Defeat is an orphan: A lesson for ‘King Martin’

By Alex P. Vidal

“Anyone can deal with victory. Only the mighty can bear defeat.” — Adolf Hitler

FORMER Iloilo City councilor Dr. Nielex “Lex” Tupas once put it succinctly: “Naagyan man namon ang sitwasyon nga gina talikdan na kami sang mga tawo mo.” (We have been in situations where people turned their backs on us.)

This reportedly happened when the Tupases were “no longer in power,” or when one of them didn’t win a major elected position in the province of Iloilo and many people thought they were finished politically.

It turned out it was a temporary setback, so to speak, and the family may have regained those fair-weather political backers and nitpickers when the Tupases were back on the hustings and subsequently in power.

Former Speaker and Leyte Rep. Ferdinand Martin Romualdez, who is accused of plunder and is now staying in a hospital after his arrest, may be in a situation similar to that experienced by the Tupases, based on Lex’s recollection.

However, the first cousin of President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. may have been badly damaged politically and morally.

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Now that he is facing a non-bailable PHP 7.44 billion plunder case, along with related charges of graft, bribery, and money laundering tied to an alleged flood control and government infrastructure kickback scheme, we doubt if Romualdez can win back his political allies who have started to vanish.

We doubt if King Martin can still win in another election, assuming he will be exonerated and allowed to run again.

Following the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, United States President John F. Kennedy used the phrase “victory has a hundred fathers, and defeat is an orphan” during a press conference on April 21, 1961.

It came to mean that many people eagerly claim credit for success, but nobody takes responsibility for failure.

Before he resigned as House speaker and was charged with plunder, fellow congresspeople were in a mad scramble to ingratiate themselves with Romualdez.

They adored King Martin, including his influence and, perhaps, (unexplained) wealth, like a demigod. Ille est princeps dilectus, or he is a beloved prince.

What King Martin wanted from the subservient and obsequious House colleagues, he got — including the imprimatur to sign the original impeachment case against Vice President Sara Duterte-Carpio.

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Now that Malacañang has thrown him under the bus, King Martin’s life has suddenly turned upside down in catatonic asphyxiation.

Beelines from the furtive and shifty House of Representatives colleagues are gone.

The kowtowing horde did not even bother to visit King Martin in his bed at the Cardinal Santos Medical Center in San Juan City, where he was rushed on the afternoon of September 7 after “suffering” a cardiovascular event, unstable blood pressure, and an anxiety attack.

Sooner or later, he will be transferred anyway to the Payatas jail, or the New Quezon City Jail Male Dormitory in Quezon City, where many people believe King Martin rightly belongs.

And the rest is now history. King Martin’s downfall has turned him into a political orphan.

Meanwhile, when Lex’s father, the late Niel Tupas, Sr., served as the 30th governor of Iloilo from June 30, 2001, to June 30, 2010, the family regained the support of some of those who abandoned them.

Lex’s mother, the late Myrna Causing-Tupas, was also a former mayor of Barotac Viejo, Iloilo, the position now held by his older brother, Nielo “Bongbong” Tupas.

Lex’s other older brothers, Niel “Junjun” Tupas, Jr., and Raul “Boboy” Tupas, were also former representatives of the fifth district of Iloilo.

Another older brother, Nielito “Doc Darl” C. Tupas, sits as an Iloilo provincial board member.

(The author, who is now based in New York City, used to be the editor-in-chief of two leading daily newspapers in Iloilo, Philippines. — Ed.)