Truman’s prophecy
Adrian E.. Cristobal


LONG before Reagan became president, Harry S. Truman dropped not only the atom bomb but also a prophecy.



“A good politician,” he said, “has had to be 75 percent ability and 25 percent actor, but I can well see the day when the reverse could be true.” He did not live long enough to see that day happen but the rest of the world did.


We could have seen it even ahead of America had matinee idol Rogelio “Roger’’ de la Rosa (senator and ambassador to Cambodia and the Hague under the Macapagal and Marcos administrations) not withdrawn from the presidential race in 1961. Roger’s candidacy was conceived by some of President Carlos P. Garcia’s overly clever advisers to “steal’’ votes from erstwhile brotherin-law, Diosdado Macapagal. Magsaysay “boys’’ Col. Mondonedo and Maj. Jose M. Crisol were the “technopols,’’ aka political technicians, behind De la Rosa.


But the plan backfired and Cong Dadong Macapagal won the presidency.


Why? The Garcia group stopped funding RDR’s bakya at salakot (wooden shoes and straw helmet) movement, which had gathered a million or more “card-carrying’’ members. Roger was mobbed by fans wherever he went. The “clear and present danger’’ was that he would win and thus become the first movie actorpresident. There are certain things in which we are ahead of the United States.


Not long after the presidential campaign, popular TV host Eddie Ilarde was elected to the Senate, albeit without landing on top of the slate. If memory serves, he also proposed changing the country’s name to Maharlika. Martial Law overtook his term, which, if not distinguished, was not disgraceful either. Moreover, he had married into a distinguished Visayan political family. (Roger was no disgrace as an ambassador either.)


These recollections validate the Truman prophecy. Today’s actor-president and would-beactor-president, as well as would-be senators, owe the opening of their political careers to Rogelio de la Rosa and Eddie Ilarde. They set the trend nipped in the bud by 12 years of Martial Law. That trend has come back with a vengeance.


Politicians helped along by converting campaigns into a performance art.

Yeah,FPJ will surely win the May polls!

FPJ was victimized by election fraud by you know who.

Ow, c'mon...even if it was true which i highly doubt, i still don't want to see the likes of rez cortes being appointed as DILG or Defense Secretary.

R.I.P FPJ.

GMA all the way!

wait, wtf. This thread is ancient.