Peddlers of fear
Iwas taken aback and still cannot believe what I heard. The chief enforcer of martial law during the Marcos dictatorial regime, then major general Fidel Ramos, issued a warning against abuses of the military under incumbent President Rodrigo Duterte.
More than forty years had elapsed since Ferdinand Marcos placed the entire country under martial law. FVR redeemed himself with that iconic leap in a makeup stage at Edsa. The nation put all the blame on the sick and debilitated Marcos, forgot and forgave the chief centurions of the martial law regime and proceeded to even elect FVR president.
How can I ever forget that era. I was in my prime with many simple dreams. Eight of us in RMN-IBC 13 Davao were terminated, including a radio technician who cannot even swat a fly. Three months later, I got reinstated for reason I was as ignorant as when I was given my walking paper.
But it was like a sick joke because when crony Roberto Benedicto took control of TV-13, I was among those who were terminated for good. I laughed it off even as some of my friends wouldn’t touch me with a ten-foot pole because I was terminated on orders of Camp Crame.
I had a weekly newspaper, the Davao Chronicle, which gave me a modest income. Because I concentrated on the weekly publication and getting help from cousin Joe Ledesma and a jobless friend Romy Torres (both have gone to the great beyond), we decided to increase our publication to twice weekly and shift from letterpress to offset printing.
I took another job, managing a telecom firm, to augment my income while Joe and Romy were minding the paper. But our little success was brief. Four months after increasing the frequency of our publication, then Davao City Police Chief Colonel Isidro Gatmaitan, who is a friend actually, knocked on my door to serve me an order from General Hans Menzi directing me to cease publication.
My world collapsed but not my spirit. I survived the martial law under Marcos, Juan Ponce Enrile and Fidel Ramos. Our fault? Failure to inform the authority that we increased the frequency of our publication. Ridiculous isn’t it? But that is my story.
So what is it that others had suffered during the aegis of martial rule when FVR was the chief centurion? Our history is replete with gory accounts I need not repeat them here. The morbid narratives must still be haunting FVR he warned that Duterte’s decision to place Mindanao under martial law is more harmfu--than when he was the chief enforcer?
Sadly, the aging ex-President and former soldier failed to realize that the world today is facing a new hostile enemy, the terrorists, who use different methods of warfare that were never discussed in West Point and so different from his glory days at PEFTOK in Korea and Philcag in South Vietnam. --