{"id":22107,"date":"2024-03-10T04:30:30","date_gmt":"2024-03-10T14:30:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/?p=22107"},"modified":"2024-03-10T04:30:31","modified_gmt":"2024-03-10T14:30:31","slug":"magsaysay-is-my-guy-a-reflection-on-our-late-former-philippine-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/2024\/03\/10\/magsaysay-is-my-guy-a-reflection-on-our-late-former-philippine-president\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cMagsaysay Is My Guy!\u201d: A Reflection On Our Late Former Philippine President"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

by Elpidio R. Estioko

<\/em>Fellow Filipinos in Hawaii, did you know that our late former Philippine Ramon Magsaysay had no bank account? And when he died, he left his family only Php 2,000 in his vault.

Magsaysay was born on August 31, 1907, and died on March 17, 1957 as a result of a plane crash near Cebu. As president, he was best known for successfully defeating the communist-led Hukbalahap<\/em> movement.

My friend, who is my Beta Rho Omega Fraternity (BRO) brother from the University of the Philippines-Diliman, Atty. Isagani \u201cGani\u201d Ramos reminded me of the late President Magsaysay\u2019s simple and frugal lifestyle, even when he was already the head of state.

This information struck my attention because if we look at the present government, it\u2019s full of lavish spending with the Office of the President expanding government expenses, unlike in Magsaysay\u2019s term in the 1950s.

Of course, Magsaysay\u2019s modest spending at the time was in the past but it is still worth mentioning because even in the exercise of his duties, Magsaysay had to charge it to his salary, not through Malaca\u00f1ang\u2019s expense budget. That\u2019s something different, I guess!

In our group chat conversations, BROd Gani was wondering how far-removed government officials are nowadays, <\/em>especially the country\u2019s President, from their version of yesteryears in terms of integrity, honesty, and decency particularly in spending public money may be reflected in this story.

A Philippine Free Press Online article stated that: \u201cWhen President Magsaysay died on March 17, 1957, all that he left to his family was P2,000 in his vault, He had no bank account. When the family left Malaca\u00f1ang, there was no house where they could transfer to because the modest house built by Magsaysay in the 1930s on Arellano St., Singalong, Manila was being rented out to a Chinese while they were in Malaca\u00f1ang.\u201d

This is definitely something to ponder with! When he was in office, his daughter was a working student. And his son never had a car until Magsaysay died.

In another instance, whenever his children\u2019s friends would come over to visit, the food served to them was charged to Magsaysay\u2019s salary and not from the Malaca\u00f1ang\u2019s budget. But nowadays in Malaca\u00f1ang, they would rather have food catered and cooked by expensive hotels and restaurants.

In a similar story, the Douglas C-47 military cargo transport plane Magsaysay used in his Cebu trip in 1957 didn\u2019t have air-conditioning. When other high government officials complained of heat, the then-President told them he had the aircon removed so there would be no public criticism.

Another fraternity brother, BROd Pioneer Edilbeto \u201cBert\u201d Cabardo said that former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte was the one who set the austere norm.

In a 2018 Philippine News Agency article, then-Presidential spokesperson Harry Roque said that \u201cPresident Rodrigo Duarte\u2019s decision to take commercial flights would be the new norm to presidential travels. It is intended to save taxpayer\u2019s money.\u201d

However, BROd Gani and I asked: \u201cWill we still have a President like that?\u201d

As I see it aside from the fact that the political landscape is no longer the same, the mindsets of previous and present presidents are far different from that of Magsaysay.

They don\u2019t have a lifestyle that is frugal and modest, but expensive and lavish. Even their personal activities are classified as official duties, so expenses are under Malaca\u00f1ang\u2019s budget.

Vice President Sara Duterte used a private jet to attend a birthday party on Balesin Island. President Bongbong Marcos used a 300-plus-person-capacity Boeing 777 to fly a 70-person delegation to Davos, Switzerland.

BROd Gani replied, which I concur:

\u201cIf Filipinos who found out about this are not yet convinced or enlightened about the kind of leaders that they have now, then they deserve the difficult life and hardships that they\u2019re going through now and, in the days, ahead. As they say, you deserve the leaders that you elected. Unfortunately, and tragically, they\u2019re bringing with them the rest of the Filipinos with their ignorance and pathetic judgment.\u201d

Fellow Americans and Filipinos, let the Magsaysay lifestyle define our lives. We should not live beyond our means!

ELPIDIO R. ESTIOKO<\/strong> was a veteran journalist in the Philippines and an award-winning journalist here in the US. He just published his book Unlocking the chain of Poverty: In Pursuit of the American Dream which is now available with Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Xlibris Publishing. For feedbacks, comments\u2026 please email author at <\/em>estiokoelpidio@gmail.com<\/em><\/a>).<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Elpidio R. Estioko Fellow Filipinos in Hawaii, did you know that our late former…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22109,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[32,7],"tags":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/gettyimages-517221462-1.jpg?fit=1000%2C1000&ssl=1",1000,1000,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/gettyimages-517221462-1.jpg?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/gettyimages-517221462-1.jpg?fit=300%2C300&ssl=1",300,300,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/gettyimages-517221462-1.jpg?fit=640%2C640&ssl=1",640,640,true],"large":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/gettyimages-517221462-1.jpg?fit=640%2C640&ssl=1",640,640,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/gettyimages-517221462-1.jpg?fit=1000%2C1000&ssl=1",1000,1000,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/gettyimages-517221462-1.jpg?fit=1000%2C1000&ssl=1",1000,1000,true],"ultp_layout_landscape_large":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/gettyimages-517221462-1.jpg?resize=1000%2C800&ssl=1",1000,800,true],"ultp_layout_landscape":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/gettyimages-517221462-1.jpg?resize=870%2C570&ssl=1",870,570,true],"ultp_layout_portrait":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/gettyimages-517221462-1.jpg?resize=600%2C900&ssl=1",600,900,true],"ultp_layout_square":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/gettyimages-517221462-1.jpg?resize=600%2C600&ssl=1",600,600,true],"covernews-slider-full":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/gettyimages-517221462-1.jpg?resize=1000%2C715&ssl=1",1000,715,true],"covernews-slider-center":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/gettyimages-517221462-1.jpg?resize=522%2C500&ssl=1",522,500,true],"covernews-featured":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/gettyimages-517221462-1.jpg?fit=1000%2C1000&ssl=1",1000,1000,true],"covernews-medium":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/gettyimages-517221462-1.jpg?resize=540%2C285&ssl=1",540,285,true],"covernews-medium-square":["https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/gettyimages-517221462-1.jpg?resize=375%2C250&ssl=1",375,250,true]},"author_info":{"info":["admin"]},"category_info":"As I See It<\/a> Philippines<\/a>","tag_info":"Philippines","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/gettyimages-517221462-1.jpg?fit=1000%2C1000&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22107"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22107"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22107\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22110,"href":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22107\/revisions\/22110"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22109"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}