4-Star Gen. and I Admire this Nonpareil Writer

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

During the 83^rd birthday of former five-time House of Representatives' Speaker Joe de Venecia attended by foreign and local high rollers and his supporters held at his coastal abode, I bumped into former Philippine National Police Chief and retired Four-Star General Art Lomibao.

“Sir, I’ve been reading about you in the old columns of Max Soliven like when you visited him in his hospital bed,” I told the former top honchos of the National Irrigation Administration and Land Transportation Office while we shook our hands.

“Send mo nga sa akin ang link,” the PMA Class of 1974 alumnus retorted.

I told him that I read the intrepid and prodigious columns of Soliven, 77, since first year college.
I first known his death in November 24, 2006 in Japan while I was airborne to Manila from Davao City after visiting my old folks in the southern island.

“Me too, we have mutual admiration (to his op-ed),” he answered me as Regional Examiner Editor Edwin Tandoc had a hard time taking our photo op with my android phone.

Author and former national police chief retired four-star general
 Art Lomibao during the recent 83rd birthday bash of former 
five-time House Speaker
Joe de Venecia.

“Edwin, give me my phone and I’ll do the “selfie” with the general,” I said.

By the way, Soliven was Speaker JDV professor in Ateneo de Manila when the latter was cutting his teeth for his Bachelor of Arts in Journalism.

Here are some of the excerpts of the June 29, 2006 article of Soliven on Lomibao:

“Even while still in hospital, I managed to confer with Police Director General and Police Chief Arturo C. Lomibao who came to visit me. Lomibao, who is retiring on July 5, his birthday, has done a crackerjack job – but he had only one year and four months in which to do it. Too few men. Too little resources. Not enough firearms. Too many rascals in the police force. What can even the most earnest, hardworking, courageous chief of police accomplish – when he’s already a lameduck on the very day he was appointed? I’ve argued – and this, too, quite often with the President herself – that a police chief must have three years in which to lead. It won’t happen. The next guy slated to take over will, if my calculations are correct, have only eleven months until he retire also – next year. The third in line just about a year and a half”.

“I hope the bill gets passed giving a police chief the minimum term of three years – it’s not gotten very far in the House of Representatives where they’ll now all be obsessed, when they resume sessions, with "impeachment" and Cha-cha. The sigaw ng bayan is not that silly people’s "initiative" – in truth, the people want to be safe, not "chartered."

“They want freedom from fear, freedom from want, freedom from ignorance. What’s a piece of paper called a "constitution?" The people’s welfare is in the heart, not in words or script”. You can read the full column of Soliven about General Art by CLICKING HERE.

An hour earlier before bumping with the general, I was in a huddle with the members of the Sangguniang Bayan (legislative body) of Mangaldan town.

I told them that in December 26, 2011 I attended the coat- and- tie attired natal day celebration of the Speaker at the swanky Golden Bay  Sea Food Restaurant in Pasay City.

The guests were garbed in red dress at the Speaker 83^rd birthday.

In the Pasay City event, 1000 guests attended composed of government “apparatchiks”, national and local politicians, and members of the diplomatic corps that included the U.S ambassador.

In the night of his 83^rd birthday, JDV, his wife former congresswoman Gina and son incumbent congressman Christopher were seen being chummy with former political nemesis Mayor Brian Lim and mother Councilor Celia at the villages’ night held at the Dagupan City’s plaza. The former Speaker even brought Russian Federation Ambassador Igor Khovaev at the extravagant customary Christmas party for the 31 village chieftains and their supporters where glowing encomium, peroration, music from the orchestras, dances, sumptuous foods and booze were part of the hoopla.

“President Ramos introduced me to (columnist) Larry Henares,” I told the prolific Councilor and lawyer Joseph Emmanuel Cera, 47, who I found when he was studying law as a voracious reader of national and international issues.

He and daughter in law then Bureau of Internal Revenue Commissioner Kim Henares appeared in our midst that included Pangasinan Congressman Leopoldo Bataoil (PMA Class ‘76, who was a two-star general and former director of the National Capital Regional Police Office).

“Oh, Larry Henares my favorite columnist too!” Attorney Cera quipped.

“Just like Soliven, both of them were quintessential opinion writers unlike the present crops of pen pushers,” I retorted to the councilor as if I was comparing the genius of the Beatles to the present rock bands’ U2 and our homegrown Eraserhead and Razorback.

Since Larry is half-Pangasinense and Ilonggo or Bacolodnon in particular (mother is from the illustrious Maramba clan of Sta. Barbara, Pangasinan ), I remarked to him in my halting Pangasinan vernacular: “Sir, avid reader yo ak (I was your avid reader) but I am a true blue Ilonggo”.

“Oh, Ilonggo ka man (Oh, so you’re Ilonggo?)?

“Hu-od sir (Yes, sir),” I retorted in Hiligaynon.

Amtam makapagsalitay Pangasinan (You speak Pangasinan?)? He posed again in Pangasinan.

“Amtak sir. Makapagsalitak so salita yo with JDV and Fidel V. Ramos (of course sir, I can speak too your dialect and JDV and former president Fidel V. Ramos’),” I told him in my haphazard Pangasinense.

 “You’re an excellent columnist why write again at the broadsheet?” I asked the alumnus of Ateneo de Manila, University of the Philippines, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The whiz kid was a dean of two graduate schools before the age of 25. Larry became the president of the Philippine Chamber of Industries, and a member of President Dado Macapagal’s cabinet as the chairperson of the National Economic Council, probably the present National Economic Development Authority.

“I have already a  TV and a radio program,” the veteran columnist said.
Gee whiz, I could still remember then Cory Aquino Government Executive Secretary Joker Arroyo borrowed his column's space at the Philippine Daily Inquirer to lambast Soliven who had countless vitriol against Joker. The latter smarted that when he wrote a rejoinder the Saluyot eating writer from Ilocosvakia would not publish his side.

If my memory serves me right, the scathing article of Joker written at Henares column was titled: “Mad Max Petromax” ha ha ha where he ridiculed Soliven’s hairpiece and deficiency in height, sanamagan!

Cera, darling of local media men who had libel cases, quipped that Henares was kicked - out at the Inquirer because of plagiarisms.

“Sayang, he was an excellent writer,” I answered back even though I found it too then that he was ejected out from the daily because of those infractions.

“Where is Tony Abaya? He used to send me his brochures (The Other Face of Imperialism, A Funny thing Happened on the Way to Communism,  and others ) on his diatribes against the communists,” I told the nationalist Henares.

Abaya even gave me his imprimatur to syndicate his columns gratis when I opened in 2007 a provincial newspaper in Pangasinan’s called Northern Watch Newspaper that is still circulating nowadays.

“Oh, Tony was sick I heard,” Larry retorted why Antonio Abaya, perceptive columnists of Manila Chronicle, Philippine Star, and Graphic Magazine, did not push pen anymore.

 I learned a lot from Tony about the nitty gritty of economics like the importance of economic liberalization where foreign investors compete with our “monopolizing” oligarch and taipans.

I missed too Henares’ distinct irreverence and propensity to brand the high priests of the US Embassy and Philippines politics with names like Kulas Platypus for former Ambassador Nicolas Platt and Small Dick  (for then Senator Dick Gordon) Crocodile Dundeeng (for former Ambassador Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco), and Lechon Drilon (for Senator Franklin Drilon). Dozing Drilon  known also as the Super Heavyweight Senator became famous later when he knocked out Welterweight boxing icon and Senator Manny Pacquiao in a debate in English Category ha ha ha at the plenary of the August chamber.

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(You can read my selected columns at http://mortzortigoza.blogspot.com and articles at Pangasinan News Aro. You can send comments too at totomortz@yahoo.com)