My age now pushing me into some deadline, what else should I do but share bits of my past, if only to give the itch for writing the comfort of scratching.
Generous with the principle of brevity, me this: threatened, sued, shot, survived. Not necessarily in such order.
SHOT
I was gun shot sometime in the first months of the Cory Aquino administration, within the compound of the Far East Alcohol Corp (Feaco) in Apalit, Pampanga. The bullet embedded itself near my appendix.
Previously, I, a “writer” of the Department of Public Information under feisty director Ricardo Serrano, had written articles about the water pollution caused by the firm which sat on the bank of the Pampanga River in Apalit. I had quoted fishermen and farmers grieving over losses because of the pollution blamed on Feaco.
I was already with the Philippine Star national daily when I rushed to Feaco one day to cover the alcohol plant’s closure by officials led by Serrano who was then with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and regional police head Brig Gen. Edgar Aglipay.
I arrived late. The plant’s big main gate was already closed. A crowd was being prevented entry and I feared being blocked too. But then I heard a male voice from the smaler pedestrian gate saying, “Yung naka pulang T-shirt papasukin nyo.” I looked at the crowd but no one was in red. I was.
After huge padlocks clicked shut machines and doors, I was the first to stray from the rest. I told colleagues I was rushing with my story and I ran by my lonesome towards the main gate. A shot rang then I felt pain. Aglipay examined my belly, asked the doctor-mayor of a local town to do likewise. They whispered to each other, then Aglipay hollered that I be rushed immediately to the nearest hospital despite my insistence for band aid remedy. It turned out that a bullet had landed in my fat.
I had reasons to believe the shooting was hatched to get back at me. It was prepared for someone in red. It was, more than any premise, a suspicion bolstered later by a revelation from the venerable Bong Lacson, a close ally of Serrano whose family he knew well.
Lacson related that after I was shot, Serrano told his wife Emma that if anything bad happened to him (Serrano), the suspects could be no other than the same people involved in my shooting. This implied that Serrano had information that my case was planned and he suspected that the culprits just might have him as the next target.
He was. In the first months of Pres. Joseph Estrada, Serrano was shot dead by motorbike-riding suspects as his car was stalled by traffic on Commonwealth Avenue in Quezon City. He was to assume post as DENR undersecretary the following day.
His case, as well as that of mine, never saw any suspect. Forgotten, but now, recalled.
SUED
Fidel Ramos was president during those years of murderous lahar flows from Mt. Pinatubo which erupted in 1991.
Many communities were buried by lahar flows and many died.
The government shelved huge funds for dikes along pathways of lahar flows to protect more communities from burial. It also started to build permanent resettlement areas for families who had lost their homes and had to stay in temporary “tent cities.”. The Mt. Pinatubo Commission (MPC) was established to undertake all these.
The huge funds provided aid for families who had lost almost all they had. But they were also fodder for the greediest.
I wrote about the anomalies, particularly in regard to anti lahar dikes which cost millions. The dikes readily vanished after every episode of lahar flow, only to be done again with more huge funding.
Amid the historic sufferings of so many, I was infuriated by stories that dike contractors were revving up greed over the impunity over projects made so tentative by nature. I was told one had a mistress whom he would date between lahar flows, not in any local motel, but in Hong Kong.
One day, I received a summons from the office of a Manila prosecutor. A top official of the MPC, who later became secretary of the public works department, sued me for my dike anomaly exposés and demanded damages worth ₱50 million. I almost fainted.
But I went to the prosecutor’s office at the Manila city hall for the first hearing. I had braced myself for no surrender. A female lawyer from the other side approached me, saying the case would be dropped if I issued a public apology. I can’t remember whether my voice trembled when I replied, but my answer was No.
I was never disturbed again by any legal missive about the case.
There were other legal battles I had faced as a journalist. The only impression I could share from my court experiences is that most lawyers so struggle with their English in court that I wished they spoke Tagalog instead, in the interest of fast justice.
THREATS
Less severe than being hit by a bullet were the threats normally in words, but once in my case, in deed.
Pres. Arroyo had taken over Pres. Estrada who had fled Malacañang in fear of People Power.
Arroyo eyed a full presidential term (which she got) and had to cut clean. Amid talks that she was being funded by jueteng, she ordered a total clamp down on the numbers game. In Mabalacat, I wrote in the Philippine Star newspaper, the local police found an alternative to lost illegal income by shifting to “video karera.”
The day after the story came out, I was driving my old van from the Clark media center past dusk, when I noticed four persons with long firearms waiting on either side of 6th street on my way home. The street then was quite dark and hardly used by motorists because it was severely cratered.
As I made a turn towards 6th street, the four stood up and simultaneously aimed their rifles at me.
How does it feel to be shot in the head? Should I drive fast over the huge potholes to skip the bullets? My mind sped fast, but I opted to drive ever so slow as to give the gunmen time to reflect on the mortal sins they were contemplating.
Rather, I thought the scenario was an overkill that inspired doubt. If they wanted me dead, only one man could have done it sans the melodrama.
Still, fright rose, but more so belatedly when I reached home while contemplating on the scenario. I suppose it’s a normal psychological pattern, the realization mounting past the fact.
There are many other stories I can share but I am tentative on whether any ncble purpose can be achieved. For entertainment only perhaps. But then the rule on brevity…
