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What is it about betrayal that excites us so?

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As I read the account of General Ver’s daughter Wanna, unfold before my eyes, how could I not relate to her royalette upbringing in a Forbes Park mansion right in the neighborhood of foreign diplomats.

Her father, the most trusted soldier to Philippine’s dictator President Ferdinand Marcos, Sr. Wanna was brought up in such a sheltered, guarded childhood that when she wanted to see the movie “Bambi” with her classmates, she was not allowed to join them but instead, got a baby deer brought down from Baguio by her father’s military officers.

General Ver was extremely tied up in work at Malacañang and lavished the daughter with gifts. A fan of “Wonder Woman” Lynda Carter gave her a personal autograph in her MANILA hotel room arranged on orders from her Daddy.

Mommy was Edna Camcam, the General’s longtime companion and when the People’s Power revolution overthrew the Marcoses, General Ver and his first family flew with them to Hawaii while Edna, Wanna and her sister escaped to Hongkong where they were separated, searched and questioned which traumatized the 8 year old.

She asked her father when they were reunited why they were constantly moving from one country to another. “The less you know, the safer you are,” General Ver replied. 

Wanna had a Yaya named Tarcella Cerbules, or “Nanay,” as Wanna’s family called her, helped the young girl develop a sense of empathy. Nanay was the only staff in Wanna’s home not from Ilocos Norte or Cagayan, the Marcos’ supporters base. “Nanay was from a poor province in Iloilo. She made me understand that many Filipinos didn’t have anything, and reminded me to not take my good fortune for granted.”

I ponder this issue because I was an “exile” during the martial law days when Mamá refused to have me in Bacolod for more than 10 days, shooing me off back to Europe just when I was enjoying Boracay and Sicogon where friends would fly me in their private planes.

It was only later I learned that Mamá thought I’d be so traumatized with the brown-outs and the heavy pall the Don Juan tragedy brought to our island that I’d never go back home again after Paris. Well, Wanna was also in exile, but was taught that the Philippines had needed heavy-handed martial rule to fight poverty and communism, and usher in a golden age. For a good part of her life, she believed that Marcos did many positive things for her country. 

Like Wanna, I became a global citizen made to understand “that multiple PR firms were hired internationally to tarnish the Marcos name, so, when I saw anti-Marcos news, I wrote it off as foreign propaganda.” The next two decades, while Wanna tried to separate herself from politics, friends encouraged her to write her memoir.

In an effort to reconcile her conflicting understanding, and to work out how she would eventually tell her family’s story to her child, her research revealed opposing martial law narratives but it was viewing Lauren Greenfield’s documentary, “The Kingmaker” that had the most impact. “It was the human rights survivors that made me finally realize that the Marcos’ Golden Age history was a fabrication.

“The Kingmaker” showed Ferdinand Marcos Jr. being asked whether he should apologize for the abuses of his father’s regime. His response: “What am I to say sorry about?”

Wanna thinks differently: “I feel like a million sorries is not enough,” she said. “I needed to learn the truth of what happened so I could tell a different story, to help those without a voice to tell their story… because of the role my father played in their suffering.” 

Is an apology a betrayal to one’s family’s deadly mistakes? I still remember how a portrait of an unnourished child from Negros Island make the cover of Time Magazine. Wanna realized the Golden Age narrative had been propagated to obscure the documented facts and paved the way for the restoration of the Marcoses to power. 

“I know I am not at fault for my father’s actions, but I believe listening to survivor accounts and offering an apology on his behalf requires relatively little effort on my part, and could potentially alleviate substantial suffering for them.” How little an effort could have made the Philippines whole again this next election.

MY PRAYER

Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward.” Psalm 127*

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