07.01.2007

Interview (part 2) with

AQUILINO “Nene” Q. PIMENTEL, JR.

Continued from previous week _

BURMA DIGEST: The struggle in Philippine in the past for Independence, and then the people power movement for democracy in 1980s has given great inspiration for the people in Burma. So we’d like to know a lot about Philippine so that we can learn good lessons and also get huge inspiration.

Q.                And please give us some inspirations concerning the people power movement by Mr. and Mrs. Aquino in 1980s. 

Benigno Aquino was the youngest senator during the Marcos era. He was with the opposition. 

Marcos had him arrested on the very night of the day he announced that he had declared martial law. Incidentally, the day of the announcement of the declaration of martial law (Sept. 23, 1972) was different from the day the martial law proclamation was signed (September 21). 

Marcos then clamped Aquino in a military jail for several years (roughly 5 years) during which period the latter suffered from some heart ailment. Wanting to appear magnanimous, Marcos allowed Aquino to go to the US for a heart bypass. Aquino went with his wife, Cory, and their children, to the US, had himself operated on, and decided to stay in Boston, Massachusetts until he returned to the Philippines in 1983.  

When he landed at the Manila international airport, he was picked up from his seat on the plane and escorted down the plane by military and police security personnel. Despite the tight security, Aquino was shot on the head reportedly by a lone communist gunman who penetrated the security cordon at the tarmac where the plane carrying Aquino had landed.

Nobody believed that tall tale. 

I was under house arrest at the time in Cagayan de Oro City in Mindanao after serving several months of incarceration in military jails in Cebu, an island in the Visayas. Somehow the media reached me for my comment on the Aquino assassination. I said that there was nobody to blame but Marcos. After all, I said, he was the chief executor of Martial Law and was therefore the person in charge of the security of the people of the country. And if Aquino was murdered in the hands of his chosen military and police security agents, who else should be held responsible for that but Marcos. 

The murder of Aquino was arguably the trigger that set the people into an explosion of anger against the Marcos regime. Demonstrations upon demonstrations were taking place and they were growing bigger by the day. 

To defuse the growing tension in the body politic, Marcos told the people that he was naming a commission to investigate the murder and pin point the culprits. He named the then Supreme Court chief justice, Enrique Fernando, as the head of the commission and named several former justices of the Supreme Court. 

Marcos sent an emissary to talk with me at my home in Cagayan de Oro where I was under house arrest about the matter and how possibly it could be defused. I told the emissary Marcos created the problem, he should solve it himself. 

In any event, the people did not trust the Fernando-led commission. Marcos disbanded the commission and appointed another set of commissioners headed by Corazon Agrava, a lady justice of the court of appeals (lower in rank than the Supreme Court) with some members of the civic society as deputy commissioners. 

The Agrava commission came out with a truncated report – Agrava exculpating the military and police suspects who were close to Marcos, and the members, holding them guilty. 

The report added to the turmoil besetting the country. Again, demonstrations took place by the day denouncing the murder of Aquino. And in a number of instances, these were brutally dispersed by the police and military units loyal to Marcos. 

To preempt the people's anger from turning into uncontrollable violence, Marcos called for elections to a pseudo parliament (Batasan Pambansa, National Assembly). We joined the elections despite the widely held perception that since Marcos controlled the Commission on Elections and the public purse, we had no chance of winning at all. 

Along with several oppositionists, I took the chance and ran for membership of the Batasan and won along with more than 50 others. In a 200 member legislative assembly, our block of more than 50 oppositionists was sizeable. 

With all the powers vested in him by the Constitution whose approval he manipulated in 1973, Marcos controlled the Batasan but we made sure that we spoke out and somehow let the people know of the oppression, the corruption and the systemic harassment of the people by the martial law regime. 

By 1986, three years after Benigno Aquino's murder, Marcos called for presidential and vice presidential elections. 

That was where Cory, Aquino's widow, came into the picture. As the leader of the PDPLaban, I endorsed her for the presidency and Salvador Laurel for the vice presidency. 

Cory Aquino projected the stance of a crusader for good government not that of what is popularly called in the Philippines a "traditional politician". We told the people that she was simple housewife who would restore democracy to our land while Marcos was a consummate politician who was bent only in staying on in power. 

Surprisingly, the people appeared to have taken the message seriously and they voted with their ballots and their feet that eventually caused Marcos to flee to the Hawaii soon after the elections. 

Towards the last days of February 1986, we had gotten rid of Marcos and were in the process of restoring our democratic institutions. 

In our experience, there appears to be no better way to mobilize people than through an electoral exercise. 

The Americans also were a big factor in the overthrow of Marcos in that they did not go all out to support him. We articulated the view that the US bases which the US wanted to retain in the Philippines after Marcos was in danger of being booted out earlier than the expiry date of their leases (1991)because they were being used as conduits for US support for the dictatorship that was oppressing the people. 

Big business was also split into some who favored Marcos and others who did not. We denounced the "crony capitalism" of Marcos who favored a few chosen cronies over the rest. We also denounced the corruption that was pervasive and hit many business people who were fleeced by demands for contributions by the powerful. 

Q.            About the current President and current political situations in Philippine. 

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo got to power after President Joseph Ejercito Estrada was ousted by the 2^nd People Power demonstrations in 2001. 

Immediately before his ouster, he was being impeached by the House of Representatives and the actual trial was being conduced by the Senate of which I was the Senate President at the time. The Senate President under the Constitution co-presides with the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court over the Senate which is the "court" that hears the evidence against the President who was being impeached and will render a verdict after trial. 

Before we could finish the impeachment trial, the demonstrators were getting out of control and Estrada was compelled to step down from office. The major players who mobilized people power against him were ex-president Cory Aquino and Cardinal Jaime Sin who was the archbishop of Manila. 

In 2004, we had a presidential election. Arroyo ran for the presidency. We pitted a popular movie actor, Fernando Poe, against her. Arroyo cheated in the elections. People demonstrated against her but the demonstrations were forcibly dispersed by the police and the military. And the people probably have gotten tired of ousting presidents by people power demonstrations and so, she is still there. 

Arguably, Arroyo is the most uncaring president with regards to the observance of constitutional processes and the rule of law. She has issued a number of executive orders and fiats that were over ruled by the Supreme Court. 

She is also the most "resourceful" of presidents in the use of public funds. 

Her administration was characterized recently by international human rights groups with the most number of people killed "extrajudicially". 

There are also any number of graft and corruption cases attached to many contracts that were entered into by her administration. 

Her husband has likewise established a record of sorts: he sued some 43 journalists for criminal libel in the courts of the country. They all had to post bail bond otherwise they would have languished in jail. 

Q.        And please kindly tell us about the separatist movement by Moro people, and how Philippine Government is dealing with it. 

Moro rebellions in the Philippines are not a new phenomenon. Moro rebellions are as old as the Spanish colonial era that were continued under the American subjugation of the country and are still ongoing even today after we had recovered our independence in 1946. 

The Moros constitute between 4% to 5% of the present population of some 83 million. And they reside mostly in five Muslim provinces in Mindanao: Sulu, Tawi-Tawi, Basilan, Lanao del Sur and Maguindanao (Cotabato). 

The most explosive Moro rebellion took place shortly after Marcos proclaimed martial law in 1973. For the first time, the Moro rebels had a semblance of fighting the government under one flag: the Moro National Liberation Front (MILF) under Nur Misuari. 

The MNLF fought the government to a standstill in 1974-75. Marcos had to ask the intercession of Moammar Khadafi of Libya to broker peace talks in Libya between the MNLF and the government. 

The peace talks resulted in a ceasefire and the creation of a Moro government over some provinces in Mindanao. Marcos, however, created not one but two Moro governments with the support of some Moro rebel leaders whose loyalty Marcos bought with political largesse like timber concessions and sardine importation permits. 

After we ousted Marcos in 1986, Cory Aquino appointed me as the chief negotiator with the Moro rebels. I negotiated with the Moro rebels led by Misuari in Saudi Arabia, with Salamat Hashim in their hideouts in Cotabato in Mindanao, and with another splinter group rebel called the MNLF reformist group in Kuala Lumpur. 

In 1987, I relinquished the position of chief moro rebel negotiator and ran for the Senate. Soon after my election, I filed a bill to create the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao which passed both Houses of Congress and was signed into law by Cory Aquino. 

That was the first law that Congress passed to address the Moro turmoil in Mindanao. While it did not end the Moro secessionist rebellion, for a while there was no major clash between the rebels and the government. 

Nonetheless, the president after Aquino, Fidel Ramos decided to revive the Moro National Liberation Front as the talking arm of the Moro rebels and negotiated with the front under the auspices of Suharto of Indonesia. A peace talk of sorts was hammered out. For a while, the uneasy truce held but the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), a major faction of the original MNLF did not consider themselves bound by the Ramos brokered truce. 

So the problem of Moro secessionist aspirations go on to this very day. 

I have proposed and am still pushing for the ultimate solution to the problem: the adoption of a federal republic of the Philippines where the Moro peoples would have their own "BangsaMoro Federal State" within the ambit of the Federal Republic.  

(Interview carried out by Dr. Tayza)

(To read part 1)                                                 (To continue next week)

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Quote of the year:

There is only one solution.....could first be done by setting up an armed UN corridor in the ethnic areas.... to stop the killing and allow the delivery of humanitarian aid.....Evan Williams

Last week's English article

• Ringing the Changes

• Speaking with a Leader of Philippine Senate

• POLITICIAN of the Year 2006 Burma

• Politicians of the year: 88 Students Group

• Politics Of The Best Politician of Burma in 2006

• Welcome 2007 and Farewell to 2006

• Tourism to Burma

• Not Going

• SAW BO MYA: A Powerful Unifying Force

• Apprehension aroused with India-Myanmar military car rally

• JordBur and the Saviour

• The Forthcoming Sentence

• SHWE will Follow SEIN

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