MORE THAN HALF A LIFETIME ago in the late eighties, I was about as far as you could get from being an OFW. I was trying to scrape some value, any value off some skills developed as a campus journo, and with a young family depending on the bacon I brought home, this job we had interning with a public relations and communications specialist was one of the few things i had going for me.
It was nature of my boss’s work to solicit and cultivate business from characters all across the political spectrum, from union leaders being red-tagged to rabidly pro-US bases (Clark and Subic) politicians, my boss was friends with all of them. And unsurprisingly, being mutual friends with my boss, they were friends (or frenemies) of each other too.
Facilitating this friendship and interaction were frequent “Friday Clubs” that anyone and everyone who mattered in Manila’s political jungle was free to attend, even those who weren’t friends with my boss, as long as they were a friend of a friend and promised not to blow up the building. (this wasn’t just a facetious joke, those months of the dozen coup attempts against the wobbly post-EDSA government, with a different disenchanted group rising up each time)
As long we staffers promised to be seen more and heard less, help with the introductions (though we hardly knew anybody personally) and not call attention to ourselves, nobody minded.
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Before long it became impossible not to do a double take, because of all the recognizable faces that broke bread and chug-a-lugged a brewski with our boss and their intimate circle,
There was a newspaper columnist here, a human rights lawyer there, and ominously, a reform-minded field officer whose name was linked to military adventurists. They were never there successive Fridays, just dropping by every now and to pick up intelligence (gossip by another name). each might have opposing opinions about how the country was being run, but were always civil and chummy at the Friday Club casuals.
)ne would soon be on the run from authorities, another would be identified with a restoration of the dictatorship, and still another would be an adviser of he sitting national defense chief. Strange bedfellows, and quietly sipping his beer was my boss’s current flame, also known to moonlight as a CIA asset, the latter mostly listening but speaking their truth when asked.
I hardly caught any dialogue from their inebriated exchanges, but one rainy Friday I heard a few sentences spoken by the military guests. The reformist arm.
They were tired of the wheeling, dealing and corruption that went on unabated AFTER the dictatorship, almost like there was so much to steal and not enough time left. Then as now, the plunder of the treasury was disgusting. Privatize a multi-million peso company here, smuggle a few hundred million there, pretty soon it added up.
The military guest’s quiet words were unmistakeable: install a junta to hold the reins while a Revolutionary Government was organized to effect genuine change. No more treasonous elitists, no more traditionalist politico-military cliques, and no more grubby politicians.
Representing each group, three severed heads would be left on spikes somewhere public, like maybe the Luneta.
Something this drastic had to be done, otherwise nothing would change.
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I paraphrased a lot from those 60 seconds, but the meaning was clear: the extremist wing of these politico-military adventurists meant business, and like every other opportunist was taking advantage of the uncertain atmosphere surrounding the struggling government. It wasn’t a free for all rumble yet, but if any confidence fell further, it was gonna get hairy.
Years and years later, obviously the extreme scenario didn’t take hold. I changed jobs, later tried my luck as an OFW, and ultimately migrated. My colleagues in that office drifted off to other roles and jobs too. I’ve lost contact with most of them, though I can easily find them on social media for sure.
My boss as far as I know has long since retired. without exception, every member of that Friday Club conversation I inadvertently eavesdropped on, has unceremoniusly gone to their respective happy hunting grounds in the sky.
I guess I can laugh about those bad old days now. But are these present days really so different?
Government is just as, if not more corrupt. Maybe the only difference is, the holders of legitimate coercive force, the police and the military, are not as prone to being used by wayward authority. They are better fed, better housed and listened to by their handlers.
People are just as hopeless.
