The President and His PaperMate
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President Fidel V. Ramos and the author, when he revealed that he ghost-wrote many of the President's speeches.
When I returned to UP from my graduate studies in 1991, I went straight back to teaching as an Assistant Professor, and was in dire need of a sideline to tide me over. Sometime in early 1993, one of my friends from my old job at NEDA pulled me into an outfit that had only one task: write speeches for FVR. On top of the operation was a master of prose who became one of my most important mentors, the late writer Johnny Gatbonton, ably assisted by another very fine writer, Yen Makabenta.
Over the next five years until FVR’s term ended, I wrote over 600 speeches for him (all of them still on my hard drive). Some days I wrote as many as four speeches, on anything from the PMA graduation and the Famas Awards to a bridge inauguration and a Gridiron dinner. Now and then I got to work on something major, like a SONA (which actually takes a village to produce, and it often shows). Most of the time, it was entirely up to us to conjure up the contents of the speech; all we got was the occasion, the date, and the deadline.
Not once in all those years did FVR and I meet as principal and ghost writer. As far as he was concerned, I never existed. And that was all well and good, because our operation was kept strictly compartmentalized, far from the Palace, and out of reach of ministerial intrigue. I worked on a Mac with floppy disks, but we didn’t even have email then and the speeches had to be printed out and faxed to the Palace.
FVR was a great guy to write for, because he read what you wrote, and understood what he was reading. He wasn’t a flashy orator—his constant harping on “Philippines 2000” has been described as boring—but as an engineer, he had a good grasp of the facts, and occasionally even tried to be (and was) funny. Very rarely did we get a draft back with his marginal comments written in red—using the PaperMate Flair felt-tip pens he must have consumed by the box.
In one bizarre—you might say postmodern—instance, by the luck of the draw (assignments were doled out randomly), I was assigned to write FVR’s speech for the Palanca Awards, at which one of the First Prize awardees was, well, me. Normally (as they do in the courts) I should have recused myself and passed it on to someone else out of sheer modesty, but heck, I wasn’t about to let some amateur make FVR spout nonsense about Philippine literature (and miss saying how great our writers were and how much they deserved more support), so I took it on. He delivered what I thought was a terrific speech, and shook my hand as one of the winners—too briefly that I didn’t even get to whisper, “I wrote your speech!”
We finally met again many years later in his Makati office, when I had to interview him for a book. It was then that I found the gumption to reveal to him that I was one of his ghost writers, and we had a good laugh. He ordered our picture taken doing the thumbs-up sign, and gave me a ton of his books (he does that for all his visitors, so it was nothing special).
But I couldn’t leave without asking him for one favor (I’m terribly shy about favors, or about being seen to receive them; when FVR’s term was ending, they offered to bring me along on his last US trip, but I declined). I saw that he was signing his books with one of his red Flair pens, so I said: “Sir, can I ask for that pen?” He couldn’t say no, so I now have a presidential pen, never mind that its nib dries up.
The presidential red Papermate pen that FVR gave to the author.
I’ve written speeches for many politicians (and a few other presidents, except the incumbent and the previous two), but FVR was one (aside from Cory) who made me feel like I wasn’t lying, especially when he spoke about how good a country we could truly be. Corny, yes, but heartfelt.
I’m not naive enough to think that he wasn’t without his issues—but which president wasn’t? I know the Left still berates him for having been the martial-law PC chief and for allowing Marcos’ body to come home, and there were allegations of corruption relating to the Centennial project, his paramour, etc. I do have to say that even having gone to martial-law prison, I think much less of FVR as my jailer than the general who rebelled against his CIC (commander-in-chief) at EDSA, and who (unlike his partner Juan Ponce Enrile) never turned back on that decision. As far as the corruption charges go, he was either innocent, or extremely good at hiding any hidden wealth he may have amassed, because he led a modest life to the end, as did his family.
What I do know is that, as with PNoy, we felt good when he was president, and had such high hopes that our future would be better under such capable leadership.
How wrong we were, which is why I miss the man.
Aside from being a multi-awarded writer and a retired professor, Jose “Butch” Dalisay, Jr. is a retired professor and an avid collector of old fountain pens, various gadgets and rare books.
This piece was first posted on his Facebook page.
