

He held every major portfolio in the governments of Mike Pearson and Pierre Trudeau. He brought home the Constitution and gave us a Charter of Rights. With three back-to-back majorities, he is the winningest prime minister in modern times.

When he became governor years later, he fought for peace.Jean Chretien is a winner at politics - and at putting together a cabinet, too.Ĭonsider this: During his 40-year political career, he never lost an election. Barbo lived to fight another day, as the saying goes. "A Scout is: trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent."īarbo could almost tell that Collado had become a Boy Scout himself by the way the latter eased up on his prey. "On my honor, I will do my best: to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law to help other people at all times to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight. Pakita mong Boy Scout ka nga, i-recite mo ang Scout Law!" "Kasi kami po, once a Boy Scout, always a Boy Scout." "Gago! Tang ina ka, tanda mo na, Boy Scout ka pa!" "Boy Scout po ako, left po ang ginagamit namin sa pakikipagkamay, dahil mas malapit ang kaliwa sa puso." At this point, he said he was leaving everything up to fate. Fear, anger, pain, humiliation and helplessness combined to leave him groping for self-preservation devices. His wife, Rebecca Arambulo, with whom he eloped months earlier to the gross displeasure of his mother-in-law, was pregnant with their first child. None of his family members knew where he was. "Leftist ako, Sir, pero hindi ako komunista," he tried to explain.īarbo knew of red-tagged desaparecidos who never re-appeared, assumed to be dead.

Thankfully, he cried his guts out when another blow caught him in the liver. He did not feel any pain at all when Collado hit him on the chest. "If you get hit and you don't feel the pain, that means you are close to being dead." "P****g ina, pinatagal mo po, aamin ka rin pala!"īoxing champion Joe Frazier said something about being thankful when, as one traded heavy blows with an opponent inside the ring, he could feel the pain. Wretched, physically drained and roundly humiliated, he was barely awake when he said something that angered the interrogators even more. "Gusto namin makakita ng puwet ng isang abogado!" Was he being charged by association?Īt Camp Aguinaldo where he spent the next 26 hours without food, deprived of sleep, but generously cursed and yelled at, his captors, led by one whom he vaguely remembered as Major Collado, ordered him to strip. He took a look at the piece of paper and saw his name in a list of six people, and one other name which he recognized.
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He was counsel for the Brotherhood of Nationalistic, Involved and Free Attorneys to Combat Injustice and Oppression (Bonifacio). Barbo, a young lawyer, chose to be closer to being a reform advocate than a revolutionary hunk, driven by force of reason rather than by reason of force. We often hear that martial law was a good time to be a rebel, and the radical ones went as far as to take up arms to resist it. Unluckily for him, his arrest and detention during martial law got in the way. Years before becoming a public servant (Cory Aquino appointed him as OIC vice governor in 1986), he was being groomed to become the first Filipino vice president of Pepsi Cola Philippines. Barbo countered: Good thing you had a duplicate copy, always prepared, like a Boy Scout.Īt some other time, he told me that being a Boy Scout had probably saved him from summary execution. Good thing, I said, the President was ready with his rescue repartee, like a Boy Scout. Days after the Ramos meeting, the governor ribbed me for the PowerPoint gaffe.
