 
Sekembalinya dari Manila, saya agak sibuk memenuhi jadual harian. Tidak berkesempatan untuk bercerita tentang pengalaman semasa di sana.
Memenuhi undangan, akhirnya saya sempat ketemu juga dengan teman lama, bertanya khabar dan berkongsi pandangan sambil mengimbau kisah lampau. Cory Aquino masih tegar menyambut saya sekalipun masih kurang berdaya kerana rawatan kimoterapi. Azizah dan beliau berborak panjang kisah diktator disana yang kurang lebih hikayatnya sama seperti di tanah air.
Saya turut memenuhi undangan bekas Presiden Filipina dan teman baik saya Joseph Estrada untuk makan malam bersama di rumahnya di San Juan. Bercerita saat pahit manis ketika di tahanan cukup menyegarkan kami. Estrada tampak semakin kacak walaupun sudah menjangkau usia. Beliau turut prihatin dengan perkembangan saya di sini dan terkejut dengan isu-isu yang tampaknya hampir seabad tidak ada noktahnya. Pun begitu azam dan fikrahnya saya fikir masih tetap utuh untuk membela nasib marhaen seluruhnya.
Disamping itu, saya turut berkesempatan bertemu dengan Jose de Venecia, Manual Villar dan bekas President Fidel Ramos. Sempat saya mengambil nota berbincang perkara yang tidak kurang pentingnya untuk bekalan di Malaysia. Saya kemudian bergegas memenuhi satu undangan forum dan menegaskan bahawa adalah sesuatu yang sangat mendukacitakan apabila kerajaan Malaysia sebagai sebuah negara pengeluar minyak, terus enak menekan rakyatnya sendiri demi memuaskan tembolok penguasa.
ANWAR IBRAHIM
“Anwar says Erap like a member of his family“, Philippine Headline News, June 8 2008
“Aquino, Estrada, Anwar: Evening of memories“, Inquirer, June 8, 2008
By Fernando del Mundo
THEIR TIES WERE BOUND IN GOOD TIMES and bad, and for one special evening they shared memories of triumph and tragedy.
There was Anwar Ibrahim, 60, former deputy prime minister of Malaysia. He had been thrown in jail for six years as he sought to become premier. He is now on the cusp of political restoration.
There was his wife Wan Azizah Ismail. She had struggled to seek justice for her husband who she said was jailed on trumped-up charges of corruption and sodomy. She had tried to fill the political shoes of her husband and became a member of the Malaysian parliament.
There was Corazon Aquino, now cancer-stricken, the icon of People Power revolutions in countries yearning to be free, and the widow of martyred opposition leader Benigno “Ninoy†Aquino.
Wearing her trademark yellow, the former President was making a rare social appearance since it was announced that she would be undergoing chemotherapy, to attend a soiree in honor of one she had inspired.
Looking wan and even slighter than she did only a few months ago, Aquino nevertheless engaged in an animated conversation with Azizah during most of the evening. (more…)
