PEACE-MAKER
Since early 2020, we have been spending most of our time in our Dagupan City home, which is a short walking distance from the Lingayen Gulf, where General Douglas MacArthur and, earlier, General Masaharu Homma landed on Jan. 9, 1945 and Dec. 22, 1941, respectively.
To this day, we vividly remember General MacArthur, smiling and waving at the crowd from the Home Economics building of our wartime school in Dagupan, the now West Central Elementary School, which served as his brief military headquarters. We were then nine years old.
As a five-year-old boy, we also recall the Japanese forces commandeered our father’s black Lincoln car when they landed ashore in Dagupan. We never saw the car again.
Perhaps the convergence of time, circumstance and geography made us an innocent eyewitness to people and events that shaped the history of our country, and indeed the world.
Years later, we are honored and privileged to have taken part ourself in some epochal events in our country’s history. We initiated a few things that have become game-changers and landmarks in our national life. We also contributed in a modest way in advancing the causes of peace, security and development in Asia and the international community through the regional and global organizations that we founded and/or lead.
We were elected congressman for the first time in 1969, at the age of 32. Among our colleagues in the 7th Congress were Jose Laurel Jr., Ramon Mitra, Nicanor Yniguez, who all became Speakers of the House; Jose Zulueta, who became senate president; Roque Ablan of Ilocos Norte, Rodolfo Albano of Isabela, Eduardo ‘Danding’ Cojuangco of Tarlac, Floro Crisologo of Ilocos Sur, and Raul Daza of Northern Samar.
When Philippine democracy was restored in Feb. 25, 1986 and congressional elections were held the year after, we decided to run again and won, representing the fourth district of Pangasinan from 1987 to 1992. We served as acting chairman of the House foreign affairs committee in the 8th Congress.
With our people behind us, we were subsequently elected in the succeeding legislative elections and thus served in the 9th, 10th, 12th, 13th, and 14th Congresses.
We served in the House of Representatives for seven terms (a total of 23 years), where we were privileged to be elected five times as Speaker of the House.
Our first political campaign, however, was in 1959, when we were 22, not as a candidate but as a campaign leader of Dr. Francisco Duque when he ran for governor of Pangasinan. He later served as Health Secretary in the President Diosdado Macapagal administration.
That election taught us the timeless truth in politics: that a campaign is the sum total of many factors, such as a strong political organization, a dedicated campaign staff, and a political party to bring voters to their precincts on election day, and ensure that the votes are counted correctly. Successful politics is not just about ideas. It is also about competent organization.
At 26, we became chief political adviser to Speaker Cornelio Villareal, popularly known as Kune, who served as representative of Capiz for some 60 years. His political career began when he was elected delegate to the 1935 Constitutional Convention. His last stint as congressman was in 1987, where, at 83, he was the oldest member of the 8th Congress. He was a valued ally of the late Speaker Eugenio Perez, last Speaker of the Commonwealth and the first Speaker of the Philippine Republic.
We learned early on that the art of coalition-building is at the heart of governance. Coalitions are needed not just to win elections but to pass vital legislation. Coalitions make government effective.
With the emergence of the multiparty system, our country’s political landscape has been altered. Since 1992, no single political party has dominated Congress with an outright majority. Thus, the need to build a coalition of political parties to pass the political, economic, and social legislation and advance national causes.
We first faced this challenge in 1992, when we had our first experience in multi-party democracy and following the election of then former Defense Secretary Fidel V. Ramos as president.
Ramos, who got 24 percent of the national vote, was a minority president. And so no single political party dominated Congress with an outright majority. President Ramos, however, needed a Lakas-led governing coalition in Congress to shape the national agenda and push his legislative reform package.
Surveying the political landscape, we put together what we called a “power-sharing and burden-sharing formula” that led to an unprecedented grand coalition of political parties in Congress. We named it the “Rainbow Coalition.” In recent years, it has been called “Super Majority.”
We contested and came out second to the popular Vice President Joseph Estrada in a highly competitive presidential race in 1998.
We are forever grateful to God and the Filipino people for the honor to serve our country and to help advance the causes of peace, security, development, dialogue, understanding, and cooperation in Asia and the international community.