roaming around. In fact I was approached by one and asked for P2,500 to facilitate the process. When I asked him why it was such a big amount, he said he had to share it with a lot of Customs people. Anyway, I also heard the Customs employees talk to one broker, "Nabigyan mo na ba si ..., kailangan bigyan mo 'yan para pirmahan agad."  [Editor translation: "Did you bribe so-and-so? You need to bribe him/her that amount so he/she will sign right away without any delay."

7. Location check (ground floor).

8. Warehouse area (ground floor) -- located and identified my luggage. I was asked to fetch a customs examiner from the second floor. I asked why there was no examiner in the warehouse area. Nobody answered, so I presumed that because it was very hot in the warehouse, they wanted to feel very important by being fetched from their air-conditioned office.

9. Informal Cargo (second floor) -- fetched an examiner.

10. Warehouse (ground floor) -- the examiner asked me to open one piece of luggage and just saw old clothes and documents. He said it's alright and he asked me to follow him again to his office to prepare an assessment report and sign his findings.

11. Informal Cargo (second floor) -- the inspector prepared his assessment that I do not need to pay anything. Routed my paper again to five people.

12. Receiving (same room as the gate pass but I was asked to go inside -- Entered my paper in the computer. Recorded in the log book and another person had to sign but she was our of the room arranging for her lunch. this was about 10:25 a.m. only so I had to wait a while.

13. Went to the Verification Window (second floor) -- Four people inspected my paper and I was asked to wait because it does not appear yet in their computer. (Only two people signed.)

14. Billing Window (second floor) -- I was asked to photocopy again my ID. At this point I told the girl that she was the 29th person to sign my papers and she got agitated and she told me not to get made at her and that it was not her fault. I told her that I wasn't and I was only stating a fact.

16. Went back to Billing Window (second floor), was asked to pay P111 for storage fee, handling fee and documentary stamps.

17. Releasing (ground floor) -- checked my papers, again signed, logged, passed on to the next.

18. Finally, warehouse releasing. I was asked a photocopy again of the gate pass and airway bill. I asked the man how many copies do you need in this office, "Maawa naman kayo sa puno!"  [Editor translation: "Have pity on the manager please!" In other words, just put up with it all.]   If it's not the airway bill you want, why not copy the number?  Of course he will insist on the procedure so I have no choice but to follow. After all it was already past 11 a.m. and I had been in the place for more than two hours already.

This is not an exaggeration. If President Estrada is really serious in trimming the bureaucracy to save government money, I suggest he should start at the Bureau of Customs...."

(letter signed: Rowena E. Concepcion, ABS-CBN Foundation, Quezon City, Manila)

[ CLICK HERE FOR SCANNED ARTICLE ]

Before I left the Philippines I visited the worst slum in Manila. Just judging the choice was difficult. But I think I managed. It was a neighborhood of twenty-five thousand people packed into a space that wouldn’t park the cars at a minor-league ballpark, a neighborhood of tin-roofed bamboo huts seven feet wide by ten feet long without windows or chimneys or even smoke holes. Each hut was built smack up against its neighbors at the back and sides and opened on a dirt lane that was four feet wide. At the end of these lanes were a few water spigots sticking a foot or so out of the mud and some latrine holes in cement-block sheds. I tried to ask how many people lived in each hut. ‘More than possibly can,’ was, I believe, the answer.”     

(P. J. O’Rourke on his visit to Manila, Philippines)

“During the three-month shoot of [Claire Danes’ movie Brokedown Palace filmed in Manila, Philippines], Danes got a crash course in third-world misery.

Because of the script’s tourist-deterring elements, the filmmakers were told they didn’t stand a chance of getting permission to shoot in Thailand. Manila turned out to be a cheaper alternative. The shoot was plagued with malaria and hepatitis outbreaks, and production had to be shut down for several sick days. ‘It was just so hard,’ Danes says, ‘The place [Manila] just fucking smelled of cockroaches. There’s no sewage system in Manila, and people have nothing there. People with, like, no arms, no legs, no eyes, no teeth. . . We shot in a real [psychiatric] hospital, so takes would be interrupted by wailing women--like “Cut! Screaming person.”  Rats were everywhere.’. . . It was, she says, ‘utterhell to make. Manila is such a ghastly and weird place. . .’”    

(Claire Danes interviews, Vogue magazine, August, 1998 and Premiere magazine, October 1998)

“. . . The comments made by [Claire] Danes may be actually true and a stark reality of what Manila has truly become. . . Some of Danes’ comments may be exaggerated, but again it may paint for us the true image of the city. Beggars abound, and squatters are evident along every estero and alleyway. Garbage and filth litter the streets; canals are filthy and yes, the city does not even have a functional sewerage system due to the muck and garbage clogging them. Add to it the culture of corruption of city officials. This is the Manila we now know, and it is common knowledge to everybody. Maybe Danes was too offensive, but as far as I or anybody can see, hear smell and even feel, the premier city of Manila has now become too dark and ghastly. . .”    

(Dante Jose Borja II, letter to the editor, Philippine Daily Inquirer, 9/30/98)

“There’s a ski slope-size pile of rotting, burning trash on the north side of Manila called Smokey Mountain. A thousand people, many of them sick and dying, live in the filth. I never want to go back there. There are some kinds of desolation that leave you impotent in the f***ing that’s life.

(P. J. O’Rourke, Holidays in Hell; his impressions of life in Manila)

“The travel guides on the Philippines themselves advise tourists to expect Filipinos to be late for appointments, in direct proportion to their station in life. The same guidebooks offer as the root of that behavior the Spanish influence in local culture: Time is also a matter of power. It is a way of reminding people of status. Dignitaries and important personages are not merely entitled to arrive late; they are obliged to arrive late. To arrive on time is to depreciate their social standing. . . Surely lateness and backwardness must be related to each other like tuning forks? Surely they hark to the same music, or beat to the same rhythm? This may sound facetious, but our boundless capacity for lateness may even be conditioning our minds to think in the most amazingly backward ways. How else to explain that while other countries are moving forward faster than the eye can see, we are moving backward faster than the ear can hear? How else to explain that while other third world countries are keeping in step, or in tune, with the 21st century, we are barely able to keep in time with the 19th? How else to explain that while other countries are putting visionaries and statesmen in power, we are putting movie stars and Scotch-men in power? Lateness has a way of inducing backwardness. It is at least an infectious disease.”   

(Conrado de Quiros, Philippine Daily Inquirer columnist, PDI, 6/7/00, on ‘Filipino Time’)

(June 19, 1996 Philippine Daily Inquirer column by Conrado de Quiros --

[Article goes on about yet another new traffic-reduction scheme, this one depending on the last digit of one's vehicle's license plate number. Having seen a slight improvement in Manila traffic after implementation of the odd-even scheme, Conrado de Quiros writes:

"Yet another reason for it [improvement in traffic] is the discipline that seems to be creeping into the streets. Of course, the bus and jeepney drivers remain a menace on the road, thinking nothing of shoving you off it, but there's a lot less of the chaos and anarchy that went on before. And a lot less people sticking their guns in the air from out of their windows. It's as if the Filipino driver is discovering the concept of rules for the first time, a concept that has been alien to him all this time. That he has been compelled to obey one set of rules seems to have opened up in him the capacity to entertain other sets of rules.

.... Even more that the concept of rules, the concept of property as entailing responsibility  is thoroughly alien to the Filipino. In this country, property does not carry with it the weight of having to be used wisely; it carries with it the license to abuse. In this country, property does not put owners in a relationship with other people in the community, it puts them in a vacuum where they may be free to use it as they will.

Certainly, cars in particular have never instilled in their owners a desire not to cause inconvenience or harm to other people. They are not there to use prudently, they are there to flaunt, or wield as weapons. They are not there to make life easier for everybody, they are there to savage everybody else and get ahead of them. I don't know that any other people have taken the constitutional freedoms to pursue happiness to such thoroughly selfish and pernicious lengths.

But, well, as they say, the journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step. Who knows? Maybe the odd-even scheme won't just improve the flow of traffic in the streets. Maybe it will improve the flow of traffic in the Filipino's brain as well.

[ CLICK HERE FOR CONRADO DE QUIROS SCANNED NEWSPAPER ARTICLE ]

“Now, nobody hates a commie worse than me. And Commander Melody’s [of the New People's Army, aka NPA] line of hooey aside, the New People’s Army is communist. When they were negotiating with Cory, their demands were straight out of the Mickey Maoist Club bylaws. They are as red as a baboon’s ass, and that means freeze-and-assume-the-position as far as I’m concerned. I’ve been to your communist countries. They are crap-your-pants-ugly, dull-as-church, dead-from-the-dick-up places where government is to life what panty hose are to sex.”     

(P. J. O’Rourke, after interviewing a lackadaisical Filipino communist NPA local commander, Holidays in Hell)

“If you can imagine the Spanish Inquisition taking place in a Dunkin’ Donuts, you’ll have a faint idea of this country’s spiritual and cultural mise-en-scene. For its deadly and surreal law enforcement you need to be able to visualize the Khmer Rouge in Disneyland. The economic position might be summarized as that of a banana republic which imports its bananas. The whole thing’s encased in such beauty, such ruination, such brutality and affection and misery and zest as to stop the heart. The brain, though, goes wild.”     

(quotations from the novel, The Ghosts of Manila)

Gridlock, Greed and Grime.”    

(Title of article on Manila, written by Nelly Sindayen for Time magazine)

“. . . Hellish traffic, hellish climate, hell-bent politicians, gangsters in uniform, hoodlums in robes, massive unemployment, inhumane poverty, identity crisis, a tradition of mediocrity. Get real. Who would want to be Filipino? . . .”  

(Henry L. Yumul, column titled ‘Who Wants To Be A Filipino?’, Philippine Daily Inquirer, 04/27/00)

Summary of  March 1, 1997 Manila Bulletin article titled, “LIFE TERM FOR BUS DRIVER”

A 25-yr-old bus driver was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of a 14-yr-old girl moments after hitting her while she was crossing EDSA (a major Manila street) two years ago. The accused, Ronaldo Santiago, was identified by witnesses as the one who deliberately  ran over the badly injured victim. The victim was crossing EDSA on Dec. 1, 1995 when the speeding bus hit and threw her some 20 metres. Numerous witnesses said they saw the bus stopping after hitting the girl and were shocked to see the driver running over the body again, intentionally. The driver said it was all accidental.

[ED: it is common knowledge and accepted in the Philippines that death benefits (aka 'blood money') paid by guilty drivers to the surviving family of a traffic fatality will be less than the cost of life-long medical treatment for a disabled victim. Thus, many Filipino drivers would prefer, and have, run over repeatedly a victim to make sure he/she is dead, rather than face paying out far larger sums to a permanently disabled person.]

[ CLICK HERE FOR SCANNED ARTICLE ]

[ IF YOU DON'T BELIEVE ME THAT MANY FILIPINO DRIVERS PREFER TO KILL RATHER THAN MAIM, READ THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE FOR MORE EVIDENCE ] 

(Summary of  November 9, 1998 Philippine Daily Inquirer column by Neal H. Cruz) --

Got lots of phone calls last Friday asking why I didn't have a column that day. It's a long story and includes complaints against psychopathic drivers, the companies that hire them and the laxity of the Land Transportation Office (LTO) in giving licenses to unqualified drivers.

.... Cases of hit-and-run drivers of public utility vehicles are becoming too common that I am beginning to believe the stories that company executives and their lawyers advise their drivers to speed away in case of an accident. That cabbie who ran over those two nuns on UN Avenue and left them to die on the street is just one example. And I myself have had several experiences with hit-and-run drivers.

.... My point is that it is now accepted practice for drivers to public utility vehicles to leave scenes of accidents if they can. Listen to talk by professional drivers and the common advice is to escape. If you run over a person and he does not die, the advice is to run over him again and kill him. You pay only P12,000 for a dead person but have to pay much more for hospitalization expenses and damages for an injured one. So it is for Congress to impose stiffer penalties on hit-and-run drivers.

[ CLICK HERE FOR SCANNED NEWSPAPER ARTICLE ]

“I have no weakness for shoes. I wear very simple shoes which are pump shoes. It is not one of my weaknesses.”     

(Imelda Marcos, purported owner of 3,400 pairs of shoes)

“I did not have three thousand pairs of shoes; I had one thousand and sixty.”      

(Imelda Marcos, big liar)

“What’s wrong with shoes? I collected them because it was like a symbol of thanksgiving and love!”

(Associated Press article on Imelda Marcos, in The Eye, November 1997)

“Thank God, looking into the recesses of my closet they did not find skeletons. They found beautiful shoes.”

(Imelda Marcos; Salon E-magazine Aug. 18, 1999)

“Everybody kept their shoes there. The maids . . . everybody.”   

(Imelda Marcos explaining why her closet was found to contain over 3,000 pairs of shoes)

“Filipinos want beauty. I have to look beautiful so that the poor Filipinos will have a star to look at from their slums.”   

(Imelda Marcos quotation)

“My economic theory is that money was made round to go round. Money was made to encircle man so that he would blossom with many flowers. The whole trouble is, the center is money. All the heads of people thinking about money. All the hands of people reaching out for money. All their poor little bodies working for money. They are running in all directions for money.”     

(Imelda Marcos, November 1985, to Sandra Burton, in Impossible Dream)

“I get my fingers in all our pies. Before you know it, your little fingers including all your toes are in all the pies.”    

(Imelda Marcos, cited in Ang Katipunan, October 1980)

“It’s the rich you can terrorize. The poor have nothing to lose.”     

(Imelda Marcos, terrorist, Fortune magazine, 1979)

“I’m like Robin Hood. I rob the rich to make these projects come alive. . .not really rob. It’s done with a smile.”

(The ever so lovely and gracious thief Mrs. Imelda Marcos, Fortune magazine, 1979)

“It is terribly important to do certain things, such as wear overembroidered dresses. After all, the mass follows class. Class never follows mass.”        

(Imelda Marcos, Ang Katipunan, October 1980)

“Life is not a matter of place, things or comfort; rather, it concerns the basic human rights of family, country, justice and human dignity.” 

(Imelda Marcos quoted in Newsweek magazine, 12 June 1989)

“Win or lose, we go shopping after the election.”     

(Imelda Marcos, world's worst shopaholic, 1986)

“I am being questioned (and) convicted with imprisonment for building the Philippine General Hospital, the premier hospital of the Philippines, that I did in the spirit of a mother’s love, in creativity and ingenuity beyond technicalities, in my passion to serve the sick and the poor.”   

(Imelda Marcos, quoted in The Philippine Daily Inquirer, February 1998)

"I have a different way of thinking. I think synergistically. I'm not linear in thinking, I'm not very logical."

(Imelda Marcos)

“If you know how rich you are, you are not rich. But me, I am not aware of the extent of my wealth. That’s how rich we are.”    

(Imelda Marcos, after promising to give $800 million to poor Filipinos if she becomes president, quoted in The Philippine Daily Inquirer, March 1998)

“Diligence, hard work, foresight, entrepreneurship and God’s blessing.”   

(Mrs. Marcos on how Ferdinand Marcos became wealthy [a multi-billionaire actually], quoted in The Philippine Daily Inquirer, March 1998)

“Funny, I never shopped. Even my jewelry -- not a piece of my jewelry I bought for me.”

(Imelda Marcos, explaining that her jewelry were gifts from her husband, children and ‘even the dog,’ cited in an Associated Press report, April 1998)

“I was born ostentatious. They will list my name in the dictionary someday. They will use ‘Imeldific’ to mean ostentatious extravagance.”        

(Imelda Marcos cited in an Associated Press report, April 1998)

“Ferdinand [Marcos] had foresight and unbelievable luck. His success actually bordered on fiction.”

(Mrs. Marcos on the biggest thief in recorded history [her husband Ferdinand], quoted in Werner Raffetseder’s ‘Imelda and the Cash,’ Saga magazine, April 1998)

“Why should people be afraid that we use a few small pellets of uranium at the nuclear power plant in Bataan? Don’t they know that we’re surrounded by uranium? We have the world’s fourth largest deposits of uranium. Yes, we’re all radioactive -- must be the reason why we have so many faith healers!”                  

(Imelda Marcos on a since-mothballed nuclear power plant, February 1985)

“Events of the last decade have really unfolded the truth about Marcos as a great democrat and humanist.”

(Imelda Marcos quotation in the Financial Times, October 1997)

“This is the Philippines. . . This is China, this is Russia . . . This is the east, the west. And the equator. As anyone could see, the Philippines was right at the center of the globe. I’m surprised nobody saw this. As Chairman Mao said, you can change ideologies anytime, but you can never change geography. Geopolitics! This is what will make the Philippines great and beautiful again.”    

(Imelda Marcos explaining her ‘masterplan for the country’ by drawing a map of the world, quoted in the Philippine Daily Inquirer's 'Today' supplement, April 1998)

“Beauty is love made real, and the spirit of love is God. And of the state of beauty, love, and God is happiness. A transcendent state of beauty, love, and God is peace. Peace and love is a state of beauty, love, and God. One is an active state of happiness, and the other is a transcendent state. That’s peace.”

(Imelda Marcos during her husband Ferdinand's 1986 presidential campaign)

“If garbage affects us, then there must be something wrong with us.”   

(Mrs. Marcos in The Far Eastern Economic Review, February 1983)

“I get more than appreciation, especially from the little ones. And in the rural areas, all I have to do is smile and they are happy.”  

(Mrs. Imelda Marcos, cited in Beatriz Romualdez Francia’s Imelda: A Story of the Philippines)

“If you’re a little presentable, you’re called frivolous. Beauty is frivolity it seems, but beauty is love. You can never have an excess of what is democratic, just and beautiful. You can’t say a woman is overly beautiful but you can say someone is overly ugly. It is against religiosity to be surrounded by ugliness.”

(Imelda Marcos, Filipina extraordinaire)

“People say I’m extravagant because I want to be surrounded by beauty. But tell me, who wants to be surrounded by garbage?  Beauty is love made real and the spirit of love is God. Only a crazy man wants to be surrounded by garbage, and I’m not crazy just yet.”     

(the ever-so-humble Imelda Marcos)

“In the material world, where everything is valued, when you commit yourself to God, beauty and love, it can be mistaken for extravagance.”    

(Mrs. Imelda Marcos, in People magazine, 1996)

“They call me corrupt, frivolous. I am not at all privileged. Maybe the only privileged thing is my face. And corrupt?  God!  I would not look like this if I am corrupt. Some ugliness would settle down on my system.”    

(Mrs. Imelda Marcos, cited in Beatriz Romualdez Francia’s Imelda: A Story of the Philippines)

“Our opponent [Cory Aquino] does not put on any make up. She does not have her fingernails manicured. You know gays. They are for beauty. Filipinos who like beauty, love and God are for Marcos.”  

(Mrs. Imelda Marcos on why Ferdinand Marcos would win the gay vote, January 1986)

“I get so tired listening to one million dollars here, one million dollars there; it’s so petty.”

(Billionaire thief Imelda Marcos complaining of the numerous witnesses called to testify against her during her trial on charges of embezzlement in New York, the result of which she was acquitted on technicalities)

“Sometimes you have smart relatives who can make it. My dear, there are always people who are just a little faster, more brilliant, and more aggressive.”   

(Mrs. Imelda Marcos, in Fortune magazine, July 1979)

“Doesn’t the fight for survival also justify swindle and theft?  In self defence, anything goes.”

(Imelda Marcos, in Werner Raffetseder’s ‘Imelda and the Cash,’ Saga magazine, April 1998)

“If you allow that Son of a Bitch within forty miles of me again, I’ll have your job!”    

(Pres. Lyndon Johnson to an aide, after Johnson met with Ferdinand Marcos and Marcos yet again begged for more foreign aid even after receiving and stealing a huge investment tranche, 1968)

“As we were coming down Malacanang, Ferdinand [Marcos] held my hand and said, ‘Imelda, this is your fault.’ In shock, I asked, ‘Why, Ferdinand?’

He answered, ‘Because you gave me a heart.’”   

(Imelda on why Ferdinand Marcos refused to fire at the crowds on Edsa in 1986, quoted in Special Edition)

(Philippine Daily Inquirer column by Ambeth Ocampo, titled SHOPPING ON THE RUN--

" 'Balasubas' [ingrate; deadbeat; greedy SOB] is a word I last used when I was reading a 1986 report of the readiness sub-committee on Armed Services Committee of the US House of Representatives. You may wonder why I waste my time on boring publications of the US Government Printing Office, but being a person with perverse tastes I could not resist a document titled, "Investigation of the costs involved in moving former President Marcos and his party from Manila to Hawaii."

... The actual costs only amounted to $450,813, including $183, 539 for the airlift. What caught my attention -- and that of the US Congress -- were the amounts spent for long-distance telephone calls (about $20,000), meals (about $16,000), and PX shopping ($12,236.69 in Guam and $26,844.19 in Hawaii).

On February 26, 1986, the planes carrying the Marcos family and their entourage landed at Anderson Air Force Base in Guam for a stopover of about 10 hours. Imelda Marcos explained to the escort officers that in their rush to leave Malacanang, many members of their party were unable to pack for the trip. Their security personnel were in combat fatigues and needed civilian attire. So 40 people visited the base exchange and coughed up a bill of $12,256.69, roughly $300 per person.

Lowest on the list were $5.85 worth of food/snacks/beverages and $6.70 worth of stationery and greeting cards. I wonder if they sent out postcards with the usual message, "Wish you were here," to friends and relatives left in the Philippines.

Marcos' grandchildren, who once romped around Malacanang with the most expensive toys money could buy like a miniature, gasoline-run Mercedes Benz, had to content themselves with PX toys amounting to $69.05. Smokers in the party who consumed all their cigarettes during the evacuation of Malacanang and the flight to Clark Air Base in Angeles City had to replenish their nicotine content by buying $41.34 worth of tobacco products. I don't know exactly what is the last amount below $200 at $158.78.

Shoes were acquired at $1,424.93, clothing at $1,448.16, towels, wash cloths etc., at $1,561.84.  Then comes the figure that made the eyebrows of US congressmen rise so high they nearly fell off their heads: $7,540.04 for health and beauty aids!

... In the evening of Feb. 26, the Marcos party boarded two C-141s for the last leg of their trip to exile. I wonder how much more shopping they would have done had they stayed in Guam for more than 10 hours.

During the five weeks that the Marcoses were guests (or should I say prisoners) on Hickam Air Force Base in Hawaii, they occupied the Officers Club, using its rooms, mess and other facilities. All costs for board and lodging are straightforward and not as interesting as the shopping bill.

On Feb. 28, 1986, the Marcos party of 40 persons shopped at the PX after being told that no luxury items could be bought. This included jewelry, cameras, watches, audio equipment, etc. Their total bill amounted to $15, 268.90, or an average of $347 per person.

A second PX shopping spree was authorized and the Marcos party were limited to $150 per person. This is less than the amount a balikbayan is authorized to spend a the duty-free shops today. Fourteen persons bought goods worth a total of $11,575.29, or an average of $827 per person. A total of $6,888.59 was spent on women's "furnishings" or lingerie, sleepwear, hosiery, underwear, etc. Health and beauty aids -- soap, toothpaste, rollers, etc. -- amounted to $3,015.74. Cosmetics and perfumes cost $629.87.  I wonder who spent $4.00 for a pair of earrings?  Another cheap entry was for laundry at $4.15.  Scrutiny of this shopping list will give sensitive historians fresh insight into Ferdinand Marcos and the people who accompanied him to exile.

With this shopping rend, I wouldn't be surprised if the base commander was relieved when the Marcoses found a home in Honolulu and left the base.

What I find so sad about this report is the way the Marcoses were treated. I am no great fan of Marcos, but I expected the red carpet to be rolled out for him. Marcos accepted "safe haven" not knowing that this did not include his shopping bills. Is this the kind of hospitality extended to an ally who was loyal to the US for two decades?

Balasubas talaga!  [Ungrateful indeed!]

[ CLICK HERE FOR SCANNED NEWSPAPER ARTICLE ]

“Our beautiful Hawaiian isle is, for us, worse than Alcatraz. Alcatraz at least gives free room and board.”       

(Billionaire Imelda Marcos, in 1988, on the difficulties of life in luxuriant Hawaii)

“History is not through with me yet.”  

(Ferdinand Marcos, quoted in The Marcos Dynasty)

“She’s reputedly as crazy as a rat in a coffee can.”   

(P. J. O’Rourke on Imelda Marcos)

“[The Edsa uprising which unseated the Marcos dictatorship] affected our family life in a very positive way. Very, very positive. You see, my children were young when they moved to Malacanang. Almost all their lives they knew only one place in   this world--the privileged side. Then came the real extreme, the other side. We were deprived of everything --our country, our homes, and including our honor, our faces. The children came out of this. It was very difficult because they did not know this other life of deprivation and made them whole and human. I can campaign for Bongbong or any of my children. I’ll say, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, you can vote for my children because they are whole and human. They know the extreme ecstasy and extreme agony. Taong-tao na iyan.’ What they offer is not just a well-educated leader but a leader who has known extremes, and knows the pain of complete deprivation. And, of course, we have been much closer than we have ever been before.”      

(Imelda Marcos, in the Philippine Graphic, November 1995)

“I always go with the flow. That is why I don’t tire easily. Have you noticed how when you’re traveling from the West to the Philippines, you don’t get tired, but when you travel from here to the West, you’re exhausted? This is because in one instance you’re going with the current of the Gulf Stream; in the other instance, you’re going against it.”      

(Imelda Marcos' IQ as illustrated in Beatriz Romualdez Francia’s Imelda: A Story of the Philippines)

“God is love. I have loved. Therefore, I will go to heaven.”  

(Imelda to Pope Paul VI, who responded, ‘Oh, how wonderful, how childlike!’)

“It makes it appear that I am a criminal element, an evil person, a vampire, a werewolf, a prostitute, a professional thief, a very greedy person, a person who deserves to die, a person whose death will be good for the people, a person who deserves to go to hell for stealing from the dying and starving, a dangerous person, a killer, a power-hungry person, a usurper of authority and a person without conscience who should be condemned.”   

(Imelda Marcos, from the libel suit she filed against Argee Guevara’s column in Businessworld, August 1996)

“We practically own everything in the Philippines.”    

(Imelda Marcos, 12/98, shortly after revealing her plan to file a P500 billion lawsuit against Marcos cronies who refused to relinquish control of her ‘assets’ with which they were entrusted in order to hide the real owners’ identity; they never returned the stolen 'assets'; thus the lawsuit)

“I am back . . . and how providential. It’s Mother’s Day, a day of love.”   

(Imelda Marcos after receiving an ‘Ideal Mother’ Award from some non-governmental organization, Philippine Daily Inquirer, 5/11/99)

“He doesn’t like Bongbong [Marcos]. He said he was the most obnoxious person he had ever met."

(Australian investigator Reiner Jacobi, hired by the Philippine government to find the Marcos family's tens of billions of hidden stolen wealth, recalling what Dr. Peter Ritter, one of the Swiss experts in the formation of dummy corporations for foreigners holding huge secret accounts in Swiss banks, said of former President Marcos’son; Philippine Daily Inquirer, 06/08/99)

“The Philippine effrontery is almost beyond breathtaking. There are no limits beyond which we cannot and should not go to meet Mrs. Marcos’ wishes.. . I should warn you that we have learned from a trustworthy source that on her official visit to Expo ‘70 Mrs. Marcos was as exigent, difficult, tactless and inconsiderate as it was possible to be . . . The First Lady is highly egocentric, and will in my opinion be interested less in what she sees than in what particular attentions are paid to her . . .functions which serve to show off her beauty in public will have added appeal . . . [Kokoy Romualdez, Mrs. Marcos brother, warned British officials]: ‘The most important point which he wished to get over to all of us is that his sister is completely uncontrollable’ . . . After the restraints of Manila she tends to behave impulsively when abroad, showing neither consideration, nor social discipline nor even an elementary awareness of public relations .. . She must be indulged in all her whims and the host government made to cooperate with her. . . Romualdez and Mrs. Marcos thrive on other people’s weaknesses but, if confronted by a firm negative atitude, they will have no option but to concede.”      

(British Foreign Office and other diplomatic officials fuming over their efforts to make Mrs. Marcos’ private visit to Britain in 1970 a success; quoted in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, 1/2/01; page A4)

ADVICE FOR ENGAGED AMERICAN MEN AND FILIPINO WOMEN --

To the Filipina Bride:

1)  Poker Night is sacred and if it falls on your anniversary, reschedule your anniversary party.

2)  Let him out to be with his friends at least once a week. And if he’s generous enough to bring you along, forgive his crude language and his making fun of you; it’s an American man thing!

3)  He will scratch, belch, pass gas and think it’s funny, so live with it!

4)  He will not understand why he has to be disturbed while reading Sports Illustrated, Playboy, the comics, etc., just because the toilet pipe broke and the bathroom is overflowing; so grab a wrench.

5)  If he doesn’t notice a new dress or the fact that you shaved your head bald, remember that American men were not raised to notice the little things.

6)  It is your right to choose what to watch on television except when there is Sports on. The definition of Sports is any activity that keeps score and includes balls of any shape and size, hunting/killing animals, etc. If you have cable TV with two 24-hour Sports channels, buy another TV!  DO NOT talk to him during a televised sporting event but wait for the commercial break and keep it short and sweet.

7)  It is his right not to go shopping for anything that requires color coordination, browsing, or lasts longer than 20 minutes.

8)  Don’t kid/nag him about his drinking; he will just drink more to show you who’s the boss and then ask you to pamper him when he doesn’t feel good the next day.

To the American bridegroom:

1. If you’re not in trouble 50 percent of the time, she will be suspicious and feel that you are guilty of something.

2. Filipinas are raised to think that all men are children and need mothering, so congratulations on your new ‘kindergarten’ status. So when she tells you to pick up your socks, brush your teeth, etc., promise her you’ll do it later and 75 percent of the time she’ll do it for you (except brush your teeth). However, you must follow up on the last 25 percent or she will remind you about it six months later in front of your friends.

3. You are never right, even if you have affidavits from the leading scientists backing your position. So just be satisfied knowing in your mind that you’re right. Just nod and put a silly grin on your face; it will drive her crazy because you agreed with her but she knows you haven’t changed your mind.

4. If you make a promise to her, you’d better keep it. However, understand that her promises are subject to waivers, exceptions and just how she feels at the time. Under the Filipino culture, truth is subject to the person’s perception of the circumstances. Here, ‘white lies’ enjoy a greater latitude and acceptance, so don’t expect to know her true age until 2010 or so.

5. Her cooking is always great no matter how much she downgrades it. Otherwise, risk burnt/half-cooked food for the rest of the week.

6. Filipinas don’t talk out their hostility, they just give you the cold shoulder, don’t talk to you for days (you may want to start an argument just before football season), and are very good at playing the martyr. Although, most of the time, you may not be aware of what you did wrong, don’t mention that to her or you’ll be in double-trouble. If you should slip up and mention it, immediately lock up all the pesticides and rat poison.

7. When she’s mad at you and you try to comfort or apologize to her and she shrugs you off, she expects you to try again (in about 10 minutes) and again until you have groveled enough (about 4 hours) to earn her forgiveness. Then it’s still not over; you must be ‘loving’ (read: subservient) for about the next 24 hours.

8. The extended family is more important to her and she won’t understand why you aren’t excited/running out to buy a gift for the new baby of her third cousin’s brother-in-law’s niece. Also, you will have overnight/week/month visitors from her family, some that even she hasn’t met; like her third cousin’s brother-in-law’s best friend/colleague from work or somebody the niece met at a party. You can’t win this one, so just try and keep the cost down.

(from the Expat/What's On magazine)

“Over the last few years we Filipinos have made a lot of public noise about our sacred sovereignty and the insult to our collective pride represented by the American bases on our soil. We cursed them even as we held out our hands for still more money. We called them imperialists and colonial remnants while we begged, borrowed and stole for the privilege of queueing at their Embassy for visas. And now they’ve gone, and we’re on our own at last with our famous pride, and precious little to show for all that money they poured into our rulers’ hands. At this very moment Olongapo City is entirely dependent for its water on the system our monstrous oppressors installed for their own naval base. And our famous pride apparently doesn’t extend to offering our own citizens the slightest protection from death and exploitation abroad, or the least defense of their basic rights here at home. It’s the same thing, you see. Plenty of grand talk and invocations of warm togetherness, but on the other side is a strange indifference and passiveness, even if it means putting up with atrocious conditions, with daily cruelty and injustice.”                              

(novel, The Ghosts of Manila, on the realities of Filipino hypocritical culture and sensitivities)

December 17, 1998 Philippine Daily Inquirer column by Rina Jimenez-David --

[ED: Manila's Ninoy Aquino International Airport, aka NAIA, is infamous for its dreadful, overcrowded conditions, unprepared/ill-trained personnel and uncaring, arrogant management. This article shows both Mrs. David's overly sensitive, hypocritical Filipino outrage at the criticisms of a foreigner who dared complain about NAIAs poor service, and her own begrudging agreement with the westerner's disgusted assessment of the airport's abuse of its clientele] -- Read on to understand the Filipino culture's hypocrisy ---

"... Everyone knows the airport (Manila's NAIA) will be thrown into chaos at the time of year. It's been happening in the decade or more since the Filipino worker became this country's prime export. So I can't understand why, given this seasonal chaos, our airport authorities can't better prepare for the inevitable.

I arrived on a Thai Airways flight ... Then I lined up at the luggage cart booth, paid my P40 and looked around for a cart and found none.

"Where are the carts?" I asked one of the women at the booth. "You have to line up for them." she said, gesturing at a line of passengers so long it had turned into a closed circle.... I found myself squashed between two tall Caucasian men who immediately took this snafu as an excuse to bitch against the Philippines.

"Welcome to Manila, welcome to the Third World," muttered the executive-type in front of me. "I've been coming here for maybe 25 times, and this always happens," agreed the portly, disheveled sunburned man behind me. "I have a connecting flight to catch in an hour!"

I bristled at their patronizing tone, but couldn't bring myself to come to my country's defense. I was steaming mad, too.

The executive-type confronted an airport official. "What's happening?" the foreigner asked. "I'm sorry, there are just too many passengers arriving."  "But other airports around the world are just as full!"  "We need a bigger airport."  "No," said the loud-mouthed know-it-all behind me.  "It's a no-brainer. What you should have done was to buy more carts. Every year, this happens! You know there will be passengers arriving so why can't you buy more carts?"

For once I agreed with him.

It took me more than an hour to finally get a cart, find my luggage and make my way down to the arrival area which was like a scene out of Hieronymous Bosch, all swirling turmoil, bedlam, chaos and confusion. And then I had to wait for nearly two hours for my family, who had been caught in traffic. Welcome to the Philippines indeed.

The next day, I read in the papers that congressmen were recommending the revocation of the franchise given to the Igugao Development Authority for the porterage operations at the airport, including rental of luggage carts. The IDA, they said, has been making "tubong lugaw." that is, profit from almost nothing ever since it began operations. And to think the carts even came free!  They were donated by corporations who were allowed to post advertisements on the carts in exchange. Now this really got me steamed!  The so-called foundation has been making all that shameless profit for years and yet would not even care to accommodate the expected flood of arrivals during the Christmas season.

 [ED-- to emphasize: luggage carts were donated to the airport, but dishonest airport officials and franchisees had been charging a hefty price for their use for years!]

In many airports around the world, luggage carts come free. And if you must pay for them, they're neatly stacked and available at automatic dispensing stations. In some other airports, such as Changi in Singapore and Bangkok, airports even provide free carts for hand-carried luggage. In contrast, at the NAIA passengers not only must pay for the carts, which are battered and wobbly, they must also stand in line for them!

Like it or not, an international airport is a country's showcase to the world. It is the first place you encounter upon arrival, and a negative experience immediately colors your perception of the country you're visiting. It is the last place you see, and yet another negative experience can wipe out whatever good impressions you picked up during your stay.

.... Everybody says the NAIA, in its present state, is much too inadequate for our needs. The opening of the new terminal should ease things up a bit. But if the management remains as shoddy as it has always been, and if IDA remains in charge of those dang carts, don't expect any jump in tourist arrivals soon.

( Click here for scanned article )

“It’s no longer fun to be a cop.”    

(unidentified Manila policeman, after learning that cops with waistlines over 34 inches would be kicked off the force)

“Don’t English me very high, because my English is very low. I am only elementary education.”              

(unnamed Manila policeman speaking to the relatives of an arrested minor movie star; Philippine Daily Inquirer Magazine 12/31/00)

“He longed to be a skydiver.”  

(Rannie Chua on his less-than-genius-IQ brother, Reginald, who attempted to hijack a PAL Airbus near Manila and then jumped 6,000 ft. to his death using a parachute homemade from a purple bedsheet; he was found dead and embedded 6 feet deep in mud)

“. . . Oh well: our NAIA and its approaches -- like the horrible traffic gridlock leading from and to the NAIA [Ninoy Aquino International Airport], and the smelly esteros and squattervilles in plain view--are not appetizing, even in ‘peacetime’, so we look like we’re not just a Third World country, but Fourth World primitive. When you see the modern Chep Lok Kok airport in Hong Kong, with its access expressway, its snazzy bridges, and its high-speed train, and broad runways and tarmacs so smooth there’s not a bump as planes take off or land, you realize that progress has passed us by. Don’t our junketing politicians who’re always zooming off on foreign trips and landing in well-maintained and streamlined airports experience any shame, even from the standpoint of ocular inspection? And yet, when we give speeches and swagger around, defiantly, we’re so arrogant. Why can’t we change our ways? Sure, we constantly say we’re ‘proud’ of our overseas workers and call them heroes and heroines, but it’s a country’s shame that so many millions of Filipinos have to leave home to find work, in loneliness and at the cost of family separation, because there’s no hope of earning a decent living at home. As long as our ‘children’ are slaving away in the diaspora, we won’t be able to hold our heads up in pride in the concert of nations.”      

(Max Soliven, editor’s column, The Philippine Star, 7/2/2000)

“We’re not used to this -- to pedestrians and bikes [darting from nowhere]. And all of us were holding on to our seats and some of us were going ‘Hey hey HEY!!’ to the driver. . .”    

(visiting San Francisco policemen on the alarming state of Manila traffic, Philippine Daily Inquirer, 09/02/00)

“As I see it, you can’t say the poor will be exploited here. If you’re poor, you can’t really have much money for gambling.”     

(Pres. Joseph Estrada, brushing aside widely accepted claims that illegal bookie operations in the Philippines are supported mainly by those who can’t least afford it; Philippine Daily Inquirer, June 24, 1999)

“It’s this simple--if they committed the crime due to poverty, their sentence will be commuted. It is possible that they have committed it because they have to feed their family or buy medicine for their sick child or spouse. I’ve always held that a hungry stomach knows no laws.”    

(Pres. Joseph Estrada, declaring that death row convicts who committed crimes for any of these reasons will escape execution)

“The cabinet is beginning to resemble a world-class kleptocracy.”   

(Philippine Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago, 10/99)

A List of Eraptions-- misstatements allegedly made by Pres. Joseph Estrada:

* Don’t judge a book if you are not a judge.

* Birds of the same feather are the same birds.

* Tell me who your friends are and I will tell you mine.

* An apple a day is seven apples a week.

(Philippine Daily Inquirer, 03/28/00)

“There’s no doubt that Estrada, who flaunts his enormous appetites and his freewheeling style, has left the country ripe for a cleanup crusade. . .a notorious womanizer who was voted into the presidency last year by an overwhelming majority. . . With at least seven kids out of wedlock [ed: with at least three different women to whom he is not married], Estrada puts Bill Clinton to shame. . . despite his reputation as a ladies’ man, Mr. Estrada had no qualms hosting the National Day of Prayer and Fasting last month. . . What else would you expect in a country whose colonial history has been described as ‘300 years in a Catholic convent and 50 years in Hollywood’?”    

(Newsweek Asia, 12/6/99 on Filipino President Joseph Estrada)

“When the long-suffering people of the Philippines elected a brash former film star as their president they did not expect him to stick to a boring official script. But as Joseph Estrada’s term in office proceeds amid scandal, chaos and violence, many wonder whether they are watching a comedy or tragedy. Take the recent presidential meeting with fishermen in the city of Cebu. In expansive form, the head of state turned to his audience and introduced a hitherto unknown girl as his illegitimate daughter. Jerica Enriquez described by one local paper as ‘a sloe-eyed mestiza teenager in a pink long-sleeved shirt’ smiled and waved as her proud father declared: ‘She looks like me, doesn’t she?’  While the fishermen and their wives gaped, Estrada ignored their industry’s problems to give advice on responsible parenthood and family planning, jovially telling husbands to ‘control their [sexual] urges.’  The President, who is said to have at least 10 children by six women, said he was concerned about the country’s birth rate. . . However, in this devoutly Roman Catholic country it is corruption and cronyism, not contraception, that dominate the political agenda. Stories abound of late-night drinking sessions at the presidential palace and back-slapping deals for the boys -- the president’s  buddies from his acknowledged years as a denizen of Manila’s nightclubs and casinos. Many of them are labeled men ‘with short names’ meaning they are ethnic Chinese. . . Many ghosts of the Marcos era have returned. The Philippines now share with Nepal and Peru the distinction of hosting one of the world’s last few Maoist terrorist groups, the New People’s Army, which first fought Marcos. It shoots policemen and plants bombs using a new generation of recruits created by hopelessness…”     

(The Times of London, March 16, 2000 about the idiocy of Filipinos voting for incompetent, low-IQ Joseph Estrada)

“You wives, at midnight, quit your [sexual] overtures.”  

(Pres. Joseph Estrada preaching population control to an audience in Cebu, as mentioned above)

(Living the High Life in Manila By Rajiv Chandrasekaran; Washington Post Foreign Service 12/4/2000)

After finishing a gluttonous evening meal and a hearty snack known as “post-dinner,” after singing along to a few show tunes pounded out on a baby grand piano, and after bidding his cabinet secretaries good night, Philippine President Joseph Estrada used to begin what he called “the second shift.” On some nights, people close to Estrada said, that meant slipping out of the grounds of the sprawling presidential palace in an unmarked black sedan to visit one of his four mistresses, three of whom have borne him children. On others, a coterie of businessmen and political buddies would start drifting into the spacious salon on the ground floor of his executive mansion, where the president spends much of his day working and eating. According to one of the regular visitors, the group often would spend all night with the president, playing mah-jongg with stakes as high as $500,000 and quaffing as many as 10 bottles of Estrada’s favorite libation, vintage Chateau Petrus, a legendary Bordeaux that sells for about $1,000 a bottle here. At the nocturnal gatherings, which critics dubbed the “midnight cabinet,” participants routinely advised Estrada on official matters, not so subtly promoting their own business interests, sometimes leading the president to awaken cabinet members with his cellular phone to amend government policy, people familiar with the sessions said.”

It was out of control,” said a former member of Estrada’s administration. “He would cut all these deals at night and leave it to us to sort out in the morning . . . while he would be sleeping late and missing his appointments.”

Estrada’s hedonistic lifestyle, his cozy relationships with corporate tycoons and his negligence of the day-to-day demands of running a country of 76 million people will be a central theme of a landmark, American-style impeachment trial that is scheduled to begin Thursday in the Senate. A conviction would result in Estrada’s becoming the first democratically elected leader in Asia to be removed from office for corruption by constitutional means. Estrada, a 63-year-old former movie actor, has been charged with receiving almost $12 million in bribes from one of his gambling buddies, provincial governor Luis “Chavit” Singson, who said he often arrived at sessions of the midnight cabinet with a black leather attache case stuffed with cash. Although the president has denied the allegations and has vowed to prove his innocence at the trial, he has curtailed his nighttime activities since the scandal erupted, according to people familiar with his schedule. Members of Congress who will prosecute Estrada in the Senate contend they have more than enough evidence to oust him, including bribe checks from Singson they believe were deposited in bank accounts belonging to Estrada’s mistresses. But opposition leaders said some of their strongest ammunition in backing up charges of corruption and betrayal of the public trust is Estrada’s brazen penchant for women, high-stakes gambling and late-night drinking sessions.

“There’s too much boozing, too much partying,” said Rep. Heherson T. Alvarez, who co-sponsored the impeachment charges. “He can’t live the life of an actor. He has to wake up with the awesome responsibility as the chief executive of our nation -- and he’s unable to do it.”

The Endless Buffet

By many accounts, Estrada has little interest in even the most basic tasks of governing the Philippines. Interviews with several current and former members of his administration paint a portrait of a president who neglects to show up at cabinet meetings, official functions and long-planned public events. He does not read newspapers, magazines or books, and he rarely scans briefing papers. Instead, they said, he favors a style of leadership that is infused with noshing, socializing and plenty of photo opportunities. He rarely uses his formal office in the palace, preferring to hold court in his residence, where he spends much of the day sitting at one of two large, round tables covered with white cloth in a vast receiving room. A buffet table usually is covered with his favorite dishes: a large roasted pig, lobster, giant prawns and crabs.

“He’s constantly eating,” said Fernando T. Barican, his former spokesman. “His working table is the same as his dining table, and every two hours there’s another meal. Breakfast. Morning snack. Lunch. Coffee. An afternoon merienda [snack]. Another merienda. Dinner. Post-dinner. Midnight brunch. It was like a cruise.”

After bingeing, the potbellied president and a few of his advisers often popped Xenical weight-loss tablets to help purge their fat intake, said Karina David, Estrada’s former housing secretary. “They called it the miracle pill,” said David, who resigned last fall after she said Estrada tried to intervene in government land acquisition deals on behalf of his friends and family. During the day, the president would entertain a stream of unofficial guests, including his relatives, friends in business, old movie buddies and school classmates. The visitors often would join -- and sometimes dominate -- official discussions, David said. “The system of decision-making was chaotic. It was fragmented. It was personalistic,” she said. “Business would be talked about over the luncheon table and then the executive orders would be typed up and signed -- all in one day.” David said the informal gatherings resulted in more than 100 appointments to official posts without cabinet approval and a stream of capricious executive orders, including one requiring that any government contract worth more than $1 million have the president’s signature. The free-flowing sessions would continue through the evening, with Estrada’s official advisers begging off to go home, only to be replaced by more of his friends. His regular nighttime visitors, according to people familiar with the gatherings, included Singson, who has acknowledged that he is involved in an illegal nationwide numbers game; Dante Tan, a casino operator accused of insider trading; Lucio Co, the owner of a chain of duty-free stores, who has been accused of smuggling; and Mark Jimenez, a businessman wanted by the U.S. government for making illegal campaign contributions to the Democratic Party, whom Estrada appointed as his special adviser on Latin American issues.

“We would drink and gamble and talk about all sorts of things,” Singson said in a lengthy interview last week. “We discussed who should get appointed and who should get promoted. We talked about contracts. But most of the time, we talked about girls.” Estrada’s former chief of staff, Aprodicio Laquian, told reporters earlier this year that by 4 a.m. he was “the only sober person in the room,” facing the challenge of translating the president’s nighttime wishes into cogent government policy. Estrada fired Laquian the following day. Sessions of mah-jongg, a Chinese game of strategy played with domino-like tiles, sometimes would last until dawn -- or later, Singson said. “Once we played until noon,” the governor said with a smile. “The president always wants to win. We never stopped playing until he won.” Singson said it was common for the stakes to reach 20 million pesos, almost $400,000 at today’s exchange rates. But sometimes, he said, the pot would be even bigger.

“Once, when we were playing at his mother’s house, he won 45 million,” Singson said. The bon vivant culture continued when the president went on the road. He often brought along one of his mistresses and some businessmen, all of whom would stay on the presidential yacht, his former advisers said. On one trip to the poor southern island of Mindanao, his aides changed his schedule at the last minute, forcing him to spend a night in a different city than planned. When he got to the hotel, Estrada ordered a grand piano sent to his suite and dispatched his helicopter to fetch his pianist from another city, David said. The president’s nocturnal schedule quickly caused havoc in his official daytime schedule. During his first year in office, he would fail to show up for morning appointments. Eventually, his secretaries were reluctant to commit him to activities early in the day. They also took to noting on his official schedule that Estrada would make only his “best effort” to attend events.” The president was not in top form in the mornings,” said one former adviser. “We had the impression that he was hung over."

Cult of Personality

Estrada, widely known by the nickname Erap -- the Pilipino word for buddy spelled backward -- laughs off criticisms about his fitness for the presidency. He proudly mentions that he dropped out of college and has a habit of mangling the English language. He even has authorized a book titled “ERAPtion: How to Speak English Without Really Trial.” Despite his lack of interest in policy and his penchant for verbal gaffes, Estrada seems to have a knack for communicating with Filipinos, particularly those outside Manila, who are attracted to his self-effacing style. Estrada continues to be mobbed at rallies, including one Thursday at which he made a point of eating a meal of fish and rice with his hands before a group of peasants -- and camera crews. At other events, he has pulled money out of his wallet and given it to indigents. “They see genuineness and openness in him,” said Finance Secretary Jose Pardo. “The masses idolize him. There’s a cult of personality. He can do no wrong in their eyes.”

Estrada entered politics in 1969, winning the mayoralty of San Juan, a municipality within metropolitan Manila, after an acting career in which he played action hero roles in dozens of films -- sometimes as the tough-guy cop and sometimes as a Robin Hood-style gangster. His celluloid past propelled him to the Senate in 1987 and the vice presidency six years later. Perhaps his most skillful political coup has been to use the fact that he has 11 children with six women -- an almost certain liability in this predominantly Roman Catholic country -- to his advantage. Estrada publicly acknowledges and supports his children, saying he wants to be a good father. Critics say he continues to be romantically involved with three of the women, not including his wife. The president, who did not respond to requests for an interview, has said the bribery charges were concocted by his political enemies, whom he has identified as powerful business interests, the Catholic church and members of Manila’s elite circles. He also has chafed at the focus on his private life. “You all know that I am not a saint and I never said that I am a saint,” Estrada said at a rally of his supporters last month. “Like all human beings, I am not without faults. But to raise the issue of my personal life and equate it with my capacity to govern is not only totally unfair but unjust.” One of his attorneys, Raul A. Daza, said the president’s defense team plans to focus on the credibility of Singson, the prosecution’s chief witness, who not only is being investigated for allegedly misappropriating more than $40 million in government money but acknowledges that he turned against the president after Estrada tried to legalize the numbers game. “His motives are very much in question,” Daza said. Singson’s retort? “It would be an honor to go to jail with the president.”

Although opinion polls show that more than half the electorate wants Estrada to remain in office, opposition leaders say public sentiment will change when details of Estrada’s lifestyle are detailed at the televised Senate trial. Among the bombshells they are counting on is a description of the many Manila-area mansions in which his mistresses live. One of them, which features a swimming pool with a wave machine, surrounded by white sand, has been dubbed Boracay after the famous beach resort. Another has a gym, a home theater and three kitchens. A recent report by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism said that Estrada, his family and business executives associated with the president have acquired 17 pieces of property in Manila over the past three years. The combined market value of 14 of them exceeds $40 million, according to the report. Opposition politicians want to know how the president can afford such opulent residences on his official salary of $1,000 a month. They contend that his deep-pocketed friends in business built the homes for the president to give to his mistresses -- a violation of the country’s anti-graft law. But presidential attorney Daza contends that the mistresses--who include a former starlet who bore the president a child when she was 16 -- are paying the rent on the mansions themselves with money they have made by cashing in on their association with Estrada. No matter what the result of the impeachment trial, the political crisis has hammered the Philippine economy, sending the stock market and the peso to their lowest levels in recent years. The president’s critics say that other than disbanding the midnight cabinet, he has shown few signs of altering his behavior. When former president Fidel V.Ramos urged him at a closed-door National Security Council meeting last month to change his “extravagant lifestyle” and his “unfocused work ethic,” Estrada changed the subject, according to a participant. “He started talking about the accounts payable left over from the Ramos administration,” the participant said. “He didn’t address any of the concerns about his conduct. It was as if he had no idea he was doing anything wrong.”

“We have become global assholes. . . Philippine intelligence has become the laughing stock of the world.”  

(Filipino intelligence officer lamenting their military’s impotence in dealing with Muslim guerrilla kidnappers, and their governments’ allowing foreign hostages to be whisked away to Libya without first being de-briefed to glean vital information; Philippine Daily Inquirer, 09/16/00)

“I would not call myself a man of piety, for I have my own share of human limitations and moral imperfections.”          

(Pres. Joseph Estrada at the 20th National Prayer Breakfast)

“What’s so immoral about him?  He is a man of peace. His spirituality is unique.”   

(Fr. Sonny Ramirez, Joseph Estrada’s spiritual advisor, on the President’s alleged lack of morals)

“The more you get to know President Estrada the more you will like him. Contrary to misimpression (sic), he shows high breeding. He also has a playful nature. He’s a fun person.”   

(Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago, describing Estrada when he attended her birthday party)

“Here [in the Philippines] crookedness is the norm and honesty the exception; perfidy is rife and decency deviant.”       

(Philippine Daily Inquirer columnist Conrad de Quiros quoted in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, 10/02/00)

“At 4 o’clock in the morning I am the only sober person in the room. If this was Canada I would be the designated driver.”   

(Famous last words of Presidential Chief of Staff Aprodicio Laquian, describing life in the Palace to members of the Manila Overseas Press Club; he was dismissed shortly thereafter)

“Even before the jueteng scandal broke, foreign publications had already been holding up President Estrada as one of the worst. Here’s the lead paragraph from a feature piece (‘The Worst President in the Free World’) written by Agence France Presse’s Joshua Kurlantzick and which came out in the New Republic magazine:

‘There’s a tough competition for the title of worst leader in the free world. In East Asia alone, you have Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid, who sometimes naps during parliament sessions, and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori, guilty of so many gaffes that he brings cards with preprinted answers to press conferences. But every contest must have a winner, and recent events make it clear that Philippine President Joseph Estrada is the least competent democratically elected leader on earth.”     

(Philippine Daily Inquirer, 10/26/00, p.A7)

“... First, we firmly believe that we are facing an integrity crisis. Not only is the conduct of our leaders in question, but so is the very character of the Filipino. The world is asking: ‘Can the Filipino be trusted?’ What is on trial is not only one man, but a whole Catholic nation, standing before the world like a defeated army, accused of duplicity and hypocrisy. More than being ashamed, we are afraid that lying may have become our way of life. We are not only lying to others, but lying to ourselves and believing it!!  The moral decay within us might have turned light into darkness...”

(Statement of Concern by the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery, University of Santo Tomas, half-page ad,  Philippine Daily Inquirer, 12/24/00, p. A4)

(Philippine senator Ramon Revilla lambasting rumors that he received a P200 million bribe from the Estrada camp to vote ‘NO’ during the Estrada Impeachment Trial, and the resulting negative publicity eliciting demands by his many mistresses; Revillas has admitted to siring as many as 81 children from 20 women):     

“Do you know that this rumor has had repercussions for me? . . . My girlfriends, my mistresses, they’re asking me for all sorts of things. I’m so terrified I’ve found myself swearing at them.”     

(Philippine Daily Inquirer; 01/20/01, p.A-3)

“. . . . What further distresses us is being told that our leaders are mirrors of our values and ourselves. It is here that we should pause and ask ourselves: how did it happen? It seems to me that this is not a question of compartmentalized Christianity whereby the tenets of the religion are only skin-deep. (One cannot help but wonder at front page photographs of a man who keeps a stable of mistresses and impregnates a couple every year receiving Holy Communion.)”

“Given that not everyone believes in organized religion or in an afterlife, still there is a question of ethics, of right and wrong, which we are told is inherent in every human being. It would be kinder to believe that the perpetrators of the crimes being revealed daily were unaware of any wrongdoing. Filipinos like to claim that ours is the only Catholic country in Asia, but what the trial is proving is that not only are we not Christians but our concept of right and wrong is blurred.  I remember the husband of a friend of mine saying that even if caught in flagrante, you deny to your dying breath whatever ‘sin’ you may be guuilty of ...”    

(Philippine Daily Inquirer  Columnist Bambi Harper, 01/20/01)

“We condemn the Eleven Plagues of the Senate . . . The damage these partisan judges have caused to the nation and to the truth is incalculable.”   

(University of Santo Tomas rector Fr. Tamerlane Luna, on the eleven pro-Estrada senator-judges who voted to prevent the opening of an envelope containing the‘smoking gun’ evidence needed to convict Pres. Estrada in his impeachment trial; Philippine Daily Inquirer,   01/25/01)

“Why should I be bothered by these protests against me? These same Filipinos who have not even stepped foot on Harvard or Oxford. I would be bothered if my professor in Cambridge were to take exception to my legal interpretation of a judicial matter. But to be bothered by a Filipino who may not even know that a Harvard exists, who can’t even pass the UP entrance test, who wouldn’t even understand discussions of such a high level even if they tried, why should I be bothered? I have no time to listen to this species of lower life forms.”      

(Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago, as quoted in Philippine Daily Inquirer, 02/16/01. Ed. Note: Mrs. Defensor-Santiago in fact attended only a summer non-credit course in England)

“I don't think the president has the intellectual competence to go into an adventurous act like this.”

(Ernesto Maceda, Philippine presidential spokesman, defending his boss Joseph Estrada from charges that he was behind a string of bomb attacks in Manila prior to his resignation)

Overview - Manila

Well, at least they’re trying. Rising from the wasteland of uncollected garbage and the oppressive stench of urban blight are the bursts of governmental initiatives aimed at reclaiming not only a city, but a culture. The Metropolitan Museum features a surprising collection of thoughtful and vibrant art by local and international artists, the Orchidarium creates an oasis of calm within a madhouse of congestion, the new MRT raises hopes over the possibility of relieving overworked roadways, and hundreds of lighted orbs optimistically illuminate an otherwise seedy and avoidable corner of Rizal Park.

As a stopover for leaps into the cultural and natural attractions of the Philippines, Manila is a necessary evil. But after weeks of hiking mountains devoid of hot water or of days stranded (by the weather) on a forsaken shore, Manila begins to look good. So while you’re here, it’s worth a day or two to open yourself up to the historic context of the Filipino people, to find out where they come from, and to get some insights into where they are headed.”     

(Northwest Airlines’ website description of its glorious destination: Manila)

[ CLICK HERE FOR  ARTICLE -- http://www.nwa.com/cgi-bin/destination_cities.cgi?selected_destination=manila

“The provincial roads leading south out of Metro Manila lumber painfully away from the seething city towards greener pastures. For the most part neglected by the local administrators, provincial communities stretch out in an endless parade of corrugated roadside shacks, emaciated dogs, and rusty steel rooftops. Obviously, the further away you get from the city, the more pastoral the land becomes, making the provinces within reasonable driving distance a playground for the well-to-do city dwellers.”

Frommer’s online website; http://www.frommers.com/destinations/manila/0199010011.html

(Philippine Daily Inquirer column by Michael L. Tan, December 21, 2000) -- BRAIN DRAIN      ( Filipinos leaving their country for jobs and better lives overseas):

"... There hasn't been any study, as far as I know, in recent years, about the consequences of permanent migration. neither have there been serious efforts to look at why people leave. Intuitively, we all know economics is the main cause, but emigrations also involves many Filipinos who are not in need. In such cases, political instability triggers the emigration, and this is accompanied by capital flight. Money that could be invested locally ends up in banks or businesses abroad.

There there are cultural factors. In the past, we would have referred to the "colonial mentality" but I wonder just how significant this is. I think that these days, or should I say especially these days, Filipinos leave because they do not want to raise their families in the present environment. How, balikbayans ask, can you raise children in the Philippines to be honest, when there are so few role models?

It's not just the culture of corruption. We are terrified by what we read of violence in the streets of US cities, but Filipinos living in the States, even in some of those violent cities, see the Philippines as the wild, wild west, what with all our armed security guards and policemen, and our worship of guns.

And while we pride ourselves as being more "spiritual" and less materialistic than "Westerners," my balikbayan friends find Filipinos here at home (at least the middle and upper classes) to be more materialistic than Westerners, more conscious about keeping up with neighbors and friends."

[ CLICK HERE FOR SCANNED NEWSPAPER ARTICLE ]

“American troops are headed to the Philippines to disrupt a Muslim rebel group there and get them back to what they should be doing: Making Nikes for Americans.”    

(Bill Maher, HBO's Real Time With Bill Maher)

Filipino bulletin board entry titled: Who wants to be a Filipino?
  Herdy L.Yumul
 

If you were to be reincarnated and given the choice, would you opt to be Filipino again? It was in 1998, at a forum of top schools at the University of Asia and the Pacific, that I raised this question. As expected, everybody, except me, gave a resounding yes for an answer.

Hypocrites! I could see from the way they talked, from the clothes they wore, from their ideas of what was good and beautiful, that even in this lifetime they were dying to camouflage their being Filipino. Thanks to Ralph Lauren, a colonial education and "trying hard" American accent.

I told them I want to be European, a Frenchman more specifically. Yes, Europe -- with its rich history, solid identity and all the luxury and elegance this world can offer.

I have been there once for the World Debates in Greece. But being Filipino, I was a disaster then. During socials, I would befriend the Jamaicans so I would stand out. But it was a wrong move because Jamaicans, notwithstanding their darker skin tone, are very secure with themselves.

When I and fellow Filipinos were walking in downtown Athens, a young Greek approached our group and casually told us that he wanted to go to the Philippines to f--k Filipinas. Then he kept on asking us: "How much are Filipinas?"  Did he expect us to adore him because a fine European like him wanted to visit a country whose people they officially defined as domestic helpers?  Or was he simply being mean? I wish he were just referring to the controversial brown biscuit.

Hellish traffic, hellish climate, hell-sent politicians, gangsters in uniform, hoodlums in robes, massive unemployment, inhuman poverty, identity crisis, a tradition of mediocrity. Get real. Who would want to be a Filipino?

Maybe the Cojuancos, the Sys, the Tans and the other demigods whose surnames do not sound Filipino at all. But this Yumul, no.

My uncle Jessie is lucky: he and the whole family migrated to the United States in the early 1970s to graze where the grass is greener and live there as second-class citizens but occasionally come home like gods crowned with sparkling dollars.

Then there is Me-Ann, one of the tinderas [shopkeepers] in our small business. She thinks that her main purpose in life is to go to Taiwan and earn money she will never earn in a lifetime of labor in the Philippines. I feel sad to know that Me-Ann and millions of Filipinos have to leave the country just to live decently.

Some say that despite our material poverty, we should take pride in our spirituality since the Philippines is the only predominantly Christian country  in Asia. But it continues to puzzle me why this Christian nation has produced only two saints so far while Thailand, Japan and China -- all non-Christian countries -- have more. Maybe, unlike Filipinos, people from those nations have more sensible things to do than creating miracles by desperately looking for images in the stains of tree trunks and forcing statures to shed bloody tears.

I have always been pessimistic about the fate of the Filipino. But there was a break. I gave in to ht e nationalistic spirit during the Centennial celebrations. When fireworks, worth millions of pesos, lit up the skies over the Luneta, I had high hopes that the Philippines would be better and I decided to junk my pessimism. I thought a new era of Filipino pride had dawned.

In my college years, I was also influenced by San Beda's thrust of molding young men in the image of a true Filipino like some of its alumni whose ranks include Ninoy Aquino, Rene Saguisag, Ramon Mitra and Raul Roco, who should have been the president of this country.

Yes, for some time, I was deluded into being proud of being Filipino. But thanks to President Erap, I have recovered my senses. His Excellency has betrayed the people's trust so many times that I need not elaborate. Erap has become for me the symbol of everything that is bad in the Filipino. In his administration, corruption and chaos have become the norm so that writing about it would only bore the reader. It's just too bad for the nation, but good for me since I got back to my precious pessimism.

Now I am firmly convince that Erap has to resign to save what is left if our dignity as a nation and what is left of my optimism as a young man. But I guess he will never do that. Congress is dominated by honorable "galamays" so impeachment is an impossibility. A military coup could save the day for the country, but, in that case, Uncle Sam is sure to defend his friend who handed him the Visiting Forces agreement. Now, we are left with assassins to play heroes. If someone saves the  lives of millions, would he not go to heaven?

But then Erap need have no fear about an assassination plot. Imelda Marcos, despite all the crimes her family committed against the Filipino people, has never been hurt. Not even a strand of her regal hairdo has been touched. But of course, there are always firsts.

According to Hindu philosophy, what you sow in this life, you will reap in the next and whatever you are now is a reaction to your past. Could it be that all Filipinos were crooks in their earlier incarnations? If there is any reason I try to do well in this life, it is in hope that in my next, I would be a Filipino no more.

If it isn't too much to ask, I would like to be a Frenchman or a Jamaican, before Jinggoy Estrada becomes president of this wretched land.
 
  ---------------------
  Herdy L. Yumul, 21, is a Philosophy and Human
  Resource Development graduate
  of San Beda College



CLICK HERE FOR LINK TO ARTICLE

article titled "NBI SACKS OFFICIAL IN EXTORT TRY" -- [ The top medical examiner for the Philippines' version of the FBI was caught trying to extort about $4000 from a doctor accused of medical malpractice in return for a favorable autopsy report ]

"Caught in the act -- and he's out. Dr. Maximo Reyes was sacked yesterday from his post as head of the NBI's Medico-Legal unit. NBI Director Reynaldo Wycoco made the announcement two days after Reyes was caught receiving money P200,000 in extortion money from a Dr. Lenet Chan of Carmen, Panagsian inside hsi office at NBI headquarters in Manila...."

[ Read scanned article for the disgusting details of the Philippines' top criminal investigatory agency's head medical/autopsy examiner's efforts to cover up an alleged botched caesarian operation, in which the mother died allegedly due to medical malpractice, in return for a hefty extortion payoff ]

[ CLICK HERE FOR SCANNED ARTICLE ]

[ Article titled "HOODLUMS IN ROBES" in Philippine Daily Inquirer, May 28, 2003, pg 1 ]

"The alleged corruption in the judiciary has been a perennial complaint among litigants in the Philippines.  Yesterday, it was the turn of presidential associate Dante Ang to lash out at what he called "terrorists in robes".

..."We have allowed a kind of legal terrorism to encroach upon the legal system and the practice of law," Ang said in his speech, "Terrorists in Robes," during a meeting of the Philippine Constitutional Association in Makati City.

[ See scanned article for details of this learned man's observations about injustice and inequality served up to civil litigants and the criminally accused in the Philippines. ]

[ CLICK HERE FOR SCANNED ARTICLE ]

 


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