Volume 4, Issue No. 53
Partisan politics can be complicated in the so-called Third World. We live in highly charged times when we have to actively listen and do self-scrutiny, difficult though it may be. Democracy prescribes it. Stories must be told and be heard. If anger is part of the story, we must understand where it comes from. And to respect it.
We pray that one day, factual tales as revealed can be researched and affirmed by responsible sectors so that accounts from entities who know, like a beloved mother, can help affirm yet untold and unknown truths.SEATTLE, Washington - Two more days and our family will mark the passing in 1960 of Conrado Balaoro (CB) Rigor, Daddy to us, — after 62 long years. His demise at age 46 on that fateful night of May 13, 1960 totally changed the lives of ten people he left behind: a grieving widow and nine young orphans.
A generation has passed and there are stories that I, as carrier of an illustrious name, must share. Largely unknown, they must be passed on as lessons so that present and future generations are correctly informed. In the course of time many may have imbibed tales, formed opinions and values of their own. To my mind, because my family and I lived through crucial times, factual first hand accounts must be told. Over and over if necessary.
Nearly a year ago on May 9, 2022, a historic event happened in the old homeland. The son, the namesake of a revered Filipino leader has been elected by a record-setting number of Filipinos. History and redemption has taken place 36 years since Ferdinand Edralin Marcos was deposed, swept away by orchestrated kidnapping and exiled to an island state of the U.S. where he would eventually pass away.
My mother, the former Erlinda Gallardo Nicolas, was a die-hard loyalist of Ferdinand Edralin Marcos. They were childhood friends in the province of Ilocos Norte, their parents were neighbors and dear friends. Both had attended the same high school and college in the University of the Philippines on Padre Faura St., Manila.
From the early 1960s, Mom had worked tirelessly for her classmate. She helped contact former school classmates for the dramatic Nacionalista Party presidential nomination at the Manila Hotel prior to the 1965 elections. When her classmate became president, she was asked what she wanted. When she evaded responding, she was assigned to the office of Executive Secretary Rafael Salas to help perform civic affairs work.She later explained that the president wanted his loyal buddy to be spared from “dense politics” within the corridors of power. He personally asked her instead to be close-in chaperone to presidential mother Nana Sefa (Josefa Edralin Marcos). In the years that followed Mom spent most days at the private home of Nana Sefa in Paco, Manila where they planned and attended various activities together.
An amazing little-known story about the President, Mom related, was about the leader’s belief in ominous signs, intuitive spirit and sensitivity to premonitions. He confided that he acquired this “gut feel” from mentors as he was growing up in Ilocandia.A remarkable episode happened one morning when he frantically ordered Palace staff to call Nichols Airfield and the Aviation Security Command. Barking on the phone, he ordered the airplane that son Bongbong (Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr., also BBM) and friends were to board to be stopped. The boy’s group complained and were disappointed. And the airplane proceeded on its flight. Next day’s news bannered that airplane’s tragic crash killing all passengers. It was one of Mom’s more astounding tales about FM who, even as a young man, she said, had displayed rare qualities and uncommon skills.
When Dad suddenly passed away from asthma complication, FM took Mom in as appointments and social secretary. By then he had become Senate President.
I would drive Mom every weekday to and from the Marcos residence on Ortega Street in San Juan. She was a regular fixture in the household as official receptionist and would meet with family accountant Cesar Dumlao about housekeeping needs and budgets. When our home in nearby Little Baguio needed minor repairs, Mom would ask Erning, the FM household’s reliable electrician and utility hand, for help.
At the funeral service for my father at the St. Ignatius Chapel in Camp Murphy, FM and then Justice Fred Ruiz Castro delivered impassioned eulogies. (Our family is fortunate to have preserved a 15-minute audio file of the eulogies delivered by then Senate President FM and Justice Castro in May, 1960.)
In his tribute, FM pointed to Dad’s “passion for anonymity.” He said that Dad “could have sought honor and distinction” but chose to be “a soldier and scholar.” FM shared how he met Daddy again after college. Like many in their age group who fought in WWII, both were members of the U.P. Vanguard that were drafted into the war. They met when FM was coming down from combat operations in Kiangan.
In his eulogy, FM said: “CB, racked even then by asthma and dysentery, was preparing his battalion to assault Bessang Pass which led to the surrender of General Yamashita.” This statement is clear and outright proof that FM had attributed that triumphant final assault of the enemy to Dad. That also negates any contention that he had claimed to be the hero of Bessang Pass.
Years after Dad had passed, Mom would be so angered by anti-Marcos critics who accused FM of falsehood about WWII and his war records. Mommy explained that FM had taken every opportunity to order his aides and veteran-comrades to help stop the misleading, politicized tales about Bessang Pass and General Yamashita’s surrender. He had shared with Mom how embarrassed and disappointed he was with a certain military historian who had wanted to earn favor during the presidential campaign.It was this ingenious Colonel, a published military historian, who had concocted “Operation of Enveloping Forces.” It was a clever narrative designed to include the unit of FM that was actually positioned as rear support eighty kilometers away so FM could be included in the operation against Yamashita. Bessang Pass is a narrow, rugged, foggy, slippery and leech-infested path leading to the Cordilleras 6,000 feet above sea level. A noted military strategist, Yamashita, high-ranking Japanese officers backed by 4,000 Japanese soldiers dug into ridges and caves for a last stand. Bessang is 20 nautical miles away from another historic battleground called Tirad Pass.
In a storytelling session, Mom had related about one lunch break in FM’s Ortega St. home when she and Ilocano cooks were joined by FM in the kitchen for “dinengdeng ken kam-met.” It was then that FM had emphatically asked his ka-ilian and classmate to forgive the “sipsip” historians who were rewriting WWII battle reports to portray him as a super hero — to the detriment of true war heroes like his comrade CB.
And this is why, he told Mom, he had emphasized during the funeral service in May 1960 their meeting at Bessang Pass and General Yamashita’s surrender.
Years later, when FM ran for re-election after he ended Martial Law, political opponents, as anticipated, resurrected false wartime tales.
In the torrid campaign season, FM as sitting President was target of intense black propaganda. An Ilonggo who professed to be Dad’s friend during the war, journalist Ernesto Rodriguez Jr., wrote a book, “Bad Guerillas of Northern Luzon.” He charged FM who, he stated, “falsely claimed to be the hero of Bessang Pass.” As if on cue, open attacks on the President were promptly picked up by the politicized tabloid Malaya-We Forum published by Jose Burgos.
Rodriguez had desperately searched for Mom who knew better to avoid him. The book author told me in a letter years later that he wanted so much to secure a photo of Dad but did not know how to reach Mom.
It was after the so-called People Power Revolt and after Mom had shared more stories about life as an army wife and untold truths about WWII that I began to understand the toxic tales circulated by Marcos haters and the Rodriguez book.
Malaya-We Forum was a staunch political ally of the Aquinos. When Cory Aquino became President after FM was exiled, Rodriguez was appointed mayor of his hometown in Iloilo. Rodriguez, during visits to the U.S., had phoned me from Boston. His daughter shared that her Dad would always meet with Sen. Ninoy Aquino who was also based in Boston. No wonder Mom had avoided the fellow. She suspected that he had likely wanted to project an affinity to Dad, identifying himself as the communications officer of the glorious and heralded 3rd Battalion of the USAFIP-NL 121st Infantry that led the assault on Bessang.
In 1982 I took a leave from my job as advertising manager of DMG-Volkswagen. A communication and public relations practitioner, I was contracted to join the advance delegation to the state visit of FM to US President Ronald Reagan. In late June, as correspondent of the Bureau of National & Foreign Information (BNFI) under Director Amante (Amang) Bigornia, I was issued a diplomatic passport and flew on PAL Business Class to San Francisco with Amang. For the next four months, I was billeted at the San Francisco Press Club on Post Street. I worked with local Filipino-American publications and community organizations in preparation for FM’s state visit.
The anti-Marcos campaign in the Philippines and in the U.S. had grown more intense. Front-page articles pounded heavily on FM’s “questionable war records and fake medals.” The Bay Area-based publication Philippine News owned by Alex Esclamado, an expatriate businessman and former lawyer of the Lopez-owned Meralco and Benpres corporations, waged scorching attacks on FM. WWII veteran Bonnie Gillego, an anti-Marcos campaigner, joined Esclamado in media demolition campaigns centered on FM’s wartime record.
Every workday, I would be with Information Attaché Angelo Castro Sr. and newsmen Dave Baquirin, Jorge Bernal, Frank Perez, Quezon Mangawang, Art Padua to name a few. Now and then, senior news editor Rod Reyes would visit from Manila.
Manong Angelo, during a weekend session at the St. Francis Hotel Lounge where beer and cognac helped us relax, confided to me about a plan crafted by Director Amang. A quiet and intense bureaucrat widely respected in the trade, Amang, an Ilocano, was a combat soldier and radio man in Dad’s 3rd Battalion, USAFIP-NL 121st Infantry Regiment.Manong Angelo’s revelation shocked me. Because WWII tales and Bessang Pass were hot stories that had reached the U.S. and constantly front page material, the son of the hero of Bessang Pass, no less, was part of the FM delegation! Of course I was dumbfounded. I recalled how Mommy had engaged in serious conversation with Amang at times when I attended briefings at the BNFI office in Malacanang. Their office buildings were next to each other. Looking back, I believe that Mommy was happy that her eldest son, namesake of his father, was helping nullify degrading reports about FM.
Months after FM was kidnapped (repeat: KIDNAPPED! as Mommy had insisted) and flown away to exile, Mommy would passionately declare: “No matter what… Ferdinand will always be my President!” As the US military helicopter took off from Clark, Mom’s friends on board confided that FM had looked around the huddled passengers and did a roll call. He was said to have asked: “Where’s Erlinda?”
And so….for the next 36 years, rewriting of history to diminish and defame the name Marcos would be undertaken by powerful forces. The demolition has been so thorough, extensive and deep that even the novelty-driven Guinness Book of World Records would tag FM insultingly as “the world’s worst highway robber.” All positive accounts and records about the Filipino leader would be rewritten, slanted, cancelled or thrown out. Destruction of the man’s worth, character and credibility before the world was plain for all to see.
One asks: Why?
Impartial and apolitical researchers have almost similar responses. It was only President Marcos who had the vision and daring, it is said, to demand from Uncle Sam what had been promised his people: WWII Veterans’ Pension and Benefits, the Coconut and Sugar Levies, and reconstruction of the country as part of WWII Reparations.After the war, FM and UP Vanguard comrades joined by war widows gathered to organize themselves to formally claim from the U.S. promised war veterans’ benefits. By then, FM had become a congressman and helped organize the Veterans Federation of the Philippines (VFP). General Emilio Aguinaldo and Fernando Poe Sr. were some notable charter officers of the VFP. Dad was the organization’s first Secretary General.He also joined Asian Pacific leaders who proposed an independent regional expansion of SEATO (Southeast Asian Treaty Organization), the forerunner of what is now ASEAN.
When these were shelved by three U.S. Presidents, FM “ventured to the deep end” as described by foreign policy pundits. He knew that his country sits in a geo-politically sensitive area but proceeded anyway to demonstrate the Philippines’ sovereignty and independence. Asian leaders praised him for this. On record, FM is the first democratic Southeast Asian leader to break through the Bamboo Curtain.
FM brought with him glamorous First Lady Imelda who charmed Chairman Mao with the world-renowned Bayanihan Dance Troupe and colorful cultural mementos. Mao Tse Tung was impressed as his country was then undergoing a cultural upheaval.
Before my family and I migrated to America in 1985, Mommy — groaning and through tear-dimmed eyes —shared more untold tales about military family life, wartime experiences, friendships and associations she had kept in her heart.
Compelling episodes about her buddy Andy were very much among them.
Mom’s words sums up the man. Upon learning of FEM’s exile, she said: “He is a noble Filipino, war hero, son of a dignified and respected family… one destined to lead. Our people must know… and never forget.” (Copyright 2023. All Rights Reserved).
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