PELAEZ WAS MINDANAO’S MOST EMINENT POLITICAL FIGURE OF LAST CENTURY -- PIMENTEL
The late Vice President Emmanuel Pelaez was the most eminent and most decent political figure of Mindanao in the last century, Senator Aquilino Pimentel Jr. (PDP-Laban) today said at the necrological services at the Senate for the respected leader who passed away at the age of 87.
If there was a politician for whom the adjective “honorable” was coined, Pimentel said it was for Pelaez because he kept his honor in public life, in private life and wherever he went.
“Although we were at odds politically speaking at various points of my political career, I must say that Maning, as we his brethren from Mindanao would call him fondly, was Mindanao’s most eminent political figure of the last century,” he said.
Pimentel described Pelaez as a visionary and a practical politician at the same time.
“When we speak of protecting one’s good name in public office, we remember Maning, the vice president. When we speak of Minsupala, the organization of Mindanao, Sulu and Palawan, we remember Maning the political organizer. When we speak of rural electrification, we remember Maning, the assemblyman. When we speak of the Barrio Charter, we remember Maning, the senator. When we speak of bettering the lot of tenants, we remember Maning, the congressman,” he said.
Even when warlordism was in vogue in many parts of the republic, Pimentel said Pelaez never engaged in strong-arm tactics to gain political control. Pimentel said Pelaez was never a warlord. He persuaded people to join him by the force of reason, not by reason of force.
In fact, Pimentel said, were it not for Pelaez’s brand of democratic politics, he would not have tried to vie for public support in the electoral arena. If Pelaez was a political terrorist and assassin, Pimentel said he would never have become a politician himself and would never have succeeded in landing various elective offices in his home province, Misamis Oriental and its capital, Cagayan de Oro City and eventually nationally.
“All things considered, I think Maning was, arguably, the most decent political personality ever to grace the electoral landscape of Mindanao in the last century,” he said.
Pimentel said Pelaez’s spotless record as congressman, senator, vice president and ambassador and the fact that he had only one wife, Edith, was an honest indictment of the way other politicians lived their public lives.
“Because he was such a decent man, Maning was like a fish bone stuck in the esophagus of many of his contemporaries in politics,” he said.
The senator from Mindanao said Pelaez stood out head and shoulders over other political figures of his time not only in the realm of integrity but also in paying his dues for the things he stood for.
He said Pelaez’s enemies in high places of government, for instance, had him ambushed almost fatally in 1982 for expressing his concerns over the coconut policies of the government then.
But true to his calling, Pimentel said Pelaez forgave those who tried to take his life. He said he could testify personally because sometime after the murderous attempt on Pelaez’s life, he relayed to the ex-vice president the information that there were two witnesses who were prepared to identify his assailants. However, he said Pelaez simply shrugged off his shoulders and sighed that he had left the matter up to the Good Lord; and that, to him, was then end of the story.
“Because Maning had blazed a trail of competence, integrity, decency and democratic praxis in the political thickets of Mindanao, we who have come after him know that the doomsday drumbeaters who see nothing good ever coming to the country are wrong. For we see a light at the end of the tunnel that was borne of Maning Pelaez, a good human being, a good public servant, a good family man, a good Christian,” Pimentel said.
Date: July 31, 2003
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