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
Philippine Daily Inquirer

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.

She talked about Ninoy

“We reminisced about the past,” Azizah later said. “She talked about Ninoy when he was in jail.”

Ninoy was thrown in prison for eight years by the dictator Ferdinand Marcos upon the declaration of martial law in 1972. He was later freed, went on self-exile in the United States for three years and was murdered on his return in 1983 to rally the opposition against Marcos.

Since stepping down as President in 1992, Aquino has taken on the cause of husbands, wives and daughters of political leaders who had met violent fates.

She once read a letter smuggled out of Burma (Myanmar) on behalf of detained Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.

Aquino also gave Azizah a political pulpit in Manila to seek justice for her then jailed husband in Malaysia.

Another former President, the convicted plunderer Joseph Estrada, hosted the evening of sumptuous food, wine and song last Friday in his opulent, centrally air-conditioned residence on Polk Street in the wealthy Greenhills subdivision in San Juan.

He railed at gas price hikes

Beside Estrada stood his wife Loi Ejercito who, while her husband was detained on plunder charges for six years, had run and won a Senate seat, just as Azizah did.

Anwar had come for a two-day visit, met with ousted House Speaker Jose de Venecia, former President Fidel Ramos and Senate President and presidential aspirant Manuel Villar.

He was a guest speaker at a forum on Friday afternoon. There, he railed at the 40 percent increase in petroleum prices in Malaysia announced only a day earlier. He thought it was “unconscionable” for a country that exports oil to set petroleum rates at global levels for its own people.

Anwar also promised he would ask the Kuala Lumpur government to keep the team of Malaysian peacekeepers, which is on the last stages of withdrawal, in Mindanao.

After he emerged from prison four years ago, Anwar cobbled together the Peoples Alliance of opposition parties that last March won in five of Malaysia’s 13 states.

The alliance is seeking a no-confidence vote on the government of Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi who had a falling-out with the powerful former premier Mahathir Mohammad, Anwar’s jailer.

A ban on Anwar seeking political office ended last April.

Anwar was unable to run for parliament during the general elections last March because of the ban being still in effect.

Political analysts say it is likely that Azizah will become prime minister and hold the post for her husband.

Anwar could ask an ally to resign so he could then run for the vacant seat in Parliament to pave the way to the premiership, something he hopes he will get in September.

Honored guest

If that happens, Estrada might well be at Anwar’s inaugural.

“He will be one of the first few to be invited,” Anwar said.

“There’s a long way to go. I came to seek the advice of my great friend,” he told reporters after posing for pictures with Estrada.

“I’ve been looking forward to this,” he said.

“We don’t have that many loyal friends. I look at him as part of my family. He has a good heart. He has a passion for the poor and for justice. It’s too strong,” he said.

Visit to Estrada denied

Upon his release, Anwar had wanted to visit Estrada, whom he described as a “mutual friend” while the latter was under “rest house arrest” in his rambling Tanay estate.

“The least I could do was to go and express my sympathy and ask for his welfare,” said Anwar who came last September but was not allowed to visit Estrada by the antigraft court that was trying the ousted President for plunder.

Estrada was convicted of plunder last year, sentenced to 40 years in jail, but was pardoned by President Macapagal-Arroyo.

Estrada and Anwar met for the first time when the actor-turned-politician was the country’s vice president and the one-time Islamic firebrand was deputy prime minister.

When Estrada was President, he met with the wife and daughter of Anwar, enraging Mahathir and causing a diplomatic flap.

In his conversations with Estrada, Anwar said the two picked up “what we discussed 15, 20 years ago.” Asked if he had something in common with Estrada, Anwar replied, “We are both quite handsome.”

Anwar also was very pleased that Aquino had come out of her way to see him. She stayed for two hours.

“I had to persuade her to leave earlier. In her condition, it could be bad,” he said.

Asked if he expected to see Estrada in Malacañang in 2010, he smiled and said: “That’s, of course, for the Filipino people to decide. But he’s a great friend and to my mind, I believe in his passion for justice, for the goodness of the people.”