Lead and Gold

About the Book, "LEAD AND GOLD": First there are the jokes to entertain you, to put you in a good mood, 11 of them, about Maria, the Mexican maid, the dumb blond stories, the priest and the hairdryer, a dead duck - you'll enjoy them all. And then a short piece on the Seville Exposition in Spain celebrating the 500th anniversary of discovery of America by Columbus, and the emergence of Spanish glory as the greatest power on earth. Not well attended by Europeans and Americans, it nevertheless was the best there was because it is the first to highlight the more important things on this planet -- the imperatives of environment and energy, the origin of the universe and man's purpose upon this earth, his past, his future, and the common humanity of all men. And now for the pièce de resistánce, the early years of the Fidel Ramos Administration, 1992 through 1993, a time of great promise for Henares for Ramos is family to him, the godson of his mother Conching, and the godfather to his son Atom. In his first interview with Newsweek, Ramos disputed the allegation that he was an "American boy", decried the domination of Washington over Philippine affairs "to the exclusion of all else," he said. "But now we need to look to our neighbors. We can't be a lonesome cowboy anymore." He prepared a five-point program: to restore political stability after so many attempted coups, to rebuild the battered economy where American influence insured the dominance of foreign monopolies and kept us from industrializing, to streamline the bureaucracy steeped in redundancy and corruption, protect the environment, and to develop power projects to end the daily brownouts. Fidel Valdez Ramos is called Eddie even if his Christian name is not Eduardo, because his parents admired and nicknamed him after the American poet Edgar A. Guest, famous for the facility of his verse. His most famous poem, "It Couldn't Be Done" may set the tone of the Ramos administration determined to accomplish the impossible: There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done, / There are thousands to prophesy failure;/ There are thousands to to point out to you one by one, / The dangers that await to assail you. / But just buckle in with a bit of a grin, / Just take off your coat and go to it;/ Just start in to sing as you tackle the thing/ That "cannot be done," and you'll do it. With the loss of the Bases, Americans no longer shovel mountainous heaps of bovine ordure in our direction, preferring instead "to speak softly and carry a big dick" -- by dick, meaning a new ambassador, Dick Solomon on his first ambassadorial job, assigned to the Philippines, a country laughingly known in the State Department as Lower Slobbovia, because it is peopled with Shmoos and Kigmies. Al Capp (in his Li'll Abner strip) was at his best in the allegorical epics of Shmoos and Kigmies. Like Filipinos, Shmoos were fat, cuddly and the world's most amiable creatures, supplying all of America's needs absolutely without cost. Like Filipinos, Kigmies love to be kicked and abused. Like Filipinos, Shmoos and Kigmies reproduce so prodigiously that they constitute a grave threat to the world economy and a menace to the establishment, especially to militarists who want war, and to monopolists who need to corner the world's goods, and must be exterminated by Low Intensity Conflict of the CIA.. Ramos' journey to accomplish the impossible was opposed by the Opus Dei, The Makati Business Club and the Council of Trent. But these early years were full of high hopes and great expectations. Henares decided to stop writing for Philippine Daily Inquirer and become a team player as Presidential Consultant on National Affairs with cabinet rank, advising Ramos and joining him on State Visits abroad, and drafting his speeches for him. It was at this time that his beloved wife Cecilia died in his arms in the lobby of the Hotel Intercontinental in Paris in July 17, 1993.