A PAIR OF FLUNKEYS: BONG GO AND FABIAN VER.

By Philip M. Lustre Jr.

WHEN it came to dogged loyalty to dictator Ferdinand Marcos, Gen Fabian Ver was top. His loyalty was beyond any shadow of doubt. If Marcos asked him to jump off a building, he would readily agree and follow but not without asking him from which floor. 

Because of his remarkable loyalty, Marcos made him the AFP chief of staff and head of the feared Marcos intelligence network or NISA. He was also head of various offices, occupying positions of big and small consequences to the nation.

In his published book "From Malacanang to Maikiki," which detailed Marcos's post-EDSA life, the late Col. Arturo Aruiza, its author, was somewhat bewildered by Ver’s excessive loyalty to Marcos and the dictator’s patronizing ways to him. The reciprocity was very noticeable. 

But their relationship was put to test when Marcos was kicked out of power in the 1986 EDSA People Revolution. They all ended as exiles in Hawaii. Months after they stayed in Hawaii, Aruiza recalled that Ver had a heart-to-heart talk with Marcos. 

Then, he learned that Ver bid goodbye to Marcos. That was the first time they had parted ways. That was the last time they were together. They never met again until they died under different circumstances. Marcos died in Hawaii in late 1989.

Ver left the United Sates to relocate elsewhere. He later died in Singapore sometime in 1992. 

Aruiza said he and the other staff in the Marcos household at first held the illusion that Ver went somewhere to prepare for Marcos homecoming to the Philippines and return to power. Then, he said in his book that he came to the realization that it was a permanent separation. 

Ver was not in a position to initiate Marcos return to power. Ver, as subordinate, was so used to receive orders from Marcos to the point that he never learned to take the initiative. 

In brief, he lost the power of imagination. 

Bong Go is no different to Gen. Ver. Like the Marcos’s errand boy, Bong Go was spread thinly, occupying several posts, legally and illegally, and doing a lot of works, but none of which could be regarded effective. 

Loyal and powerful, Bong Go is similar to Ver, who could not take the initiative because he thinks like any other flunkey. “Utak alalay.” 

How Bong Go would fare in the future is everybody’s guess. But his future is tied with Rodrigo Duterte’s. 

Without the sick crazy old man, he’s nothing. He’s nobody. That's always the fate of unimaginative flunkeys. They are never their own men. 

They have abdicated their right to think, as they just follow orders.