i Report Issue No. 3 2005 - Philippine Center for Investigative ...
i Report Issue No. 3 2005 - Philippine Center for Investigative ...
i Report Issue No. 3 2005 - Philippine Center for Investigative ...
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T H E V I C E P R E S I D E N T<br />
WHO<br />
D BE<br />
HEADED FOR<br />
MALACAÑANG? <strong>No</strong>li de<br />
Castro has come a long<br />
way from his beginnings<br />
as an unknown radio<br />
broadcaster.<br />
T<br />
that’s a value Filipinos cherish<br />
as well. He could have easily<br />
grabbed the opportunity to become<br />
president, I suppose, but<br />
he’s not like that.”<br />
ICON FOR THE MASSES<br />
What exactly is he like then?<br />
To the public, <strong>No</strong>li de Castro is<br />
the Joseph Estrada of the 1990s,<br />
an icon <strong>for</strong> the masses of his<br />
generation. People know his TV<br />
image too well—the guy who<br />
appeared on nationwide television<br />
night after night <strong>for</strong> close to<br />
20 years, the news anchor who<br />
practically held the patent to the<br />
phrase “Magandang Gabi, Bayan<br />
(Good evening, <strong>Philippine</strong>s).”<br />
The nation also knows him as<br />
the candidate who topped the<br />
2001 senatorial race and won 15<br />
million votes in the vice-presidential<br />
contest in 2004.<br />
But de Castro has something<br />
Joseph Estrada didn’t<br />
have: a college degree. And he<br />
has something Gloria Arroyo<br />
doesn’t: a feel <strong>for</strong> the public<br />
pulse borne of years as a broadcaster.<br />
His friends and supporters<br />
insist these and other traits,<br />
plus knowledge of the basics,<br />
more than make up <strong>for</strong> de Castro’s<br />
inexperience and lack of<br />
political savvy.<br />
“He listens attentively….He<br />
knows how to ask questions,”<br />
says Recto. “Sometimes I listen to<br />
him during his Saturday programs.<br />
He makes sense naman.”<br />
Former social welfare secretary<br />
Dinky Soliman says practically<br />
the same thing. “<strong>No</strong>li asks<br />
if he doesn’t know what’s going<br />
on. He doesn’t pretend that he<br />
knows things,” she says of de<br />
Castro, her seatmate during<br />
cabinet meetings.<br />
Having a vice president<br />
who might be clueless about a<br />
lot of things isn’t a particularly<br />
com<strong>for</strong>ting thought; elevate that<br />
person to the presidency and<br />
chances are there will be a lot<br />
of handholding going on. But<br />
presidents were never meant to<br />
have all the answers, de Castro’s<br />
supporters say. That’s where his<br />
friends and advisers come in. In<br />
the event of a de Castro presidency,<br />
what the people will get<br />
is Team <strong>No</strong>li.<br />
“<strong>No</strong> single person is the<br />
answer to all our problems” is<br />
Recto’s reply to those who expect<br />
de Castro to be the nation’s<br />
savior. “It’s always a team,” the<br />
senator insists. “That’s why you<br />
have political parties….There is<br />
no messiah. <strong>No</strong>li’s not a messiah<br />
definitely.”<br />
“PLUS-PLUS” AND<br />
MINUSES<br />
If <strong>No</strong>li de Castro becomes president,<br />
Soliman says, Filipinos will<br />
be getting a package deal: de<br />
Castro, plus the support of at<br />
least four major political blocs,<br />
plus immediate economic and<br />
political re<strong>for</strong>m. She calls it the<br />
“<strong>No</strong>li-Plus-Plus” scenario. “The<br />
challenge is convincing people<br />
that the <strong>No</strong>li-Plus-Plus scenario is<br />
a better deal than we have now,”<br />
says Soliman who was one of the<br />
cabinet members who quit last<br />
July. In this scenario, pushed by<br />
some NGOs, <strong>No</strong>li would be a<br />
transition president who would<br />
preside over a process of charter<br />
change and pave the way <strong>for</strong> new<br />
elections and a new government.<br />
He would also govern with a<br />
council of advisers drawn from a<br />
cross-section of political groups.<br />
It’s going to take a lot of<br />
convincing. Right now, what<br />
people are thinking when they<br />
see de Castro is not the possibility<br />
of a top-notch team working<br />
<strong>for</strong> the good of the country.<br />
Instead, what most likely comes<br />
to mind is a pack of friends waiting<br />
<strong>for</strong> their turn to ravage it. In<br />
classic Erap lingo, it’s “weatherweather”<br />
all over again.<br />
The danger really is that there<br />
are far too many people who<br />
see de Castro as a blank slate on<br />
which they can write whatever<br />
they want. Actually, perhaps the<br />
better metaphor <strong>for</strong> a <strong>for</strong>mer “talking<br />
head” is a puppet that moves<br />
only according to the pulls of the<br />
puppeteer – or in this case, puppeteers.<br />
Harsh as that may sound,<br />
it is nevertheless apt <strong>for</strong> a person<br />
who has yet to be portrayed as<br />
making a decision on his own, or<br />
at least against the interests of his<br />
supposed handlers.<br />
Former University of the<br />
<strong>Philippine</strong>s president Francisco<br />
Nemenzo, convenor of the<br />
democratic-left alliance Laban<br />
ng Masa, summarizes the apprehensions<br />
over a <strong>No</strong>li presidency:<br />
“De Castro’s track record<br />
as an envelopmental journalist<br />
and short stint as senator with<br />
no real credentials or evidence<br />
FAMILIAR FACE. De Castro, shown with coanchor<br />
Korina Sanchez in the early 1990s,<br />
read the primetime news <strong>for</strong> nearly 20 years.<br />
of competence has shown him<br />
to be simply an all too willing<br />
pawn of elite interests, especially<br />
the Lopez oligarchy.”<br />
The Lopezes, of course, own<br />
the giant media organization<br />
ABS-CBN, de Castro’s <strong>for</strong>mer<br />
employer. Rumors of de Castro’s<br />
so-called envelopmental journalism,<br />
or his “attack-and-collect,<br />
defend-and-collect” (ACDC)<br />
style of reporting have hounded<br />
him and ABS-CBN <strong>for</strong> years. In<br />
the 2004 elections, reports surfaced<br />
that he took money from<br />
subjects of his investigative reports<br />
who wanted certain stories<br />
quelled. The payoffs were reportedly<br />
in cash or in kind.<br />
De Castro has denied them<br />
all, but the rumors persist. Charges<br />
like these, though, are difficult<br />
to prove. To some, it may have<br />
been simple just to point to de<br />
Castro’s P51.3 million net worth<br />
declared in his 2004 Statement of<br />
Assets and Liabilities that included<br />
choice real-estate holdings.<br />
Or cite as evidence the fact that<br />
in the 2004 polls, he declared to<br />
the Commission on Elections that<br />
he put in P59.3 million of his and<br />
his family’s own money into the<br />
campaign. But then it shouldn’t<br />
be a surprise that de Castro has<br />
that much wealth. He worked <strong>for</strong><br />
one of the country’s most generous<br />
employers <strong>for</strong> decades, after<br />
all, and he was even ABS-CBN’s<br />
highest-paid news anchor <strong>for</strong><br />
several years. He held the title<br />
vice president <strong>for</strong> news <strong>for</strong> quite<br />
sometime, too, and owns, along<br />
with his wife Arlene Sinsuat, the<br />
production outfit that produces<br />
the weekly investigative program<br />
“Magandang Gabi, Bayan.”<br />
THE LOPEZ FACTOR<br />
But perhaps more than the reports<br />
of unethical journalistic<br />
practices, it is De Castro’s Lopez<br />
connection that is the public’s<br />
unspoken fear. Long a fixture<br />
in <strong>Philippine</strong> politics and business,<br />
the Lopezes preside over<br />
an interlocking web of business<br />
interests that range from power<br />
generation to power distribution,<br />
telecommunications to water concessions,<br />
infrastructure, to broadcasting<br />
and publishing. Because<br />
PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM<br />
I REPORT<br />
17