Looking Back: The execution of Bonifacio by Ambeth Ocampo

Reposted from the Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:02:00 05/15/2009


There are two death anniversaries falling this week that often go unnoticed. May 10 marks the death, in 1897, of Andres Bonifacio, and May 13 marks the death, in 1903, of Apolinario Mabini.

The Supremo of the Katipunan was executed somewhere in the Maragondon range, and his remains have never been found. Bones were exhumed there in 1918, but I believe those were fake.

The brains of the Revolution died of cholera in his brother´s home in Nagtahan which was recently relocated, we hope for the last time, to the Polytechnic University of the Philippines, Mabini campus in Manila by the banks of the Pasig River.

Our textbooks are understandably vague regarding the death of Bonifacio because it is very difficult to explain politics and power struggle to children who then grow up thinking Emilio Aguinaldo had Bonifacio killed.

In a nutshell, a revolutionary government was born from the Katipunan in what is known as the Tejeros Convention. Bonifacio did not agree, and so we had two governments. He was captured, tried for treason, found guilty and sentenced to death. Aguinaldo hesitated and considered commuting the sentence, but was convinced by one of Bonifacio´s men, Artemio Ricarte, to proceed with the execution. This is one of the problem areas of textbook history.

Unlike Rizal who was technically killed by "the enemy," Bonifacio was killed by fellow Filipinos. Like many in the French Revolution he read about, Bonifacio was a victim of the very revolution he started.

Discussion on this is endless, and it will fill many more May 10 columns in the future. Today I reproduce Lazaro Makapagal´s eyewitness account of the execution of the Bonifacio brothers published in the Dec. 1, 1928 issue of the Philippines Free Press. This is supposed to be an English translation of a Tagalog document then preserved in the archives of the Veteranos de la Revolucion.

"I received orders from General Mariano Noriel to take over Andres Bonifacio and Procopio Bonifacio, from the place where they were detained, and to conduct them to the hill of Tala in Maragondong, Cavite. General Noriel handed to me at the same time a sealed package with orders that it be not opened until we reached the place I mentioned. I was charged to follow to the letter, the instructions contained within the package.

"In compliance with these orders, I took with me the two brothers to the place mentioned, together with four soldiers under my command. On the road we conversed like friends. But I already had a presentiment of the order contained within the parcel.

"On reaching Tala hill in Maragondong, I opened the order, read it, and then let the brothers read it. It was an order for the execution of the brothers. The two brothers were terror stricken; Andres told me in Tagalog, `Patawarin ninyo ako, kapatid.´ (Brother, forgive me.) I answered that I was very sorry, but by military discipline I had to carry out the unhappy task.

"I conducted Procopio, who was stronger, to a wooded place, and on reaching the top of the hill, I ordered one of the soldiers to shoot him in the back. This done, I and the soldiers, using bayonets and bolos, dug a pit where we buried Procopio.

"When I approached the place where Andres was, he said, `Patay na kapatid ko.´ (My brother is dead.) And he added, `Patawarin ninyo ako, kapatid.´ I replied that I was sorry, but it was my military duty to follow the order.

"Andres Bonifacio tried to escape, but he could not go far because of the thick shrubbery around. One of the soldiers reached him, firing at him from behind and shooting him in the back. After digging one more grave with our bayonets and bolos, we buried Andres in it.

"Procopio and Andres were not taken to Tala hill bound but free. Andres had only one wound, in one of his arms. From the hill where Procopio was buried to the grave of Andres, on a hill slope facing a rivulet, there were only twenty-five steps, while from Andres´ grave to the brook the distance was about five brazas.

"The brothers were buried in the morning. This was before the fighting with the Spaniards took place, when they captured Maragondong.

"Andres wore a white camisa de chino on the day of his execution. The gun used was a Remington. The four soldiers who accompanied us were natives of Kawit, and they are all dead. I am the only survivor of the occurrence."

A year later, Makapagal gave a more detailed account of the execution in a letter to Jose P. Santos. This version states that Bonifacio begged for his life on his knees (which many people do not wish to accept then as now).

Ricarte, in his memoirs, made a mistake in giving the names of the executioners. He went on to suggest that Aguinaldo had the Bonifacio brothers executed because they were his rivals, conveniently leaving out the detail that it was he who had argued for their execution when Aguinaldo considered exile.

Most of the time history is difficult because of the lack of sources, but a greater challenge faces those who have to sift through and validate more than one, sometimes conflicting, sources. There is a landscaped shrine in the Maragondon execution site today, but until we have located Bonifacio´s remains and laid them to rest, we may never resolve the issue of his death.

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Related posts:

What did Bonifacio look like? Question stalls statue By Marlon Ramos
Inquirer First Posted 01:45:00 12/02/2007

Looking Back: Searching for Andres Bonifacio By Ambeth Ocampo
Philippine Daily Inquirer First Posted 02:48:00 11/28/2008

Wish you were here: Monday, August 21, 2006
BONIFACIO AND THE CRY OF BALINTAWAK by Senor Enrique

Autobiography of Gregoria de Jesus Translated and Annotated by Leandro H. Fernandez
See Gregoria's account of the events prior to Andres Bonifacio's execution, appendix 6.

The Unoccupied Colony by Ben Kritz

Filipinos are very proud of their labor overseas. And in one small respect they should be, because they are good at it. They are a clever and hardworking people, and adapt easily to different cultures. But on the other hand, they are entirely missing the concept of how much harm they are doing themselves and their country by exporting their best and most abundant natural resource at bargain prices.

The people who fiercely champion the OFW invariably point out the well-known successes, the few who do make a mark in other parts of the world. Filipinos, they say, are respected for their talents in the medical field, they are world-class entertainers, and in recent years, no discussion of the subject can truly be complete without mention of what good boxers and pool players they are. But for every Filipino medical school graduate who becomes a respected doctor in another country, then are a thousand more who settle for being nurses or lab technicians. For every Lea Salonga, there are ten thousand wannabes who titillate horny middle-aged businessmen in bars from Tokyo to Toronto.

Filipinos are a race of servants, as even I can attest from my own former career in the automotive industry. In a dealership I worked in, the West Coast flagship for a major European manufacturer in the heart of downtown San Francisco, the longest-serving and most fiercely loyal employees were the Filipinos, including one man in my own department. He was a college graduate, as were most of his countrymen in that place. They were well-liked, they were appreciated, but not one of them was in charge of anything. Those positions were the exclusive province of us natives.

The Filipinos were like beloved dogs; cared for and treated as members of the family, but not entrusted with anything more important than fetching the paper or keeping the squirrels out of the yard, no matter what their education or experience might have entitled them to. The few Filipinos who do excel in professional pursuits overseas and attain positions of influence and importance are applauded and respected, even by their host countries. To their compatriots back home, they are applauded and respected because they are Filipino. But to the rest of the world, they are applauded and respected because they achieved something in spite of it.

Still, most Filipinos believe the potential indignities of being an OFW are more than worth it, if it means a better life for their families back home. So what happens to their hard-earned dollars or euros or pounds that they send back to their families? Here is an example:

A family that lives across the street from me consists of middle-aged mom, two sons in their 20's, a similarly-aged female cousin from the province who serves as a maid, an elementary-aged boy belonging to one of the sons, and an infant boy belonging to the other. Both young men have wives who are working as "domestic helpers" (the currently-acceptable PC euphemism for "servants") in Hong Kong, and whose incomes support the household. While their wives earn the keep for the entire family, the men leave child-rearing and domestic chores to mom and the maid, and spend their time and their spouses' money on customized scooters, the latest Filipinegro wardrobe must-haves, nightly gin sessions, and a string of girlfriends each. This goes on for about three weeks of each month, when the money runs out and life takes a decidedly spartan turn for a few days, until the next remittance arrives.

Ask them what they do for work, and the brothers, without a hint of shame, will explain that their wives work overseas. For all the patriarchal machismo of the culture they are a part of, there is no concept of responsibility. And the marketability of OFW's eliminates any incentive -- or short-term necessity -- for them to do anything other than what they are doing. Ask them what they will do when their wives come home, and they just shrug. After thinking about it for a while, one brother offers that he will probably buy a tricycle. How's that for hitching one's wagon to a star? More like hitching it to a mole.

Besides the disastrous effect the OFW phenomenon has on families, it has another even more calamitous economic impact that so far nobody here seems to grasp. The more foreign currency OFW's send to the Philippines, the more the value of the peso becomes inflated. In other words, the number of pesos exchanged for a dollar or a yen or a euro becomes less as the supply of foreign currency increases. Consumer prices change very little, if at all, to reflect the currency revaluation. A liter of milk that cost PhP 50 three years ago still costs PhP 50, but the peso in that time has gone from 56 to the dollar to 45, so in essence the price of the milk purchased with OFW remittances has gone up by about 22%. Even if the OFW, in the U.S. for example, receives an annual cost-of-living increase in his wages of 2 or 3%, which is a relatively common pattern, the Filipino families back home are still taking a double-digit pay cut. So it becomes harder to make ends meet from month-to-month, let alone save up for that entrepreneurial dream of a corner store or one's own jeepney.

The OFW phenomenon is already a social and economic disaster for the Philippines. How long it will take for it to be irreparably catastrophic will be determined by the will of the government to concentrate on initiatives and structures that use all this human raw material in a productive way at its source, rather than selling it overseas; and it will be determined by the people being made to understand that the easy way out of their economic misery is actually the easy way into an even deeper abyss. Filipinos, so proud of having thrown off the yoke of colonialism, have only succeeded in reinventing it, with that famous "Filipino ingenuity" they have -- now the colonists don't have to actually show up to pillage the country's resources, they can do it by mail order.

Reposted from Get Real Philippines, 23 Oct 2007

Alleged DepEd noodle scam stirs House to action

Friday, May 01, 2009

By Jomar Canlas, Reporter [Source: Manila Times on the net]

THE House Committee on Good Government was urged to investigate the alleged overpricing and anomalous purchase of instant noodles that the Department of Education distributed for its feeding program in schools.

Bayan Muna Rep. Teodoro Casiño authored House Resolution 1126, which directs the House body to probe the alleged irregularities in the procurement of instant noodles in line with DepEd’s feeding program.

Casiño said the DepEd recently awarded to Jeverps Manufacturing Corp. the contract for 19,418,880 packs of instant noodles costing P22.00 per pack as part of its “Malusog na Simula, Yaman ng Bansa” feeding program.

“It is ironic and deplorable that such a project intended to augment our public school children’s nutritional requirements is apparently feeding the greed of DepEd officials and their favored suppliers,” he said.

In 2008, the DepEd reportedly procured from Jeverps 15 million packs of instant noodles costing P284 million, where each pack of instant noodles was already allegedly overpriced at P18.00.

The party-list lawmaker said the apparent overpricing and the alleged non-conformity of Jeverps’ products to the package description specified by the DepEd casts serious doubt on its procurement procedures.

“The noodles scam shows tell-tale signs of graft and corruption and plunder implicating administration officials,” Casiño said.

Laboratory tests allegedly made by experts from Vietnam, Malaysia, Hong Kong and South Korea showed that the noodles had neither egg nor malunggay contents—contrary to Jeverps’ claim that the products contained both ingredients.

For its part, the DepEd on Thursday said that it is willing to review the controversial multi-million-peso purchase of “fortified noodles” for the school feeding program if there is such a need.
“We have nothing to hide,” said Education Secretary Jesli Lapus in Filipino.

Lapus stood his ground over the legality of the purchase, insisting that the project was above-board and had gone through the process required by the Government Procurement Act.
Lapus aired the statement a day after DepEd officials led by Undersecretary Teodosio Sangil Jr., and Assistant Secretary for Special projects, Thelma Santos, appeared before the Senate committees that are conducting an investigation on the issue.

Sangil was the chairman of the Bids and Awards Committee (BAC) that initiated the bidding won in February by Jeverps.

The DepEd officials stood by the department earlier position that their was no irregularity in the P427-million project despite the fact that Jeverps has won the contract in the last five years netting for the company some P750 million.

They also said that even if Jeverps was the lone bidder for the project, there was no irregularity when the BAC awarded the contract.

--With James Konstantin Galvez

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DepEd officials said they have nothing to hide and so should the House investigate any unaccounted wealth DepEd officials might have. If the House wanted to investigate and prosecute, it is easy enought to see the money trail, if any; and prosecute to the full extent of the law those government and private officials with a hand in this deplorable scam.

I have no doubt... by Ariel O Querubin

Col Ariel O Querubin, on right with Mr Gustav Joseph O. Bocek [green shirt] on a recent visit to Col Querubin at his detention at Camp Aguinaldo.

I have no doubt in my mind that the Lord has all the while been preparing me for public service .

I was left for dead in 1989, and He allowed me to spring back to life.

I have been imprisoned as a soldier, but I fully regained the honor and right to wear a soldier´s uniform after having been awarded the Medal of Valor in 2001.

As my military career was very much back on track, I was again challenged to choose between right and wrong, between honor and injustice, between good and evil. Even as we all work for a vibrant and prosperous Philippines, my dream is for every Filipino to enjoy the essence of freedom from poverty, fear, and injustice; to feel the tangible benefits of good governance, and to live comfortably in a society that fosters the unity of the family, respects human rights, and upholds the dignity of all.

I have not had an easy life.

My life story has been replete with vivid encounters and painful experiences that have shaped this dream. I am fully aware that some people would insist that men in uniform should stay away from politics; that we would serve best our nation if we were fighting wars in Mindanao; that we have no business in meddling with the affairs of the state as we have been formed and trained in the rudiments of war, and not in the civil service, much less in politics.

I agree - but that assumes that the people who have been entrusted with the public trust have been sincere, honest, and have been true to their pledges. As a young soldier, armed with idealism and the fire of youth, I have offered my life to defend this country from ALL its enemies.

I have suffered long and hard for the principles that I hold dearly. Many of my loved ones have suffered with me - maybe not physically, but certainly have shared in the misery and hardships that I have endured. The fire of idealism still burns in me, but I have been wiser not to engage fire with fire.

I am running for the senate in 2010. I have no political pedigree. I have no political machinery. I have no financial resources. But I do have honor. I do have principles. I do have courage. I believe I am ready to take on this new role, with your support this dream is not too farfetched.

It takes the collective effort of every member of this society to make things improve for a country in disarray... a country that has been plundered... a country whose hope is running dry... All I can do, on my end, is to make the best effort possible to make society better, stand by my principles, and fight for what is right.

There is hope for this country and our people, all we have to do is believe. This I will do, if not for myself and our generation, then at least for my young children and their children.

Mabuhay ang Pilipinas!

ARIEL O QUERUBIN

The quest for new leaders by Randy David

Filipinos know instinctively that the election season has started when the surveys pare down the presidential choices to about five frontrunners. The faces of the so-called “presidentiables” get front-page treatment. Strategists warn their principals against the peril of peaking too early, and dissuade potential candidates for lesser positions from making firm commitments prematurely. The analysts chime in with their assessments of alignments in flux. And the voices of politicians fill the airwaves, creating a sense of a nation taking on its collective tasks seriously.

But are we? Are we content with the current way we choose our leaders? Surveys fulfill a vital function in a democracy. Their radar screens capture the promise of light in the political firmament, but they cannot tell if it is the brightness of stars or merely of satellites. I suggest that we do not allow surveys to drive, preempt, or determine the process of leadership recruitment. To do so would be to place the nation’s future at the mercy of political financiers with no accountability, and of technicians who specialize in the fabrication and simulation of charisma.

In mature democracies, political parties prepare for elections by holding a series of caucuses with their constituencies. The aim of these meetings is to identify the key issues that must take center stage in the coming election. The issues that are expressed in these caucuses mirror the values of the party — for an issue becomes an issue precisely because there is a felt threat to fundamental values.

The identification of leaders is intimately linked to this process. It is not divorced from it. The leaders that emerge from this process not only reflect the party’s stand on the issues. More than that, they personify, at that precise moment, the urgent yearnings and aspirations of the party, if not of the whole nation. They are leaders because they stand for something that resonates with others. They are not leaders merely because they got it in their heads to stand for election.

There is great advantage, obviously, even in this system, to being a good speaker and having a charismatic personality. But here charisma has to be validated, and placed in the service of the party’s program. Barack Obama had to go through this grueling exercise, notwithstanding his immense charisma, and there were moments when he seemed close to losing the Democratic nomination to the more experienced Hillary Clinton. On the other hand, John McCain’s bland and uninspiring personality did not prevent the Republicans from choosing him as their standard-bearer. In our system, in contrast, it’s the other way around — mass appeal or celebrity status (or “winnability”) not only comes first, it is the main factor. The political program becomes no more than an afterthought, a catalogue of sound bites with no internal coherence.

When issues take the backseat — qualification, competence, political record, personal history, and political vision also become peripheral. The whole system gets fixated with popularity. As observational tools, surveys are generally indifferent to the basis of this popularity. They may alert us, as they sometimes do, to the state of the prevailing political consciousness — but they do not make it their business to fathom the depth or shallowness of voter preference.

Yet, to be fair, even Filipino politicians know that it is not enough to be merely popular. Not that they would demand of themselves that popularity must be paired with a vision, but simply that popularity has to be converted into votes. Given the weaknesses of our political system, what this means basically is that our politicians are expected to have enough money to ensure that their fans actually register to vote, that their supporters are not bought, that their votes are actually counted, and that they have adequate protection against all forms of vote padding and manipulation.

In general, these real practical concerns drive nearly every aspiring politician to turn for assistance to the various operators that inhabit the system. They exist at all levels of the political system — from the village level to the national level. They are the political entrepreneurs who keep the machinery of the patron-client system running. They fix, they facilitate, they organize events, and they bridge the gap between levels, acting as part-time agents for the politicians who take time to seek them out and give them importance. They are however not the real problem.

The most dangerous are the king-makers with the fabulous war chests. These masters of the rent-economy are the most vicious segment of the Filipino elite. It is they who think of politics as nothing more than an extension of the economy, and of government as merely a department in a business empire. When the politics of a country is captured by such king-makers, leadership is divorced from the national interest, and is created and traded just like any other commodity.

This is where we are today. We must beware of those who style themselves as alternative leaders, when they are no more than the new recruits of the same business blocs that have monopolized economic and political power in our country since independence. We need leaders who are cognizant of their roles as servants of the people and as builders of the nation. We must actively search for them in the bosom of our own communities, for their names will not figure in the surveys, nor will they be identified for us by the kingmakers.

Original article appeared on Prof Randy David's Philippine Daily Inquirer's column "Public Lives".

Photo credits: PCIJ photo.

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The systemic problems in our political system, as bared by Prof Randy David is a catch-22 situation for both politicians and voters.

Why ethics? By Ellen Tordesillas

For Nograles to ask “Why ethics” reveals the depth of moral degradation among government officials.

For more articles by Ellen Tordesillas, click here.

After last Monday’s Senate hearing on the Legacy group of companies debacle which saw millions of pesos of hard-earned savings by thousands of not-so-rich investors vanish into a few people’s pockets, House Speaker Prospero Nograles was asked by reporters if Parañaque Rep. Eduardo Zialcita would have to face the Ethics Committee.


Nograles replied, "Why ethics? Who is the complainant, who is complaining against him?"


For Nograles to ask "Why ethics" reveals the depth of moral degradation among government officials.


Zialcita’s cousin, Commissioner Jesus Martinez of the Securities and Exchange Commission, are in the same state of cluelessness. He saw nothing wrong in his son (although he was the one following up the payments) acquiring a P5 million house paid for by a Legacy firm, the regulation of which is his responsibility.


"If the Expedition was sold by my son to a rural bank... I don’t know how it will affect me because fist of all I had nothing to do with the rural bank. Secondly, I do not know if a favor was asked of me because there was no favor asked of me."

No favor asked of him? No wonder Celso de los Angeles was able to continue convincing parents to buy educational plans for their children even when his Legacy Plans was already on the brink of collapse and was unable to meet requirements of the SEC. They had a protector in the SEC.


It is no surprise also that Nograles is not enthusiastic about ethics. Because if Zialcita were to be investigated about his P100,000 a month consultancy with Legacy firms, he should also face the same committee for lobbying with Ric Tan, then the president of Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation, to go soft on De los Angeles and his beleaguered banks.


In that meeting Nograles even mentioned that De los Angeles had helped a lot Vice President Noli de Castro. Tan didn’t accommodate Nograles. We are not sure if that was the reason he was replaced by Mike Osmeña who died. Nograles brother, Jose, is now PDIC president.


Nograles’ question, "Why ethics?" answers our lamentation why we have one corruption case after another and nobody gets punished.


Why ethics if you have a president who saw nothing wrong in calling a Comelec commissioner to ensure that she won by one million votes whether or not she was voted by the people.


The tragedy is becoming a comedy.

Gloria Arroyo ordered Martinez to go on leave. But the guy is retiring on Saturday, March 14!

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Ellen Says:
March 9th, 2009 at 5:15 pm

"The peace and unity that we are fighting for doesn’t mean closing our eyes and keeping silent to the anomalies that Gloria Arroyo [or any politician or person-Mod] is perpetrating in this country.

Because if we keep quiet to the lies that are being thrown our way, that means we agree to it. That means we support it."

There's The Rub : Marcelino for President

By Conrado de Quiros
Columnist, Philippine Daily Inquirer
Posted date: January 12, 2009

I REMEMBER reading a hilarious item in Traveler's Tales in the Far
Eastern Economic Review ages ago. It talked of a suit some traffic
cops in a small precinct in Bangkok filed against their superior.

For many years, the cops had been mulcting motorists and public
utility drivers over traffic infractions and had accumulated quite a
pile of loot. Alas, their chief hogged the money and would not share
it with them. Frustrated with efforts to persuade him to distribute
the spoils, and seeing themselves the victims of a terrible injustice,
the cops filed the suit.

The point of the story, a true one though quite an oddity, is that you
get used to malfeasance, you will no longer find anything wrong with
it. You will find the wrong elsewhere.

I remembered that story in light of Felisberto Verano saying there's
nothing wrong with writing the release order for the "Alabang boys" on
DOJ stationery and submitting it to Raul Gonzalez for signature.
Verano is astonishingly a lawyer for one of the accused and Gonzalez
is even more astonishingly the secretary of justice. The release order
is just a piece of paper, Verano says, it means nothing without
Gonzalez's signature. Now if he had forged Gonzalez's signature, that
would have been a crime.

The point of the story, a true one and no longer an oddity here, is
that you get used to malfeasance, you will no longer find anything
wrong with it. You will find the wrong elsewhere.

That applies not just to Verano but to Gonzalez. Gonzalez himself
found nothing wrong with the lawyer of one of the accused writing
things on DOJ paper. He took umbrage not with Verano but with
Ferdinand Marcelino who blew the whistle on state prosecutors dropping the case on the "Alabang boys" for a bountiful Christmas and a prosperous New Year. Gonzalez's beef was that Marcelino did not entrap the people who tried to bribe him too to be stricken blind.

The only explanation for it is that Gonzalez is used to seeing—and
signing—things written on DOJ paper for various purposes, from
ordering lunch from the canteen to springing the scions of rich kids
from jail. He'll always find the wrong elsewhere.

But thank God for Ferdinand Marcelino!

Thank God in the first place that he put Gonzalez in his place. Though
one is at pains to understand why he had to apologize afterward.
Everyone I know has the appropriate retort to Gonzalez's "Don't talk
to me like that!" None of it includes saying sorry.

Thank God in the second place that Marcelino's superiors in the PDEA and his "mistahs" in the AFP, including the retired generals, are backing him up full force. Even if I suspect many of them are doing so in the hope that his sheen of idealism will rub off on them, if not indeed blind the world by its dazzling brilliance to their own part in spreading the darkness. I completely endorse Rodolfo Biazon's plan for the Senate to commend Marcelino and for the AFP to award Marcelino the Distinguished Service Star, the highest non-combat award to a soldier.

The latter is not inferior to the combat award, it is superior to it.
I've always thought, and said, that moral courage was by far the
greater form of courage than the physical one. It is so much harder to
show.

At a time when perfidy and wrongdoing rule the day, proof daily being offered of the innocent being punished and the guilty rewarded, of the good being damned and the bad praised to high heavens, Marcelino's honesty shines through. Particularly as he showed it amid the greatest adversity, losing as he did a kin to cancer from destitution. He did not refuse the bribe because it would bring admiration from his peers; many of them probably thought him stupid for it. He did it, as he himself puts it simply, because it was the right thing to do.

I myself have a couple of recommendations.

One is to appoint Marcelino posthaste as Ombudsman. And have him
investigate Merceditas Gutierrez for all sorts of crimes and
misdemeanors. It's the only way that office will ever get to do the
job it is meant to do, Marcelino having shown he is one of the few
public officials who can do the job they are meant to do.

The second, completely seriously, is to put the Office of the
Ombudsman under the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency. The reason for this is simple. There is a drug that addles the brain more thoroughly than Ecstasy, Ecstasy only giving its user to feel the pangs of love or lust. There is a drug that sends people on longer and farther power trips than shabu, shabu only lasting a few days and rendering their users impotent afterward. There is a drug that is far more addictive than heroin, no amount of rehabilitation being able to cure it.

That drug is corruption.

Corruption is the most dangerous drug of all in this country. It gives
the user to feel not only the pangs of lust or love of money; it sends
the user to longer and farther power trips, making them feel like they
deserve to rule forever; it is the most addictive drug of all, and
one, quite unfortunately, that does not kill the user, only everyone
around him, or her.

It is no small irony—indeed it is a sublimely poetic one—that
Marcelino set out to take on drug pushers and users and ended up
taking on the justice department. They are one and the same. The
justice department is the biggest pusher of the most dangerous drug in this country, or the biggest supplier of it to its biggest user in the country, to be found in the Palace by the Pasig. At the very least, you can't have a brain more addled by drugs—in more ways than one—than Gonzalez's. And you can't have veins more addicted to constant injections of power than those of his boss.

What can I say? Never mind Ombudsman, Marcelino for president.