WALA LANG
Among the barong-clad sekyu trying to be invisible, sweating equipment-bearers, staff members with pen and pads in hand, newsmen, nurses, and doctors following cigar-chomping President Fidel V. Ramos was the 21-year-old Jojo T. Terencio, neophyte reporter. His task was to write official reports for public release on Presidential meetings.
Terencio shares with us his experience in a memoir that takes us back to key and some not-so-key events of the FVR years, 1992-1998.
President Ramos was a hard-working man. Terencio recalls joining FVR on visits to the then 78 provinces and attending 40 regional cabinet meetings on top of the weekly regular meetings held in Manila. He corrected papers and issued directives using a red pen (hence the book’s title).
Behind the Red Pen (Revoli Cortez and Ramon Fagtanac)
The CSW (Completed Staff Work) doctrine was drummed into everyone, including cabinet members. Analyses and recommendations had to pass the CSW test. When frustrated and irritated over unsatisfactory reports and poor staff work, FVR lobbed papers every which way. Among themselves, staff members were considered “in” only after receiving a thorough dressing down. His working office was filled with the latest office and communication equipment.
Mrs. Aquino had opened to the curious public Malacañang private apartments highlighting the bedrooms of President and Mrs. Marcos and a downstairs room with the celebrated 3,000 shoes. Thousands had filed through Mrs. Marcos’ bedroom to gawk at the former first lady’s things, including her underwear. Then a congressman, President BBM visited the palace for the first time after 1986 and was dismayed over the crudeness of it all. FVR thereupon directed that the palace’s private presidential quarters be turned into a proper museum with a room devoted to each of the country’s past presidents.
The first three years of the Ramos presidency were boom years economically and politically, the previous six years under Mrs. Aquino having experienced various coup attempts and the aftereffects of the domestic and international adversities of the early 1980s. Unfortunately, economic recovery meant increased demands on the country’s power generating capacity.
The Bataan Nuclear Power Plant and other energy projects of the Marcos Sr. administration had been scrapped by Mrs. Aquino. The resulting under-capacity caused daily blackouts of up to 12 hours during the Ramos administration. My daughter, then at UP-PGH medical school, tells me that they used flashlights only for serious procedures like heart surgery and candles for run-of-the-mill jobs.
Using the emergency powers granted him by Congress, FVR succeeded in restoring power adequacy by the end of his term. Licenses had been granted independent power producers to relieve the crisis, although many were so costly as to burden later years.
FVR initiated reforms to open the economy to international competition and encourage investment both domestic and foreign. Tariffs and non-tariff barriers were reduced if not entirely eliminated.
The Asian Financial Crisis of 1997 affected the Philippines, causing among others, the peso to fall from about ₱26 per US dollar to ₱46. The economy recovered soon enough, however.
A peace agreement was signed in 1996 between government and the Moro National Liberation Front under Nur Misuari. The Communist Party of the Philippines was also legalized. Alleged secretary general of the Communist party Wilma Tiamzon had been captured and confined at the Philippine Heart Center recovering from an asthma attack. FVR visited her one evening but she covered herself up to the nose and did not even respond to Ramos’ greetings.
US President and Mrs. Bill Clinton were here on the way to Indonesia for an APEC leaders meeting. At the palace, he brought the house down playing Gershwin’s “Summertime” on the saxophone. First lady Ming Ramos was on the piano playing “Sweet Georgia Brown.”
Prince Charles arrived on the Royal yacht Brittania after the 1997 Hong Kong handover ceremonies. It was a brief seven-hour visit initiated by President Ramos during an audience and lunch with Queen Elizabeth II two years before.
Pope John Paul II visited for the 1995 World Youth Day. Security arrangements were super-tight at the Pope’s Mass at the Luneta attended by an estimated five million people prompted by an assassination plot engineered by Islamist Ramzi Yousef, mastermind of a 1993 New York City bombing. PNP had discovered the plot when Yousef’s rented apartment caught fire. The Pope opted to stay at the Apostolic Nunciature on Taft Avenue, adding to security concerns because the Nunciature is located in a thickly populated neighborhood.
The centennial of the Philippines’ declaration of independence from Spain occurred in 1998. Celebration centerpiece was the Clark Centennial Exposition that unfortunately was marred by corruption—various officials were found guilty and sentenced. FVR also strengthened Philippine presence in the Spratly Islands where the Chinese had begun erecting what were supposedly fishermen’s shelter.
Of his predecessors, FVR remarked that President Marcos did good things for the country, “but the bad things are remembered more…” Mrs. Aquino, he continued, “allowed the return of Mrs. Imelda Marcos during her time and the former first lady even took advantage of the opportunity to run for political office—no less than the presidency. … So I say let us move forward to the future and make sure that we do not commit the same mistakes… and even take further initiatives to enhance our advantages.”
Note: This article is based on Jojo T. Terencio, Behind the Red Pen: My Adventures with FVR (Manila: Gaudencio T. Terencio III, 2021)
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