(2nd of two parts)
John Osmeña said he was tasked to secure the other opposition leaders.
“I was asked to seek shelter for Nene Pimentel, Monching Mitra and Neptali Gonzales. And this was still Martial Law, it was extremely dangerous for people to aid us. We found houses in Mabolo, Guadalupe and Lahug where we distributed them.”
In an era where the Internet and cellular phones were even beyond imagination, the people that night were glued on transistor radios that were relaying broadcast reports from Manila.
The next day, Feb. 23, the opposition leaders fetched Cory from the monastery. A military general approached them and offered them protection. The officer said there would be no troop movements in Cebu as the local chain of command was paralyzed with the tug-of-war between the Marcos forces led by chief-of-staff, Gen. Fabian C. Ver and the rebels led by Enrile and Ramos.
Osmeña said they were able to borrow three private planes to fly Cory and the opposition leaders from the Lahug airfield (now the Cebu IT Park) to Manila.
“Just as they were closing the door of the Cessna, Monching Mitra was telling me to go with them, ‘Hali ka na! Panalo na tayo! Ano bang gusto mong cabinet position?’” Osmeña remembers, laughing aloud at how Mitra could still “think of such things in the middle of the mess.”
Osmeña said he did not hop on the plane as he didnt want Cebuanos to think that he was running away. He turned to the American consul who was behind him and told him that it would be wise to notify the US Embassy that Cory and her group were arriving on three planes.
“So they scrambled US jets in Clark (air base) to provide security just in case Marcos got wind of it and decide to shoot them down.”
With Cory in Manila, nothing much happened in Cebu after that, said Osmeña. “We were walking and driving around like free birds.”
On February 25, Mitra, who was his colleague in Congress and in the infamous Plaza Miranda bombing, called him up and asked him to fly to Manila to witness Cory’s oath-taking at the Club Filipino in San Juan.
“I had a front row seat when Cory took oath. But of course there was no photo of me, naturally all the photographers were focused on Cory. (Ernesto) Maceda is photographed at the back as if he had something to do with it,” he said.
(Editor’s note: Maceda was a Marcos presidential assistant who headed the agency from where the Department of the Interior and Local Government was formed. He was in the rival Nacionalista senatorial slate in the 1971 elections. Maceda later on broke away from Marcos and joined the opposition ranks. He became Cory’s environment minister before getting drafted, together with Osmeña, as the administration party’s candidates in the 1987 senatorial elections.)
Day 1 of Cory’s presidency, opposition leaders packed the Cojuangco Building in Makati which became the de facto Malacañang. They were scrambling for positions.
“Ang bagal bagal mo,” he said quoting Mitra, who was named agriculture minister, as telling him.
“I was the only Osmeña in Cebu then. Si Tommy was hiding in Los Angeles. Serge was in the US, Lito was not politically inclined. But I told Nene Pimentel who was doing local governments, ‘Ne gusto ko mayor ng Cebu ha.’ Nene said ‘O sige, sige.’”
“I told him buhati nako ug appointment. He said ‘Ahhh naay makinilya diha pag type diha.’ And so I sat down on the typewriter and typed my own appointment.”
When he came back to Cebu, Osmeña said he had to break open the door of the Office of the Mayor.
He served 11 months as Cebu City’s OIC mayor.
Looking back, Osmeña’s major realization is that the Filipinos “lack hard core commitment” to democracy.
“We accepted Martial Law readily. But I think we have learned our lesson. Now I hear Bongbong Marcos is running, I doubt if he will win. The phrase “Never Again” will be a battlecry.”/with inputs from Managing Editor Ares P. Gutierrez
PART 1: SONNY’S SIDE UP: ‘Filipinos lack hard core commitment to democracy’