People Power
In the preface of Two “Terrorists” Meet, Psinakis writes, “Although Marcos was viewed as an ‘astute politician,’ he has committed and continues to commit almost all of the errors of his fellow dictators—past and present. The ‘first signs of revolution’ are all much too clear. The question is now whether the Marcoses will be an exception to the rule or one more addition to the same statistic.”

He emphasized this point to Imelda at the Waldorf when he told her, “What is happening today in the Philippines is the beginning of a violent revolution, which, unless it is understood and attended to very soon, will reach an irreversible point. If that happens, it will not only cause your destruction, but it will also cause destruction to your country that will set it back for years.”

True enough, the People Power Revolution made history and restored freedom and democracy. The Lopezes were able to regain control of the companies they ran for years. But almost immediately, symptoms of residual low-level corruption began to appear, and this frustrated Psinakis. Bobby Tañada explained the corruption in Cory’s administration: “Even though all the new heads were changed, the ones under remained and the culture of corruption was still festering in the lower ranks until it grew.” This is when Psinakis realized that corruption in the Philippines could only be changed from the bottom up, and he decided to abandon politics.

The Arrest and Trial
After 14 years of Martial Law, the Philippines was finally free, and once democracy was restored—Psinakis and his family returned to work with the Lopez group. “It was a good time for all of us,” he says, “a hopeful time, with vision and plans for the future. A future that a few years ago seemed dark and bleak. We had survived extortion, persecution, and heavy losses; and we had come out relatively unscathed.” The Lopez family had a lot to look forward to because Geny was, according to Psinakis, “an unstoppable force in Philippine business.”

Psinakis withdrew from politics to be with his family—but just when he thought he was out, they pulled him back in: On Sunday, July 5, 1987, Psinakis arrived in San Francisco for a business trip and was arrested and handcuffed at the immigration line by two I.N.S. agents who said he had been indicted by the U.S. Government for “transporting explosives across state lines.” He spent the night in a federal holding jail on Bryant Street, but made a phone call to former San Francisco Chronicle editor (and ex-husband of Sharon Stone) Phil Bronstein, who had been observing the political situation in the Philippines for many years now. When he went down to the jail to see Psinakis, the first question he asked was “Why the hell were you arrested now?”

Psinakis was taken to “The Tank”—a 25 x 25-foot square concrete room with a steel door, a small window, and an exposed toilet in the corner. Suspected criminals arrested over the weekend are held in this room until a judge is available to process them, and The Tank was full of all manner of strange and fearful human deviations—pederasts, rapists, and muggers; kleptomaniacs and people with no sex or sanity at all. Psinakis almost choked to death with the stench of alcohol, urine, stale perfume, and cigarette smoke. He stood out like a sore thumb in his blazer, black slacks, and Italian leather shoes, standing near the window so he could signal the guard if a fight broke out. When he lit up a cigarette, a huge African-American man walked up to him and said, “Gimme a stick.” So he gave him one and that’s as tense as the night got. The next morning Psinakis was able to get a hearing on the bail issue, but had to remain in custody for three extra nights in an orange uniform.

The news of Psinakis’s arrest hit Manila like a raging typhoon. It was on the front page of every major newspaper, and the reaction it elicited from family, friends, politicians, and people he didn’t even know was overwhelming. Mailgrams to Magistrate Joan Brennan protesting the arrest and requesting that Psinakis be granted bail started to pile up. If bail was not granted, he could have potentially languished in jail until the pretrial motions were completed—which, in Psinakis’s case, took about two and a half years. “All of the former dissidents I worked with together in exile in the U.S. from 1974 to 1986 offered to travel from wherever they were to testify during my trial. The growing list of people that wanted to show up in court on my behalf was a who’s-who of Filipino politics. I was touched and grateful,” he says.

On July 9, the judge set bail at $200,000, which was guaranteed by Geny Lopez and the bail bond of $25,000 was immediately put up by their close family friend Arturo Rocha. The pretrial hearings went from July 1987 to June 1989, during which time all the motions filed by Psinakis’s lawyer Jim Brosnahan were dismissed until they eventually proposed a plea bargain—which Psinakis was not interested in taking because it would be an admission of guilt.
Although impressed with his client’s refusal to compromise his principles, Brosnahan was worried they would not win the case. “You must have a hell of a good reason to risk going to jail for 15 years,” he told him.

On behalf of the Philippine Senate and House of Representatives, Senator Jovito Salonga sent a letter to Secretary of State George Schultz appealing for the dismissal of the case. According to Psinakis, Schultz’s response was “arrogant, insulting, and contemptuous,” which outraged most of the signatories in Salonga’s letter and prompted the Philippine government to honor Psinakis with the “Presidential Citation for Outstanding and Distinguished Service to Philippine Democracy.”

Brosnahan was now building the case around the dismissal of the indictment on the “selective prosecution” principle, which makes it unconstitutional and therefore illegal for the government to select and indict a person “among many others similarly situated.”

Brosnahan called many high-powered witnesses to the stand, including the dignified and eloquent Foreign Affairs secretary of the Philippines, Raul Manglapus; U.S. Congressman Steve Solarz; and even former Philippine president Diosdado Macapagal. “Former President Diosdado Macapagal was a man of great stature and integrity,” says Psinakis. “He was President from 1961 to 1965, and was defeated by Marcos in the 1965 elections. During his presidency, he initiated revolutionary reforms and fought graft and corruption, which earned him the nickname ‘The Incorruptible.’ I admired him deeply and he honored me with his friendship. President Macapagal had volunteered to fly in from the Philippines just to testify as a character witness in my trial.”

But the biggest blow to the prosecution came when they tried to present Psinakis’s case out of the context of his so-called “terrorist” activities, i.e. the restoration of freedom, justice, and democracy in the Philippines. “It became clear during the trial that the only charge in the indictment was: COUNT I—Conspiracy to transport explosive materials and COUNT II—the transportation of explosive materials across State lines without permits. The jurors would have liked to know the destination of the explosives; who were they intended for; who and how were they going to be used; and what were their specific targets, if any,” said Psinakis.

In a slam-dunk legal tactic devised by Brosnahan, special agent Al Cruz was called to the stand, where he shed light on the real motives for Psinakis’s arrest by lying under oath and denying many of the events that took place during the investigation. Most damaging of these false statements was when Cruz claimed he had found incriminating evidence in Psinakis’s house when they searched it on that December night. Cruz had forgotten that after the search that night, he used Psinakis’s phone—which was still being wiretapped by the F.B.I.—to call his boss and report that nothing was found. A copy of the tape was used to refute his testimony and embarrass him in front of a jury.

“I was completely shocked by the array of lies that Al Cruz said during his testimony,” says Psinakis. “What was particularly shocking to me was the fact that he knew that I knew he was lying under oath and that did not seem to bother him at all. I then realized that he was not the professional, respectable F.B.I. agent I thought him to be; he was sadly a pawn who did or said anything that his superiors instructed him to do without any regard for the truth.”

During a court recess, Psinakis walked up to Cruz and said, “Hello, Al. How are you?” “Fine,” he answered, a bit startled by the query. “Al,” continued Psinakis calmly, “would you agree that I always treated you with respect as if you were a professional doing your job even though your job was to help put me in jail?” “Yes, Mr. Psinakis,” he answered, “I have also treated you with respect”—which was true. “Yes, Al, I agree that you have treated me with respect until the moment you stepped on the witness stand and were sworn in to tell the truth.” “Why?” he asked. “Because you know and I know that you are lying under oath and that is perjury—a felony equal to or perhaps even worse than the charges against me. You are a disgrace to your profession and to your colleagues who do their work fairly, honestly, and truthfully. If you had any decency, you would resign from the F.B.I.”

“During the trial,” says Yuri, “I had a similar experience wherein I witnessed some of the testimony of some of the U.S. government officials—primarily F.B.I., I suppose—and began to understand that each person was making a case for their own story with little regard for the truth.”

On June 7, 1989, after many hours of deliberation, the jury had reached their decision. The courtroom was filled with supporters of Psinakis, anxiously awaiting the announcement of the verdict. Judge Schnacke said, “You have been a good audience throughout the trial, and I expect you to be the same when the verdict is read. The four marshals are here to see that you are—will the jury foreman please read the verdict.”

“Not Guilty.”

Friends in the courtroom broke out into applause and embraced one another. Steve hugged Jim who was next to him, and he held him tight for what felt like a very long time, perhaps to hide his own tears of joy. “I congratulated Jim when my voice was no longer cracking. I looked across the courtroom and saw the foreman sporting a broad, satisfied smile for the first time. I said, ‘Thank you’ from a distance.”

Epilogue
As a closer to my five-hour conversation about Philippine history with the Psinakises, Steve brings up the subject of the new book he is releasing this June, A Country Not Even His Own. “I think this book will be widely appreciated because there’s something for everybody—politically and humanly. But there is an underlying theme that holds the U.S. government responsible for looking after their own interests at the expense of the Filipino people.”
Psinakis had no idea at the time that he would be involved in such a long and dangerous battle. “An Odyssey,” Presy calls it, like the Greeks. “But,” Psinakis says, “What is life if we don’t do what is right? We have to try and make a difference in life.”

Finally, I ask him what could be the most important question: how he became the man he is. Where he drew his strength. “Both my parents always told me,” he says, “that truth is the strongest thing alive in a man’s worth. If you are bound by the truth, you can never be defeated . . . because the truth does not change. That’s what I learned. I don’t make decisions based on whether I’ll get shot; I make them based on what’s right and wrong. People used to ask me if I was scared when I received all those death threats, and I would say, ‘of course I was scared.’ But I was sure I was doing the right thing. And if a threat to me or my family would make me do the wrong thing, then what is my purpose?”
There were many moments of genuine pale-faced fear in Steve Psinakis’s life, but it never seemed to affect his decision-making. His parents instilled in him a deep respect for the truth and a willingness to sacrifice for it no matter what. His father did not come from a prominent family—financially or politically. But he told him things that have stayed with him all his life.
“I’ve told Geni this many times,” he says, triggering a giggle from his daughter next to him. “If you let your emotions affect your decisions, it takes away the logic from the decision. The truth is always there. It’s only a question of how and when it will come to the surface. In my life, the thing that affected me the most is this belief that when you come to this world, things have to be done because they are right and not because you will benefit from it. It takes a lot of courage to accept that—but I’m a happier man for it.”

 

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