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Friday, July 07, 2006
Malilong: Participants of the plot should confess
By Frank Malilong Jr.
The Other Side
Who was it that said that success has many fathers while failure is an orphan?
Had the plot to oust President Arroyo in February succeeded, many people would have been blabbering until now about how they played a crucial part in it. They’d probably be writing a book that would embellish the truth to make them bigger participants than they really were. Or, if they hadn’t landed the government position they were seeking, they would be perorating about how the power grab wouldn’t have succeeded had it not been for them.
But the coup failed so nobody, except former ambassador Roy Señeres, has stepped forward to admit, much less claim, having been a participant. Still, it took him about five months to own up what he had done. He surely had taken a long time either examining his conscience or surveying the legal implications.
Some people may think that Señeres is a fool to incriminate himself especially at a time when the Arroyo administration, having solidified its hold, is striking back at the coup plotters. Why didn’t he just wait for the government to build a case against him?
Señeres may be a fool but he is an honest and courageous fool. He joined the movement to kick Arroyo out of office because he was convinced that it was the right thing to do. His belief hasn’t changed, obviously, and he makes no effort to hide it. There is something about people like him that evokes respect, even if grudgingly.
This is something you cannot say about the people who, to this day, have been unrelenting in their denial of complicity in the planned power grab.
Señeres has named names. And he is challenging those whom he had identified, as well as those who continue to remain in the shadows, to admit that they were in, too, and are neither ashamed nor afraid of what they did.
Among those that Señeres mentioned were Oscar Orbos and Renato de Villa, Tonyboy Cojuangco, FF Cruz Jr. and Iñigo Zobel. These are not ordinary people. Orbos and de Villa are former Cabinet members; Cojuangco is chairman of ABC-5; Cruz is a giant in the construction industry (his company undertook the Mandaue reclamation project); and Zobel belongs to one of the country’s richest families.
It is now up to them to act on Señeres’ challenge. If he made up everything, then they should not just issue a blanket denial but prosecute him for besmirching their name and reputation.
But if what Señeres said is true, they should be men enough to confess, even if perhaps not too proudly because their cause is lost, that indeed they had agreed with Brig. Gen. Danilo Lim and the other plotters that the ouster of Arroyo was best for the country and that the surest way to do it was for the military to withdraw its support from her.
It’s never too late to own up something that you believe in.
(fmmalilong@yahoo.com)
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (July 7, 2006 issue)
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