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

T H E V I C E P R E S I D E N T
of some of their companies’ histories,
the Lopezes are perceived
by many as having monopolistic
tendencies and prone to ruthless
business tactics.
Numerous focus-group discussions
conducted by the TV
industry show that the viewing
public perceives the Lopezes
to be using ABS-CBN to further
their interests. The question
many Filipinos have now is
this: Would they likewise use de
Castro for their own ends if and
when he becomes president?
The group Freedom From
Debt Coalition (FDC) says the
Lopezes already have done that
with the vice president. They say
that President Arroyo, through
de Castro, allowed the bailout of
the Lopezes’ beleaguered Maynilad
Water company by allowing
the government water agency
Metropolitan Waterworks and
Sewerage System (MWSS) to
shoulder some of the Lopez
company’s debts.
Aside from this, the government
allowed not only Maynilad
Water to charge higher rates, but
also let the Lopezes’s Manila
Electric Company (Meralco) do
the same.
But Chavez insists, “Noli
will never compromise or sacrifice
the national interest to big
business.” The vice president,
says Chavez, understands these
things and is aware of the
country’s political and economic
history and the role cronyism
played in the past.
DE CASTRO’S INNER
CIRCLE
Friends like Recto are also trying
to correct that impression. Recto
says de Castro isn’t the type “to
favor anyone….He understands
that for business it’s leveling the
playing field (that’s important).
He understands (the need for)
equal protection of the law.
Simple naman ‘yun di ba (It’s
simple, isn’t it)?”
Well, not really, at least not
for de Castro. One of de Castro’s
former media colleagues says
that Eugenio ‘Gabby’ Lopez III,
President of ABS-CBN Channel
2, is the one person closest to
de Castro, the person whose
voice is the most often in the
vice president’s ear, closer even
than his friends in the so-called
“Wednesday Group.”
The Wednesday Group is de
Castro’s political gang, made up
of four other senators he struck
a friendship with when he began
his political career in 2001.
They are former human-rights
lawyer Joker Arroyo, businessmen
Manuel ‘Manny’ Villar and
Recto, and ex-student leader and
lawyer Francis ‘Kiko’ Pangilinan.
The group meets at least once a
week to exchange political gossip,
give each other advice, and,
since June, help de Castro prepare
for bigger things ahead.
Recto describes how the
group came together: “Joker
became somewhat of a Yoda—
considering his age and experience,
he’s the eldest in the
group. Manny and Noli are of
the same age. Me and Kiko are
of the same age. Joker, Manny,
and I all came from the Ninth
Congress so we’ve been together
since 1992. Noli was a neophyte
as well. We had good rapport in
the session hall.”
But de Castro’s former media
co-worker describe them this
way: “Ralph and Kiko are the
outer flank, Manny and Joker are
the inner circle, and right beside
Noli is Gabby Lopez.”
A “PROBLEMATIC”
FRIEND
De Castro, however, has friends
of his own outside the realm of
politics and big business, and
one of them actually put him in
a bad light.
When de Castro was named
head of the Housing and Urban
Development Coordinating
Council (HUDCC) and given
the Housing portfolio after becoming
vice president last year,
he brought with him his friend
Celso de los Angeles.
In September 2004, de los
Angeles was appointed chairman
of the National Home Mortgage
Corporation (NHMFC), the
agency that provides community
mortgage programs to urban
poor groups. De los Angeles
didn’t last a year in office. He
filed sick leave prior in mid-July,
to going on terminal leave.
Nongovernmental organizations
in the housing sector say
that the few months that de los
Angeles headed the agency was
a time of “flagrant and brazen
graft and corruption” at the
NHMFC. By the last few weeks
of de los Angeles’s term, these
NGOs were asking President
Arroyo to kick him out.
“We believe that one impediment
in your housing program
for the poor is Mr. Celso de los
A LITTLE HELP FROM HIS
FRIENDS. The vice president,
shown here during his days
as a radio broadcaster, has
strong links with the Lopez
family which owns ABS-CBN.
Angeles,” said the Philippine
Undertaking for Social Housing
and other groups working in the
area of Community Mortgage
Program (CMP), in a paid print
advertisement addressed to President
Arroyo on July 1, 2005. “We
urge you to remove him from
office because he is not morally
fit to be in government.”
Their reasons had nothing
to do with the fact that de los
Angeles got into a very public
fight with TV starlet Regine
Tolentino over the P8 million
worth of jewelry he supposedly
gave her. Neither did they have
anything to do with the fact that
Ilocos Sur Governor Luis ‘Chavit’
Singson, in his testimony during
the impeachment trial of former
President Joseph Estrada, described
de los Angeles as “isang
jueteng operator din noong araw
(someone who used to be a
jueteng operator).”
INSTITUTIONALIZING
PATRONAGE
What the housing NGOs had
protested was the culture of
palakasan
and alleged increased
incidence of extortion that prevailed
at the NHMFC during de
los Angeles’s watch. A turning
point in the campaign against
de los Angeles was the arrest of
Nestor Favila, head of the Task
Force Community Mortgage Program,
on June 24, 2005.
Favila was caught in an entrapment
operation accepting
P85,000. The sting operation had
been prompted by several complaints
against Favila for allegedly
extorting from landowners
selling land to the NHMFC.
On top of this, say organizers
of the National CMP Congress,
NHMFC officials encouraged
urban poor residents’ associations
to seek the intercession of
congressmen, senators, and local
officials in following up their
community mortgage programs.
The result: the institutionalization
of patronage politics in the
housing sector.
Nobody in de Castro’s circle of
close advisers seems to know anything—or
wants to talk—about his
relationship with de los Angeles.
Recto says he never heard of de
los Angeles before, while Chavez
would only say that de los Angeles
was someone whom his staff saw
in the 2004 campaign sorties twice
or thrice. Yet he is apparently
close enough for de Castro to
have endorsed as head of a crucial
government agency.
But de los Angeles did not
seem that indispensable to the
vice president. To de Castro’s
credit, says Soliman, the vice
president immediately took heed
when told of reports of controversies
de los Angeles found
himself in. “Alisin na natin kung
ganun (In that case, let’s take
him out of that post),” Soliman
quotes de Castro saying.
Hopefully, de Castro has no
more friends like de los Angeles
and Lopez waiting for him to
be president. For sure, to most
Filipinos, that would hardly be
a “plus-plus.”
18 PHILIPPINE CENTER FOR INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM I REPORT