Being an old man in the typing business has some advantages. Names, even foreign ones that at one time or another stayed in the country to help make – or shape - history, are readily remembered. Some of the young journalists, for example, were just in their kindergarten years when the name Paul Manafort was first whispered about in Philippine political circles. To the young guns, it is “who was he?” and that is forgivable.

When his name popped up big-time in the major league of US politics anew (as campaign chairman to Donald Trump), the old hands in Philippine journalism remembered the then role of PR man Paul Manafort in the tumultuous months before Mr. Marcos’ exit from power in 1986. He was then the young partner of the heavyweight PR and lobbying firm Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly. And he was precisely sent to Manila by his firm to convince the Reagan administration that Marcos, despite his many failings and his failing health, was the Reagan administration’s most trusted and most dependable Filipino ally. And that the Reagan administration should stand by Mr. Marcos no matter what. (The latest news said that Manafort was recently demoted by the free-falling Trump.)

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