The Jake Fonko Series: Books 4, 5 & 6

by B. Hesse Pflingger

  I returned from strenuous laps in the hotel pool to find a note slipped under my door. A Mr. Enrile had left a message to call him. I did so.

  “Thank you for returning my call, Mr. Philco,” he said. “I am Juan Enrile, the Minister of Defense. President Marcos asked me to call you and see about conducting you on a tour of our fair city. He was hoping you would be free to do that tomorrow.”

  “I am delighted that you are able to spare your valuable time for me. I’ve no plans for tomorrow that I can’t postpone,” I said. “What time shall we meet?”

  “If you could set aside the whole day, that would be good, as I had in mind a comprehensive inspection. President Marcos stressed the importance of making you aware of our economic well-being, as well as our needs. Shall we say I pick you up at your hotel door at nine in the morning?”

  “Nine would be fine.”

  “Good, I look forward to seeing you then,” he said and hung up. Interesting. The Minister of Defense, on two days’ notice, devoting a whole day to chauffeuring me around the town. Either he had a goldbrick job or Marcos was feeling a lot of pressure.

  I spent the rest of the afternoon puttering around and in the evening took a cab over to the Ermita district to check out the action. It was a semi-shabby collection of restaurants, bars and sex shows mostly, sporting lots of neon and throngs of tourists and American Navy and Air Force guys—but no muggings this time. After a good Chinese dinner I took in one set of a fairly good local rock band, fended off the bar girls, then returned to the Manila Hotel. I figured Todd Sonarr would be on duty by nine a.m., so at 10 p.m. I placed a call to Thermite Holdings’ home office. “I’d like to speak to Mr. Gladstone,” I told the receptionist.

  “I’ll connect you,” she said, and Todd picked up on the second ring. “Gladstone,” he said.

  “Stokes, this is Jack Philco in Manila, calling to touch base. Did you catch the announcement yesterday evening?”

  “Yes, it’s exactly as we anticipated. Short notice for an election, but he doesn’t want to give the opposition a chance to get organized. How’s it going over there?”

  “So far, so good. I’ve talked to some well-connected people, met the Marcoses last night. Still getting grounded on the local scene. Enrile, the Minister of Defense, will show me around tomorrow, and that should yield a lot of useful information. So, now that the announcement’s been made, anything special you want me to do?”

  “For the time being, steady as she goes. I’m going to delay informing powerful parties of your mission there while you continue your assessment of the situation. That sound okay to you?”

  “Sure. So far it doesn’t look like anybody needs my help. The Marcos government seems to have things under control. There’s one thing you could do for me, Stokes. I’ve been merging the facts and figures people here have provided, and there are big data gaps. If you have any recent reports on the Philippine economic and financial situation, could you send them out? I need more info to round out my picture.”

  “I’ll check with our analysts. I’m sure they have what you need. Tell you what, I’ll send it in care of the American Embassy. I arranged an assistant for you there, and you can pick it up from him in a couple days. Somebody you know—do you remember Kevin, from Phnom Penh?”

  “Kevin? Give me a hint.”

  “The bicycle.”

  It came back—the hippie who was supposed to be my CIA backup before the Khmer Rouge ran everybody out of town. “Okay, rings a bell.”

  “He’s there as a consultant in the economics section; he left here two days ago. I’ll send what economic reports we have to him. Contact him in a couple days. (He gave me Kevin’s last name, let’s say it’s ‘Blank,’ for security’s sake) Sounds like you’re on top of things. Sharpen your pencil on those figures. We need a solid assessment on the loan. Keep me in the loop.” And he rang off. A guarded conversation in case anyone was listening in, but even between the lines it added up to nothing definite. I’d been sent to assist Marcos with his election. He’d announced it. My next move hinged on further instructions.

  *

  A Mercedes sedan pulled up at the Manila Hotel portal close enough to 0900 to attribute the delay to traffic, and the driver opened the door for Juan Ponce Enrile to step out and greet me. The Minister of Defense, at least, seemed not to operate on “Filipino time.” “I am pleased to meet you, Mr. Philco,” he said, with a manner more austere than the people I’d met at the Palace party. The man had gravity. “Please join me, and we will tour some of the sights of Metro Manila.” He motioned me into the back seat of the car. I scooched over to make room for him, and the doorman closed us in.

  As we pulled away and headed down the driveway Enrile said, “President Marcos thought I would be an appropriate tour guide. Although I am Minister of Defense right now, in the past I was Secretary of Finance and Secretary of Justice, as well as on the boards of the Philippine National Oil Company, the Philippine Coconut Authority and the Philippine National Bank. So I am well-qualified to explain to you many facets of the Philippine economic situation. I thought first we would drive through the Makati district, the heart of Philippine commercial activity, for an overview.” Well-qualified he certainly was, but also it was becoming clear to me that a close clique controlled this country—a very few men held many important offices each.

  The driver rolled us slowly through modest canyons of office buildings old and new in the Makati district. Enrile expounded on the ownership and functions of the chief ones, also pointing out various foreign embassies as we passed by them. I nodded sagely and posed investment-bankerish questions. Then we turned toward the waterfront, not far away.

  “What’s that?” I asked him, pointing to a vehicle crossing our bow as we waited at a traffic stop. It looked like a roving stainless steel diner that had been outfitted by Ken Kesey’s Merrie Pranksters in one of their more acid-trippy moods.

  “A jeepney. It’s like a tram, public transportation. They are used throughout the Philippines. They follow specified routes and cost a pittance, so they are very popular with the people. Should you venture onto one, and I strongly advise you against doing that, you must hold your wallet in a safe place and keep your eyes open. Pickpockets abound on them, and you would be a prime target.”

  Manila Bay affords an excellent natural harbor, and its commercial port facilities were big and busy, if behind more developed, modern seaports like Singapore and Hamburg. Freighters of various flags took on cargoes of agricultural goods; hoists and cranes swung containers of manufactured goods onto wharfside stacks; and tankers piped petroleum products and chemicals to and from storage tanks. I commented that the port was outdated compared to others I’d seen around the world, and Enrile told me that was one of the critical reasons for needing loans—to modernize the Manila harbor facilities.

  “It seems to me that, as busy a port as it is, private investors and sound management could turn a good profit here,” I remarked. “Has the government made any effort to seek private money for upgrading the facilities?”

  “It’s a matter of retaining control,” he said. “We want the port to remain in Filipino hands.”

  “How about the government surpluses? With proper structuring, the government could use those to improve the port and come out ahead on tax revenues.”

  “What government surpluses?” Enrile asked with surprise. “What are you talking about?”

  “According to a spreadsheet I compiled from the data I have been gathering,” I said, “as far as I could tell, every year the government takes in more than in spends.”

  “Oh no no no,” he insisted. “There are no surpluses. Never. It is the idiosyncrasies of our accounting regulations that make it appear so. Loans are critical to our economy. As well as foreign aid. It has always been thus. We spend every centavo wisely, believe me. But come to think of it, your consortium could obviate the difficulty you raise
by structuring the loan in tranches, with the shipyard tranch subordinated to the general domestic improvements tranch and carrying a variable interest rate pegged to annualized discounted forward gross revenues, indexed to the prior 60 day moving average of the piso/US dollar exchange rate and predicated on the current disbursement of the sinking fund … would that be a possibility?”

  Whatever he said. “We normally don’t do them that way, Juan, but anything is possible. I’ll propose your idea to the committee. I’m sure they will listen sympathetically.”

  “Oh, I know it is possible because the loan from the Sultan of Brunei was exactly of that nature. You must have reviewed our debt history…?”

  “Yes, yes, we always do that, we research our loans very thoroughly. Maybe I was confusing it with the loan from the Bank of Japan.” Hoping there had been one.

  “Hmmm…” After an awkward pause he veered the discussion to other topics, leaving me wondering who was bullshitting whom the most.

  We returned to the Makati district for a swank lunch at a swank rooftop restaurant where Enrile seemed to know everyone in sight on a first name basis. What with endless greet-and-chats and laid-back service, we weren’t on the road until 2:30. For the afternoon phase of the tour we careered south of the city along country highways lined with tall palm trees and beyond them farms and plantations growing coconuts, rice, sugar cane and table vegetables. Sugar and coconut products were the major Philippine exports, he said, but their profitability suffered because of poor infrastructure, which the loan would help alleviate. We tooled past shacks pieced together of bamboo, weathered boards and rusty corrugated steel, as well as occasional battered ship containers converted to other uses by means of doors and windows crudely gouged out of their walls. The palm-shaded villages didn’t amount to much out there, and towns we breezed through were squalid little slums where thatched roofs were popular. Skinny laborers hoed and chopped and toted and sweated beneath straw hats fending off the beating sun. We reached the shore of a big bay, the island’s major fishing port. You couldn’t mistake the smell. The boats, buildings, piers, processing plants and storage sheds made for quaint postcards of exotic tropical climes, but their commercial adequacy didn’t impress. Here, too, the proposed loan would work economic wonders, Enrile assured me.

  We’d passed my dinnertime but approached Filipino dinnertime by the time we re-entered Manila proper. Enrile insisted I join him for the evening meal, which I gladly did. Neither for lunch, nor for dinner, did he steer us to Filipino cuisine, I noted. Think about the last time you saw a Philippine eatery on restaurant row among the Italian, Chinese, Mexican, Indian, Thai, French and Japanese restaurants where you live. Hmmm, there wasn’t any “last time”? There are reasons for that, principally that indig Filipino food is very bland. He took me to a steakhouse—well, more than just a run-of-the-mill steakhouse—and over a leisurely meal lubricated with a decent burgundy or three I learned more about Senor Enrile.

  JUAN PONCE ENRILE’S STORY

  Like others in the government here, Enrile had been well-trained in law, with a master’s from Harvard. A few years younger than Marcos and Romulo, he’d not been as active during the War. After a stint as a practicing lawyer he entered politics, working for Marcos as he ascended the political ranks. By the time Marcos became president in 1965 Enrile was in the inner circle. He held several offices, and Marcos made him Defense Chief in 1972. An ambush of his car later that year gave Marcos a pretext for declaring martial law, which stayed in force for nine years. “Filipinos are enthusiastic gossips, and if they don’t know the facts they are prone to inventing any fantastic yarn that fits the occasion and the audience,” he told me. “If you talk to enough people you will eventually hear that the ambush was a staged assassination attempt as an excuse for martial law, so I might as well admit to you that it was,” he said. “Shortly thereafter someone attacked Imelda with a bolo knife, and considering the severe injuries she sustained, no one has ever asserted that was faked at all. She was handing out awards at an outdoor ceremony and one of the awardees came at her. She instinctively crossed her arms in front of her chest, thereby averting being killed on the spot.

  “Soon after that I got on the wrong side of Imelda,” Enrile confided. “As Defense Chief I was responsible for enforcing the travel ban on political enemies. As it happened a mother wanted her daughter, who was married to an exiled rebel, to be allowed to come to have her baby born in the Philippines. That was against the law, so I refused permission. Imelda was outraged that I would enforce a law rather than bow to her whim, and she has never forgiven me. She even screamed at me, when others could hear, ‘You are swell-headed! But I can tell you this—I am going to destroy you!’ All because I did not humor one of her fancies. After that, she had me put under surveillance by General Ver’s men, out of fear that I might be a threat to her ambitions. Last year I ran for assemblyman, and despite her active support for my opponent, I won the office. And it was Imelda’s doing that Ver became the President’s Chief of Staff over me, though while he is on trial for the Aquino murder he has temporarily stepped down. In her eyes I am a pariah, not that it matters much. After they killed Ninoy Aquino I’ve been gravitating toward the opposition in any event. She dares not attack me overtly, but I take care not to stand near open windows when Imelda is nearby.

  “You may wonder why I’m telling you about internal political matters that would seem best to keep from outsiders. No doubt this excellent wine has loosened my tongue. But your bank is contemplating loans to the Philippine government, and it is only fair to warn you that not all is well with this government. I would be remiss to lead you into a false understanding of current conditions. The Philippines need the money desperately, yes, but perhaps it would be prudent not to float any big loans while Marcos and his wife remain in power.”

  “Marcos seemed confident enough when he announced the election on Sunday,” I ventured. “Why would he hold an election two years before his term runs out?”

  “Because he’s not confident at all,” said Enrile. “Opposition against him now runs more strongly than at any time in the past. Recently there has been talk in the Philippine Assembly about beginning impeachment proceedings against him. But you won’t hear much about that because Marcos has been shutting down papers and broadcasting stations that he doesn’t control, and he will shut down more of the opposition papers if they stray too far. You would learn more truth about the Philippines back home in the States than you’ll hear in Manila. Your Senator Laxalt, for example, saw the situation clearly and has been spreading the truth to your newspapers. Those stories will not be reprinted in Manila, except by the underground press.”

  “Isn’t Marcos taking a chance, then, standing for election?”

  “On the contrary, he’s holding the election to shore up his position. He’ll buy it and rig it and steal it and miscount it as he has every other election he’s ever run in. It isn’t who casts the votes, but who counts the votes that matter, Stalin supposedly said. In the Philippines, Ferdinand Marcos counts the votes. The ones he doesn’t burn, that is. He has crates of money that he will use to buy votes out in the islands, and when the votes are collected many of the ones against him will disappear. Disappearing them could amount to quite a task, as such votes will be very numerous in this election. When he’s decided enough votes are in the bag he’ll announce his victory, and his forces will rough up some of the opposition and throw some others in jail. And the reign of Ferdinand Marcos will roll on.”

  “There’s no way the opposition could steal the election, then?”

  “That is a most funny joke you make, Mr. Philco. Out-cheat Ferdinand Marcos in his own backyard? Satan himself could not accomplish that.”

  “Who will run against him?” I asked.

  “No one of importance—the usual suspects, as they say in the movies. Though many Filipinos, perhaps the majority, oppose Marcos, he has made sure to keep the politi
cal opposition weak through bribery, intimidation, exile and jail terms. A few politicians here and there in the islands will mount token campaigns aimed at boosting their stock in their own districts. The opposition taken together is disorganized, underfunded and demoralized, with insufficient time or resources to mobilize voters. Their vote will be split among several candidates, which even if by some miracle the total surpassed Marcos would give none a winning margin. Sad to say for my country, but Ferdinand Marcos will once again coast to victory.”

  Enrile took me back to the Manila Hotel and let off at the door with these words: “Mr. Philco, I am delighted to have had the opportunity to conduct you on a tour of our capital city and to show what great benefits will flow from the loan your bank is considering. I hope the day was as informative for you as it was for me, and be assured that my office is always open to you. Call on me at any time I can be of service. By the way, my friends call me ‘Johnny.’ Oh, and a word to the wise. A genuine investment banker would have laughed me out of the car after my doubletalk about the shipyard tranch. You are very good, but be careful.”

  Oops. It’s easy enough to fake your way through an hour or two meeting with people who have a set message to deliver, but giving someone as sharp as Enrile a whole day to poke and probe is asking for it. Who knows what all I unknowingly gave away? Still, his parting invitation sounded sincere, even though my investment banker act hadn’t been entirely convincing. I hope he meant what he said about “friends.”