Friday, November 21, 2008 Malilong: ‘Honorable me,’ anyone? By Frank Malilong The Other Side
I WAS among those who Ferdinand Marcos drove out of their jobs when he declared martial law and abolished the media in September, 1972. Fortunately, I found work in the Capitol a couple of months later. I have never stopped going to work there ever since.
It was at the Capitol Social Hall where I saw the trial of then senator Rodolfo Ganzon by a military court for murder. I can still remember the lump in my throat when Ganzon, his voice almost breaking, told the generals and colonels in the panel that even if he knew that the odds were against him, he did not despair because “God works in strange ways.”
It was also in the Capitol where I witnessed for the first time some of the best trial lawyers in the country at work. It was a case for adultery and both the accused and the private complainant belonged to very prominent families in Cebu.
The courtroom was overflowing with family members and curiosity seekers who wanted to hear an eyewitness account of the wife’s unfaithfulness (I was a law student then, so my interest in the case was purely academic, honest). The star witness did not disappoint the curiosity seekers (the term “socially aware” hasn’t been coined then) as she narrated the details of the many trysts that the accused had with her lover, including creaking beds and moans from inside the cabinet. Everyone sat in such rapt attention while she was testifying that when the defense objected that the testimony already involved incidents that were irrelevant and immaterial, the judge snapped, “Never mind, the Court would like to hear more.”
Those were the days when you could get in or out of the Capitol building through any of its many doors, all of which were kept open during office hours. Nobody inspected your bags or asked for your ID and vehicles, including those for public utility, were allowed passage through the compound without being stopped at a checkpoint and the driver being required to deposit his license with the guards.
Times have changed although, in fairness to everyone, not just at the Capitol. Even the churches now have armed security guards to ward off thieves, robbers and similar underworld characters who would not hesitate to decapitate even the image of the Virgin Mother (as they did in Boljoon many years ago) if they had the chance so they could earn a few thousand pesos from antique collectors for the head.
But probably because I spend more time in the Capitol than in Church, it is in the former where I am made more aware of, and upset by, the difference between now and yesterday. Thus, when lawyers were told that they couldn’t get inside the Palace of Justice without having to present their ID, I balked.
“I’ve been going in and out of this building even when you were still wetting your pants,” I told the young guard, “and now you ask me to prove that I am not a terrorist?” When he insisted, almost apologetically, that he was just following orders, I knew I lost the argument. I fished out my driver’s license and signed the logbook.
But not everything has changed. Even in 1972, some of the choicest pieces of real estate in the Capitol were reserved for Honorable This and Honorable That. I’ve often wondered then if I could ever earn that address and the exclusive right to use a piece of valuable government land. I have since stopped wondering. I belong to the “unelected and unelectable,” to borrow Sir Pabling Garcia’s colorful language, so I have to fight like the rest for what is left of the remaining parking spaces.
Or do I? I just read that the Capitol is now charging parking fees which is not a bad idea if you consider that many car owners, including those who are not transacting business at the Capitol, have made the compound their private garage.
But I have another, if selfish, motive for endorsing the Capitol economic advisers’ brainchild: I plan to lease a parking space and put a sign that it is for my exclusive use only. “Reserved for Hon. Malilong.” The title is free; parking spaces, like votes, are open to the commerce of men.
