JULY 4, 2008

VIDEO CLIP- VPTG SPEECH AT CENPEG'S CONFEST

MESSAGE BOARD

> New Video Presentation. Pictures taken during the launching.

>The "Fight for the Filipino" Book Launching was a huge success. Thanks to all your support!

> The book will be available in National Book Store. you may place your order thru their website. www.nationalbookstore.com

>The Academic Publishing Co. also accepts order and they deliver. Call 9125966. Look for Ms. Lani.


FIGHT FOR THE FILIPINO!
an autobigraphy of Tito Guingona









VIDEO PRESENTATION

Book Review on "Fight for the Filipino"


Patriot and Activist
By
Carmen Guerrero Nakpil


Only a man “with soul so dead”, wrote the English poet, does not love his native land. All of us claim to love our country. But few love it and its people with the passionate activism and militancy of Teofisto Guingona, Jr. His autobiography, “Fight for the Filipino” is a treatise on patriotism.
In different form and roles, Tito Guingona has been a constant presence in our national life. At different times, he has been a member of the 1971 Constitutional Convention, Chairman of the Commission on Audit, member of the Philippine Senate, Executive Secretary and Secretary of both of Foreign Affairs and of Justice, Vice President of the Republic and Ambassador to the People’s Republic of China. But those are only his formal titles. And, outside of our knowledge of civics and government positions, they tell us very little about Tito Guingona’s total commitment or emotional dynamism. For instance, it is only the last chapter of his 346-page biography that we learn of his latest entitlement to a charge of rebellion earned one afternoon, at the Manila Peninsula Hotel, where he was tear-gassed, arrested, handcuffed and detained.
His saga of fighting for the Filipino begins when he was a 12-year old boy who tagged along on the historic trek taken by President Quezon, his family and some members of his family, including Tito’s father, Commissioner for Mindanao and Sulu, Guingona from Northern Lanao to Bukidnon on the way to Australia in 1942.
It runs through, in vivid detail, through his years as a young student and a neophyte lawyer’s advocacy against the Parity Agreement and the U.S. Military Bases; through his stint in the making of the 1973 Constitution with concomitant arrest and detention during Martial Law; his colorful experiences with Mindanao and Manila partisan politics; his travails and policy differences in the cabinet; his frequent denunciations of anti-Filipino policies and projects; and lastly, his denunciation of a sitting President which caused a regime change.
But I must allow the readers of “Fight for the Filipino”, to discover for themselves the intriguing bits of Philippine history that Tito Guingona describes in the fast-paced, candid, conversational prose of his memoirs. For instance, the incident that happened, only four days after Gloria Arroyo’s take over of Malacañang in 2001, when the new Secretary of Justice, Hernando Perez, whispered in his ear in Tagalog, “She phoned me at midnight to order me to sign the IMPSA contract.” (an anomalous Argentinean contract which President Joseph Estrada had refused to sign because of its sovereign guarantee clause)
There are many other anecdotes and vignettes in this autobiography which makes it, more than intimate personal history, a history of the Philippines and a record of the events and personages of the last 80 years. It is also a manual for the younger generations on how to honor, love and defend this country and its people. There are few better teachers of patriotism than Teofisto (Tito) Guingona, Jr.


Story-telling – the Guingona Way
by
Eggie Apostol



Teofisto Guingona, Jr., one-time Vice-President of the Philippines has many stories to tell. And he tells them in great detail in his book “Fight for the Filipinos”
The stories are so highly detailed that one suspects Tito Guingona keeps a diary. Does he? I have not been able to ask him.
If he doesn’t, then we can only say he has a fantastic memory. And it is just as well for the telling of his life is like a recollection of our nation’s history.
Focus is, of course, on Mindanao – where his own father like him served as senator and later Commissioner for Mindanao and Sulu.
For those who lived all their lives in Luzon (or in the Visayas for that matter) the goings-on in Mindanao are like happenings in a foreign country. Because the country is mostly Christian but Mindanao has a sizeable number of Muslims (nine thousand about 50 years ago) mostly due to its proximity to Borneo and Indonesia.
One cannot help but envy the Guingona family for growing-up in the most beautiful part of the country – the Lake Lanao area.
This was so beautiful that when President Quezon saw it he asked that a branch of the Manila Hotel be built there. Which was done.
Although his family was anchored in Mindanao, Guingona studied in the Ateneo de Manila so that later in life he hobnobbed with Raul Manglapus, Diosdado Macapagal, Joe Calderon and Caesar Espiritu, Carlos Garcia and Jun Puyat. When problems came up about the Mindanao area he was always the Mindanao expert for solutions.
Guingona relates during Marcos’ martial rule:”one evening over a secretive dinner, where Fathers Horacio de la Costa and Jaime Bulatao were present, one of our conservative members of the group said: “The real response to martial rule is rebellion, but I’d like to know from our religious Fathers here – whether rebellion is morally justified?” The question was a riser; it was not said in a jest, and one of the priests curtly replied “Don’t worry, we’ll find a way to justify it.” That broke the ice and resulted in laughter.
Guingona’s life had its share of ironies. Before EDSA I he joined Cory in boycotting products linked to Malacañan, “I challenge the crowd not to pay their Meralco bill. Seven days later after our victory with Cory she appointed me president of Meralco. So I called for another big meeting and told the people ”Times have changed – pay your Meralco bills!”
Guingona liked to encourage better relations with Chinese in the Philippines. He submitted some suggestions: 1) Enhance herbal medicine in the Philippines, with Chinese help 2) Plant cassava or cash crops between spaces of coconut trees. 3) generates jobs by adopting the policy of giving value added to native products 4) Encourage technology connected to giving added value to coconut, fruits and fish; 5) encourage tourism by building necessary infrastructures 6) implement joint economic ventures.
Readers will be reminded that Guingona was a political activist from the start. When he was made Chairman of the Commission on Audit he was also a peace negotiator. When President Ramos made him executive secretary he grappled with the ADC and Jai Alai and the Flor Contemplacion case. He actively joined the fight for justice in the Vizconde massacre, the Jalosjos case, the Fr. Shay Cullen problem, the Maysilo Estate case, the Alfredo Tiongco case, U.S. property claim in Fort Bonifacio, the Textbook scam, the Visiting Forces Agreement, the WTO and GATT.
As Vice-President and Secretary of Foreign Affairs he was involved in 9/11 and the VFA, the IMPSA controversy, concern for the OFW’s and attending to foreign travel commitments. He differed with Malacañang in in pursuing OFW and Steel mill programs. He said No to Bush’s war in Iraq.
At book’s end, Guingona is very much in a negative mode: He sees in the Gloria Arroyo regime much that he finds dishonest. He had been asked by President Arroyo to become the new Ambassador to China which he accepted.
But the “Hello Garci” tapes was unraveled and proved that President Arroyo had tampered with the elections. Guingona did not want to continue with his new assignment and resigned.
“We must reform” is his current and latest plan.

INVITATION

INVITATION

BOOK

BOOK
Pls. call us for resevation.

BOOKS

THE GALLANT FILIPINO
A nation is poorer by so much everytime one of its heroes passes into oblivion. For as Tito Guingona, Jr. writes "the true treasures of the Filipino are not gold or silver" They are the men and women whose heroic lives would bring back to us in a book. And so Tito Guingona has written The Gallant Filipino...

LABAN - VOICE OF RESISTANCE
On Sept. 21, 1972 Ferdinand E. Marcos imposed martial rule in the Philippines. It marked the beginning of a black chapter in the nation's story. On Aug. 21, 1983 they killed Benigno S. Aquino. His death inflamed the nation, and it marked the beginning of the end for Mr. Marcos. From then on the people demanded back their rights. they rallied. they marched. They defied the guns and tanks and bullets of the dictator - in the end, they defended the soldiers who rose in revolution. In that crucial hour, the nation triumphed...

FACE THE CHALLENGE
To the small Filipino businessman - whose continuing strife to survive deserves sustained support. May he eventually succeed - if not under the present economic system - then in another more responsive to the nation's needs!


MY GUESTBOOK

Vice President

Vice President

Tito Profile

Teofisto T. Guingona, Jr. reached a new high in his stellar career when both Houses of Congress confirmed his nomination as Vice President of the Philippines by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
Born in San Juan, Rizal on July 4, 1928 to Teofisto Guingona, Sr., a former assemblyman, senator, judge and commissioner from Guimaras, Iloilo and Josefa Tayko of Siaton, Negros Oriental, he grew up in Mindanao where he completed his elementary schooling with honors in Ateneo de Cagayan.
He pursued his studies at the Ateneo de Manila University as a working student, teaching history and political science while taking up courses in law and economics. He took up special studies in Public Administration, Economics, Sociology and Audit. After graduation, Tito went into business and became a Governor of the Development Bank of the Philippines and President of the Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines.
Tito was a delegate to the 1971 Constitutional Convention and when Martial Law was declared in 1972, he staunchly resisted the abuses of the regime, serving as a human rights lawyer and defender of the oppressed. He founded SANDATA and became the honorary chairman of BANDILA, two mass-based organizations dedicated to social and economic reforms. Because of his opposition to martial rule he was jailed twice, first in 1972 and then in 1978.
When the dictator was ousted, the new President appointed Tito as Chairman of the Commission on Audit where he gained renown as a no-nonsense graft buster. He did not stay long in the Commission on Audit, however, for he was drafted to run for a Senate seat. In the Senate, Tito was Senate President Pro-tempore and Majority Leader. He also chaired the Blue Ribbon Committee.
Tito’s concern for the welfare of his kababayans in Mindanao is apparent when he served as director and chairman of the Mindanao Development Authority and the Mindanao Labor Management Advisory Council respectively.

the senator at work

i survived martial law

Anti GMA Rally

Anti GMA Rally
Water Canonized by the Police

About the Peninsula Seige/ An Interview with Karen Davila

Saturday, July 5, 2008

SPEECH

SPEECH-Fight For The Filipino
Book Launching
July 4, 2008
Maynila Ballroom, Manila Hotel


President Fidel V. Ramos, President Joseph Erap Estrada, Excellencies of the Diplomatic Corp, Honored officials in government, the distinguished personalities who took time to kindly reviewed the book, Ms, Carmen Guerrero Nakpil, Ms. Eggie Apostol, Justice Isagani Cruz, Messers Ramon Farolan, Jarius Bondoc , my publisher Academic Publishing Corp represented by Mr. Ben Ramos, friends, ladies and gentlemen,
Today I turn eighty years old. Eighty years is a life. For someone living to eighty and beyond, it is a super bonus. Bonus to him, his family and friends. Whether he likes it or not he converts into a confirmed elder citizen of the land. He is looked upon with more tolerance. In gatherings, people usually defer, make way, open doors, and readily offer a chair for his convenience. Even women look to him more kindly. They converse with him more freely. Sometimes they even flirt with him without fear -- because they believe that a man already eighty can no longer do any damage.
Once there took place a geriatric reunion of the elderly. The men and women from media covering the event said “let us choose the three of them who look the oldest and ask them the same set of questions.” So they asked the first, “Sir, may we know the secret of your long life, second, how old you are and lastly your profession. The response came swiftly.” Yes, I do calisthenics and play golf regularly. I am now eighty three. I am a doctor.” They went to the second choice and asked the same questions. The reply “I take good red wine with my meals. I am nearing ninety. I am an engineer. Then they approached the person who looked the oldest, face wrinkled. body bent forward, hair all silver. After they asked he said “My secret? Sex.” That got the interviewers interested. How often, sir? Response “Everyday. Yes, everyday. My age? I am already over forty years old. My profession? I am a politician!”
After Manning Pelaez in life left office for retirement, I asked him about his plans in life to write a fruitful autobiography spread over the golden years in public service, and he said he had often thought about it – but he desisted because he did not want to hurt the sensibilities of others. I thought his concern was understandable, and told him so, but he would write to help people see more clearly why and how events were shaped in perspective, not to open up old wounds which time, after all, has the essence to heal whatever disaffections may have been inflicted in the past.
It is in such spirit that I wrote this book. I started it in 2005 after I resigned as Ambassador to China, the background and details of which are embodied there, and I continued to write even as I had the privilege of participating in some of the unfolding events, until the manuscript was completed at the end of 2007.
Amid the unfolding events told in that book however - the bedrock is the Filipino himself – now 90 million or so, increasing in numbers daily yet deteriorating in the wake of worsening poverty. What is his destiny? When will he find his place in the sun? Is it true that he is undisciplined? God forbid. For the ten million OFWs who work abroad belie such allegations. Foreigners there attest to the fortitude of the Filipino. They want our nurses, they cite our seaman’s capacity, his reliability in diverse fields of economic endeavor.
It was in l994 during the presidency of Fidel V. Ramos when he requested the then Vice President of the land, Joseph Ejercito Estrada, to represent him in the celebration of our Independence Day in San Francisco, California. Vice President Erap called Mr. Ramos long distance and told him elatedly “Mr. President, everything is ready here, and the members of the Filipino community are animated about commemorating Philippine Independence!” President Ramos responded by saying thank you – and added, “Erap, ilang araw diyan – ang galling galiing mo na mag English.” The Vice President in turn thanked him and replied “As to my English, Mr. President, it goes with the environment.”
My friends, that humorous exchange reveals many things in contrast. As a frequent traveler once told me – the Filipino abroad obeys the law because it applies equally to all, here he often hesitates because of a perceived double standard of justice. The Filipino there willingly pays taxes, knowing he will get back communal benefits in return, here he harbors grave misgivings. The Filipino abroad voluntarily offers time and energies for the welfare of others. Here is hampered by poverty and nagging doubts about ultimate benefits.
It is the environment that influences a man, concrete examples that count. Because environment and example comprise the easiest lessons to perceive and follow. As in a family, where there exists sincerity, the members provide serenity; and vice versa, where there exudes thievery, the members are prone to follow.
We wonder. Is this why we have become economically backward. Despite the fact that in the l950s we stood second only to Japan in the region, why in seeming desperation we have been judged the most corrupt nation in East Asia? Why a number of us still suffer the blight of torture and enforced disappearances in the night?
This nation does not lack natural resources, nor acumen, nor capital, for we continue to borrow, now more than 56 billion dollars.
Why then have we not adequately progressed? The Filipino is poor – not because he is poor – but because he is not given the means for empowerment, often denied true opportunities to build his own. The farmer, the fisherman, the worker are seemingly destined to live all their lives as farmer, fisherman, worker, with hardly any legacy to pass on to their children. No vision. No plan to empower. No opportunities to tap. Otherwise, we would not see the sight of thousands seeking to leave the land for a better life elsewhere, we would not hear of a farmer abandoning the farm to go abroad.
We must therefore resolutely ask--what is the answer? Where the solution? How to prevent a national disaster a thousand times worse than the tragedy of the Princess of the Stars because the degredation raps the soul of the Filipino.
Permit me to offer some suggestions:

l. In l936 Spain underwent the crucible of civil war. In l939 the second World War began with the blitzkrieg invasion of Poland. Spain stayed neutral. But her economy was getting worse. After the World War, the Marshall plan to rehabilitate a devastated Europe was implemented. Spain was not included, and her economy worsened even further. To a point where Spaniards were leaving the country to seek a better life elsewhere.
General Francisco Franco summoned all relevant leaders both in and outside government - and told them: “we are facing a grave problem. We are on the road to perdition unless we do something. I suggest we focus on one solution. We have no money but we possess resources. The land, the seas, the lakes and rivers – and the people. We have no Marshall plan but we have a rich history. Let us focus on tourism, promote tourism, build tourism where we attract tourists by the thousands and millions.
But for this program to succeed, we must have the cooperation of all --- from the highest official to the lowliest janitor – as well as all Spaniards from the richest to the poorest. We must all treat tourists as guests, not strangers. Welcome them, be friendly to them; do not in anyway abuse them in traffic, in restaurants, in hotels. They are to be our guests.”
Spain followed that suggestion, and today I understand she receives no less than seventy million tourists a year. We hardly have barely 3 millions.
Perhaps we can consider the same recourse here
but under the same premise – the cooperation of all.
2. Our OFWs are contributing immensely to the nation. Not only in gainful employment but also in valued monthly foreign exchange remittances. It is mainly what some economists say keeps the nation’s economy afloat.
Yet there exists no comprehensive program to empower them, or open up opportunities for them to grow even as they work abroad: a nursing aide to become a nurse, a seaman to get promotion thru technological studies, a clerk to get to management.
This is where a trustworthy institution can issue bonds to the OFWs. They procure them at affordable sums out of savings for a duration of a fixed period, say three years during from which they earn interest, with specified terms where the bondholder can avail of the means of empowerment for his own advancement.
Perhaps a portion of the pooled revenues from bonds can be channeled to the purchase of sound investments such as the acquisition by the OFWs of the National Post Office – the management of such an institution must be placed under expert hands. The National Post Office has a Savings Bank, another possible avenue to help reduce the remittance costs, and reap other benefits -- provided expertise management is always there.
3. How do we revitalize the moral values into the hearts of the Filipino? Before the war, when the nation had a population of only about sixteen million, the Filipino was honest, God fearing. Some say that the war and brutal occupation of more than three years – bred a flaw in the character of the Filipino - where survival often replaced honesty and regard for countrymen. I do not personally believe so. Perhaps a temporary aberration in some, not a permanent flaw to national character.
Example is the best teacher. And it is here where men and women in government must lead by example. Where parents must teach children by example, where church leaders must show the way to parishioners by example, where teachers must teach by example. We need a moral revolutionist – where leaders must lead by example.
We need a moral revolution.
Let me humbly head the last three paragraphs in fight for the Filipino.
I sincerely believe that one day soon – in the not so distant future – the Filipino will find his place in the sun. We already have about ten million OFWs abroad. The Filipino there is like a soldier on a mission, who learns new values to include into his own mind and heart. Someday he will return a better man – more forthright, more responsive to the challenges in life – master of his own destiny. He will no longer be the timid Filipino of old but a brave balikbayan reborn with added values for the nation. He will speak out against oppression and injustice. He will embolden and enrich the culture of this nation.
And the average Filipino here will eventually overcome the bigger challenge. As in EDSA l, he will rise above the shameless briberies and abuses of those in power. He will face guns and bullets again if need be - because despite adversities his Faith teaches him what is right and what is wrong. What to do and not do…and in the height of crises, Providence will give him the right response.
I write the pages of this book in the twilight of life. I humbly dedicate it to the Filipino, wherever I can reach forth, in whatever way I can, I shall gladly do for the people. I shall fight for the Filipino!