It’s a story of patriotism and decency that took decades to
be told.
Sometime in 2017, while Willie Fernandez was on vacation in
New York City, a businessman of Albanian descent residing in the city sought
him out. He had heard about Fernandez from Filipinos in New York and he
believed that the Daily Tribune honcho would make an excellent business partner
in the Philippines.
“Coffee,” the Albanian told Fernandez, “can be bought
anywhere, but Filipinos have yet to savor Albanian coffee. It is an enduring
delight, incomparable to other international blends.”
(Photo credit to owner) |
That said, he invited Fernandez over to his home in the
outskirts of Manhattan for a coffee tasting, to which the latter agreed.
Surprise at the garage
Over Albanian coffee blend and an array of desserts, their discussion tiptoed
from coffee to the arts that he took the chance to interest Fernandez with what
were lodged safely in his garage.
(photo credit to owner) |
To Fernandez’s
surprise, his host unveiled two magnificent life-size paintings — the first was
of the late President Ferdinand Marcos, Sr. regal in an elegant barong Tagalog,
and the other was that of his wife, former First Lady Imelda R. Marcos,
dazzling in a perfectly designed Filipiniana.
Stunned, Fernandez
turned to the Albanian and asked, “How did you acquire these?” he eagerly
wanted to know.
His host narrated how
he had bought the two paintings at an auction, keeping mum on the amount he
shelled out to outbid many others to bring the pieces home. Both paintings
constituted a rare and precious find, he bared, because he knew that their
value would escalate over time, if and when the painter becomes a celebrated
artist.
He offered to sell
both paintings to his Filipino guest and potential business partner in the
Philippines.
Caught off guard,
Fernandez stared at the art pieces which looked rather familiar. His thoughts
straddled between magazines and television reports where he might have seen
them during the closing years of the Marcos presidency.
A flood of questions
baffled Fernandez.
What were the
paintings doing inside a garage in New York? Were these part of the collection
in Malacañang during the Marcos years?
They were most likely
spirited out of the palace in the chaos marking the aftermath of the February
1986 EDSA People Power Revolt. If that were so, how was it done?
As to who actually
swiped the paintings, Fernandez could only speculate.
Being a keen-eyed
newspaperman, Fernandez said that how the two artworks ended up in the United
States should make an interesting story. That odyssey, however, is for another
essay.
I asked Fernandez for
the name of the artist behind the two paintings and he said the photos of the
art pieces can identify him.
The price the Albanian
quoted for the paintings was too dear and admitted that the price he quoted was
far from a pittance, even for the wealthy.
“If you may, however,
by any chance, meet any member of the Marcos family when you are back in
Manila, please mention this find and ascertain if I can sell the paintings
there.”
Fernandez agreed without a promise when such a meeting will take place, or if it
will even take place at all.
For the art enthusiast
Fernandez, seeing the two paintings with his own eyes was already a chance of a
lifetime. He likened them to a pair of similar paintings of President and Mrs.
Marcos popularly referred to in local art circles as Si Malakas at si Maganda.
Why pay for something
stolen from our country?
In January 2020, weeks
before the Covid-19 pandemic, then private citizen and now President-elect
Ferdinand R. “Bongbong” Marcos, Jr. visited the Daily Tribune headquarters in
Makati as guest of its public affairs show, Straight Talk.
After the interview,
and while Bongbong was having lunch with the Tribune team, Fernandez brought up
the two paintings in the possession of the Albanian businessman. Keeping his
word to the Albanian, Fernandez told Bongbong that the art pieces are for sale.
Without inquiring
about the price tag, Bongbong quipped, “Why should we buy something that had
been stolen from our country? They should return those paintings to our
country.”
Country. That
cherished word, that overused word, suddenly had a new impact on Fernandez
after hearing it from Bongbong himself. Bongbong didn’t say the paintings
belonged to his family; he said they belonged to the country.
That short exchange
about the paintings earned for Bongbong the highest respect from Fernandez. For
the latter, what Bongbong said speaks much about the character of the younger
Marcos. Just like his father, it’s country above self as far as Bongbong is
concerned.
Flashback
In the 1970s, when Fernandez was still in the car sales and maintenance
business, he became friends with Alfredo “Bejo” Romualdez, the brother of First
Lady Imelda Marcos. Bejo had been a regular customer of Fernandez’ car shop.
Through the
same car shop, Fernandez also found another friend who turned out to be a
diplomat at the Philippine Embassy in Tokyo, Japan. Back then, several Japanese
businessmen were already coveting the Philippine government-owned property in
the prime district of Roppongi.
To recall, the Roppongi property was acquired by the
Philippines in May 1956 as part of the War Reparations Agreement between Manila
and Tokyo.
Banking on Fernandez’s close relations with Bejo, the
diplomat and the Japanese businessmen urged Fernandez to send their proposal to
purchase the Roppongi property to President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. Seeing nothing
wrong with the request, Fernandez met up with Bejo and relayed the message.
Romualdez promised to deliver the proposal to the President.
Days thereafter, Romualdez met with Fernandez.
“Sabi ni bayaw, hindi siya ang may-ari ng Pilipinas (My
brother-in-law said he doesn’t own the Philippines). That property belongs to
the national patrimony, kaya hindi puwede (it’s not possible).”
As a footnote to history, President Corazon Cojuangco Aquino
tried to sell the Roppongi property since 1987, a year after she seized the
presidency. The planned sale was aborted in 1990 after then Vice President
Salvador “Doy” Laurel convinced the Supreme Court to stop the sale, essentially
for the same reason cited by the late President Marcos.
The local car
manufacturing program
Undeterred by the rejection of the Roppongi proposal, the same diplomat asked
Fernandez to send to President Marcos another offer — this time to allow the
Philippines to import used Japanese cars. As it was and is now, Japanese cars
are considered unworthy for road use in Japan after just five years or so, but
are still of good use in the Philippines.
Fernandez again
coursed the diplomat’s proposal through President Marcos’ brother-in-law.
Soon after that,
Romualdez informed Fernandez that President Marcos thumbed down the proposal.
“Sabi ni bayaw, ‘Hindi
puwede ‘yan. (My brother-in law said it’s not possible). We have a progressive
car manufacturing program in the Philippines and we are bound to produce the
first Asian car outside of Japan,’” said Romualdez.
As another footnote to
history, that car manufacturing program was aborted when Aquino seized the
presidency in February 1986. She opened wide the floodgates for used imported
cars, thus causing massive traffic and air pollution problems — spelling the
demise of the car manufacturing industry of the country.
The father and his son
What President Marcos Sr. said gave Fernandez much food for thought.
In hindsight,
Fernandez has come to realize that Marcos Sr. could have approved transactions
from which the President would have obtained immense monetary benefits, but he
adamantly refused to approve those transactions because they would have been
prejudicial to the public interest.
If President Marcos
Sr. was the thief his detractors portray him to be, why then did he refuse to
approve those lucrative projects coursed through Bejo Romualdez?
From his personal
experience, Fernandez is morally convinced that the late President Marcos always
had the interests of the Filipino people in mind.
His father’s son
Decades later, his son is already proving himself to be made of the same
principles personified by his father.
For starters,
Bongbong’s stand on the two paintings speaks of his sterling character and
moral fortitude.
To tell the truth is
not revisionism
Today, there is much talk about the issue of “historical revisionism” and the
re-writing of our history books, particularly about the years Ferdinand Edralin
Marcos was President (1965-1986). In this regard, and in the interest of truth
and historical accuracy, Fernandez believes that a proper and objective
documentation should be made about the late President and about what actually
took place during his administration.
Fernandez also maintains
that 36 years of distorting the truth about President Marcos Sr. has led to the
proliferation of purported history books and similar materials which unfairly
and unjustly vilify and demonize the late Philippine leader.
For the Daily Tribune
boss, it may take a while to correct the immense wrong committed against one of
the greatest presidents of the Philippines, but rectifying the errors of biased
journalism and pseudo-scholarly works is possible in a country whose people are
now slowly but surely waking up from decades of irresponsible complacency and
inaction, and liberating themselves from the bondage of disinformation and
ignorance.
For Fernandez, the
more than 31 million Filipinos who voted for Bongbong Marcos last May demand
that we all make up for the lost time, and to let the truth not only prevail
but, as the Good Book says, set us free.
Quoted
fully from Mr. Victor Avecilla’s column
The
Daily Tribune
April
1, 2022
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