i Report Issue No. 3 2005 - Philippine Center for Investigative ...

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THE MAN WOUL PRESIDEN LUZ RIMBAN LIKE IT or not, Filipinos will have to accept the fact that Noli de Castro might just be president one of these days. It could be sooner, if President Gloria Macapagal- Arroyo suddenly gets stricken with delicadeza and resigns, or later, if Congress eventually decides to put an end to the crisis and impeach her. Either way, Filipinos will have to get used to the idea of a de Castro presidency, especially if they don’t want Susan Roces heading a caretaker government or Jose de Venecia becoming prime minister for life. Filipinos don’t seem to have much of a choice. Being vice president puts Noli de Castro next in line and just a breath away from being the 15th president of the republic. The middle class may not relish having another celebrity in Malacañang, and traditional politicians may be gritting their teeth over a neophyte having it quick and easy. But no matter what they say, if Arroyo falls, de Castro will have to rise to the challenge. That will be some déjà vu. De Castro would become the third consecutive vice president elected after 1986 to have ascended to the top, following in the footsteps of Joseph Estrada and Gloria Arroyo. The two are not particularly pleasant precedents. One was ousted in the middle of an impeachment trial, while the other appears headed in the same direction. Unless he breaks the jinx, de Castro just might end up like his predecessors not too far into the future. That is why he is playing it coy and cautious these days. He keeps a low profile, hardly gives any interviews, and rarely opens his mouth. His friends say he does not want to be branded power-hungry or to be seen as a deserter. In July, at the height of the “Hello, Garci” controversy when 10 cabinet and sub-cabinet members cut ties with Arroyo, de Castro refused to seize the position that was his for the taking. “He will never be party to the ouster of President Arroyo whether extraconstitutional or contra constitutional,” says Cesar Chavez, a former newsman who was de Castro’s campaign manager. “Ayaw niya maging traydor. Ang sa kanya, ituloy ang proseso, ano man ang prosesong ‘yan, kung impeachment man o ano (He doesn’t want to be a traitor. The way he sees it, we must let the process continue, whatever that process is, impeachment or something else).” “He had good judgment,” says Senator Ralph Recto, a friend and former colleague of de Castro. “He’s not a traitor, and 16 PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM I REPORT
T H E V I C E P R E S I D E N T WHO D BE HEADED FOR MALACAÑANG? Noli de Castro has come a long way from his beginnings as an unknown radio broadcaster. T that’s a value Filipinos cherish as well. He could have easily grabbed the opportunity to become president, I suppose, but he’s not like that.” ICON FOR THE MASSES What exactly is he like then? To the public, Noli de Castro is the Joseph Estrada of the 1990s, an icon for the masses of his generation. People know his TV image too well—the guy who appeared on nationwide television night after night for close to 20 years, the news anchor who practically held the patent to the phrase “Magandang Gabi, Bayan (Good evening, Philippines).” The nation also knows him as the candidate who topped the 2001 senatorial race and won 15 million votes in the vice-presidential contest in 2004. But de Castro has something Joseph Estrada didn’t have: a college degree. And he has something Gloria Arroyo doesn’t: a feel for the public pulse borne of years as a broadcaster. His friends and supporters insist these and other traits, plus knowledge of the basics, more than make up for de Castro’s inexperience and lack of political savvy. “He listens attentively….He knows how to ask questions,” says Recto. “Sometimes I listen to him during his Saturday programs. He makes sense naman.” Former social welfare secretary Dinky Soliman says practically the same thing. “Noli asks if he doesn’t know what’s going on. He doesn’t pretend that he knows things,” she says of de Castro, her seatmate during cabinet meetings. Having a vice president who might be clueless about a lot of things isn’t a particularly comforting thought; elevate that person to the presidency and chances are there will be a lot of handholding going on. But presidents were never meant to have all the answers, de Castro’s supporters say. That’s where his friends and advisers come in. In the event of a de Castro presidency, what the people will get is Team Noli. “No single person is the answer to all our problems” is Recto’s reply to those who expect de Castro to be the nation’s savior. “It’s always a team,” the senator insists. “That’s why you have political parties….There is no messiah. Noli’s not a messiah definitely.” “PLUS-PLUS” AND MINUSES If Noli de Castro becomes president, Soliman says, Filipinos will be getting a package deal: de Castro, plus the support of at least four major political blocs, plus immediate economic and political reform. She calls it the “Noli-Plus-Plus” scenario. “The challenge is convincing people that the Noli-Plus-Plus scenario is a better deal than we have now,” says Soliman who was one of the cabinet members who quit last July. In this scenario, pushed by some NGOs, Noli would be a transition president who would preside over a process of charter change and pave the way for new elections and a new government. He would also govern with a council of advisers drawn from a cross-section of political groups. It’s going to take a lot of convincing. Right now, what people are thinking when they see de Castro is not the possibility of a top-notch team working for the good of the country. Instead, what most likely comes to mind is a pack of friends waiting for their turn to ravage it. In classic Erap lingo, it’s “weatherweather” all over again. The danger really is that there are far too many people who see de Castro as a blank slate on which they can write whatever they want. Actually, perhaps the better metaphor for a former “talking head” is a puppet that moves only according to the pulls of the puppeteer – or in this case, puppeteers. Harsh as that may sound, it is nevertheless apt for a person who has yet to be portrayed as making a decision on his own, or at least against the interests of his supposed handlers. Former University of the Philippines president Francisco Nemenzo, convenor of the democratic-left alliance Laban ng Masa, summarizes the apprehensions over a Noli presidency: “De Castro’s track record as an envelopmental journalist and short stint as senator with no real credentials or evidence FAMILIAR FACE. De Castro, shown with coanchor Korina Sanchez in the early 1990s, read the primetime news for nearly 20 years. of competence has shown him to be simply an all too willing pawn of elite interests, especially the Lopez oligarchy.” The Lopezes, of course, own the giant media organization ABS-CBN, de Castro’s former employer. Rumors of de Castro’s so-called envelopmental journalism, or his “attack-and-collect, defend-and-collect” (ACDC) style of reporting have hounded him and ABS-CBN for years. In the 2004 elections, reports surfaced that he took money from subjects of his investigative reports who wanted certain stories quelled. The payoffs were reportedly in cash or in kind. De Castro has denied them all, but the rumors persist. Charges like these, though, are difficult to prove. To some, it may have been simple just to point to de Castro’s P51.3 million net worth declared in his 2004 Statement of Assets and Liabilities that included choice real-estate holdings. Or cite as evidence the fact that in the 2004 polls, he declared to the Commission on Elections that he put in P59.3 million of his and his family’s own money into the campaign. But then it shouldn’t be a surprise that de Castro has that much wealth. He worked for one of the country’s most generous employers for decades, after all, and he was even ABS-CBN’s highest-paid news anchor for several years. He held the title vice president for news for quite sometime, too, and owns, along with his wife Arlene Sinsuat, the production outfit that produces the weekly investigative program “Magandang Gabi, Bayan.” THE LOPEZ FACTOR But perhaps more than the reports of unethical journalistic practices, it is De Castro’s Lopez connection that is the public’s unspoken fear. Long a fixture in Philippine politics and business, the Lopezes preside over an interlocking web of business interests that range from power generation to power distribution, telecommunications to water concessions, infrastructure, to broadcasting and publishing. Because PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM I REPORT 17
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