“You’re a fool,” former Evening News desk editor Carmen Hernandez snapped over a Palo Alto restaurant dinner. “You’re returning to all that corruption and double-dealing back home?”
The wife and I gave up our US “green cards,” we had told “Mameng.”
To break free of Ferdinand Marcos’ “New Society,” we joined the United Nations. But after People Power, we opted to return. There were over 300 in the queue seeking visas. We were the only ones signing INS form I-407: “Abandonment of Lawful Permanent Residence Status.”
That skewed pattern hasn’t changed since. An average of 3,568 Filipinos leave daily today. They work in over 180 countries. Given half the chance, 19 out of every 100 would go for good, earlier Pulse Asia surveys said. The backlog of applications for immigrant visas is huge. Applications filed in the late 1990s are only being processed now.
“In my experience, many first generation immigrants—homesick elderly or established professionals—tend to return,” the consul said after processing our request. “All your children are US citizens. Visit them, now and then. Pick up your visas tomorrow.”
Did we regret “returning to all that”? Yes and no, we told Mameng at later Palo Alto dinners. There were occasions in the in-between years when we fretted, “Why should anybody want to stay?” One was when Eduardo Cojuangco’s “Brat Pack” tried to impeach Chief Justice Hilario Davide for leading the Supreme Court to crack down on the notorious coconut levy. The shady accused the unblemished, to cheers of hacks in Congress and the press. This was perversion.
But does this depravity persist across generations? And do we have a monopoly? The Arroyo Supreme Court anointed Cojuangco’s pocketing of 16.2 million San Miguel Corp. shares. These were funded by levies wrung from small farmers. The Court’s decision steamrollered small holders. It’s the “biggest joke to hit the century,” then Justice (now Ombudsman) Conchita Carpio Morales wrote.
To reclaim the 27 percent Coconut Industry Investment Fund for small farmers, Deputy Speaker Erin Tañada filed House Bill No. 5070. CIIF’s SMC shares are worth P56 billion. Now, watch today’s predators chomp into yesteryear’s loot.
Dagdag-bawas entered our vocabulary in the mid-1990s. Aquilino Pimentel Jr. saw his votes shaved as Juan Ponce Enrile’s tallies ballooned. Years later, Pimentel’s son, Aquilino Martin, waged the same battle to claim the remaining 23 months of a Senate term. Nene’s grandchildren watched “Koko” being sworn into office. Thus ended an injustice that spanned almost a full senatorial term.
Imelda Marcos and family flew the dictator’s embalmed body from Hawaii straight to Laoag International Airport 18 years ago. President Fidel Ramos approved the return on condition that Marcos be buried on Sept. 10 that same year. That pledge was not kept. Instead, construction of a mausoleum at the Libingan ng mga Bayani started. House Bill 1135 bearing the signatures of 214 congressmen surfaced prodding President Benigno Aquino III to authorize a Libingan interment for Marcos. Two families, separated by a generation, are deadlocked on historical revision.
Since his rise from PMA Class ’71 to national police chief and senator, in the span of over one generation, charges have dogged Panfilo Lacson: the Dacer-Corbito murder, the Kuratong Baleleng massacre, the rubout of Red Scorpion Gang relatives, the deaths of a 20-year-old woman and an 8-year-old girl dumped from a helicopter off Corregidor, etc., etc. Sen. Jinggoy Estrada worked all that into Senate records.
Lacson surfaced after 14 months on the lam. He is now an abrasive Senate prober, not a fugitive with a fake passport. He pledges no harm on Mary “Rosebud” Ong, who asked for continued Witness Protection Program sanctuary. She has linked Lacson to drug deals. All in a generation.
In one year, six plunder charges were lodged against former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her husband. Accusations are still piling up. Will a new record be set for future generations?
Bad governance is just one, albeit a major factor that spurs migration. Poverty and cramped economic space also do the same thing. Indigents today exceed 27.6 million, the Asian Development Bank estimates. The income of the richest 10 percent of Filipino households is 19 times that of the poorest 10 percent.
In terms of poverty, Metro Manila “finds itself between Lebanon and Peru,” the Philippine Human Development Report says. “Benguet is roughly equivalent to Armenia, while Cebu is equal to the Palestinian Territories. Davao, Abra and Bohol lie between Nicaragua and Uzbekistan.”
Penury interlocks with ill health and shabby education. “Poverty webs” truncate life spans across generations, says a UP School of Economics study. Life expectancy in Tawi-Tawi and Sulu, for example, is a short 55 years, the same as that of Ethiopia in Africa. In La Union, the average life span now exceeds 74 years, a figure comparable to Slovakia’s, but short of Singapore’s 80. For Japanese, it’s almost 82.
Infant mortality rates here dropped from 60 per 100,000 live births in 1970 to about 25 today. But far more can be done. Infant deaths are down to 17 in Sri Lanka.
Also, too many women—approximately 162 out of every 100,000 births—still die during labor or shortly thereafter.
“Should I migrate or not?” the young reporter with two kids asked.
We replied, “Bloom wherever you’re planted.”
(Email: juanlmercado@gmail.com)