Punchline
Campaigning for Ping Lacson
By Ermin Garcia Jr.
In the spirit of transparency in the paper, I have to confess I have been asked to manage the re-election campaign of Senator Ping Lacson for the May elections. If you are wondering how this promdi got into the picture, it’s not really a very long story so I guess I can share this.
My professional relationship with the senator started when he was still chief of the Presidential Anti-Organized Crime Task Force, and I was the publisher of Manila Times. It was then when I had the opportunity to arrange with him for a TIMES photojournalist to be embedded in a rescue operation for a 10-year old kid who was kidnapped. Before he agreed, he made me understand what usually goes on in a rescue attempt, what can happen possibly happen, including the possibility of a shoot-out, killing of suspects, the kidnap victim getting hit in the crossfire, etc. And he asked that should a shoot-out happen, that I report the truth and not make it appear like another “salvaging” operation. (He had just been implicated in the Kuratong Baleleng case). I agreed and the rescue operation proceeded without a hitch: the victim was rescued and his kidnappers were trapped and arrested.
***
My second encounter with him was when the TIMES had information that he was wiretapping all the political enemies of then President Estrada and journalists critical of the latter (I was in the list), 121 persons in all! I sought his side and he firmly denied it and told me it was a set-up to discredit him. The TIMES ran the expose just the same and his side of the story and it led to a senate investigation. After a 2-month of inquiry, the story proved to be a hoax, and I apologized.
The two encounters were enough to make me believe in the man’s integrity. Alas there were no more encounters after that because my stint as TIMES publisher was cut short by Mark Jimenez. (MJ initially caused the filing of a P100 M libel case vs. the TIMES by President Erap, and he eventually took over the paper but not without firing me first, his classmate in Ateneo when he was still a Mario Crespo. But that’s another story).
I had no reason to keep track of him since then as he went on to become the PNP chief and subsequently a senator.
***
It was in November 2003 when I was asked by a friend about what I thought of Senator Lacson. When I replied “the guy has integrity”, little did I know that it would lead me to a meeting with a group of prominent businessmen and highly respected professionals supporting the senator’s reported bid for the presidency. I was asked specifically if I could help the senator understand the workings of media in the hope that he would learn to work with practitioners. I was told that since the KB and the Rosebud episodes, he had shunned the media. I was to be his tutor in Media 101. I agreed to do it but not after I talked to him and explained to him what I would require him to do. So, the meeting was set.
Finally, I had the chance to ask him two questions. “Will you have a problem telling our people the truth about you?” He said, NO. “Are you ready to face the media under any circumstance and when I tell you?” He said YES. Naturally, the skeptic in me did not take those answers lightly. I pushed it further. “Will you answer all questions about your supposed involvement in all sorts of crimes?” He said YES. “Then may I ask the first question – why should I believe you and not Rosebud?”
He looked at me quizzically wondering perhaps if I was serious and I kept my silence and waited for his answer.
Then he told me his story haltingly, perhaps unsure if could trust me at all how he was demonized by media, (from the KB case to Rosebud) and went to cite the other lies repeatedly told about him, the other characters who conspired against him, etc. I took notes and told him I would first verify his story and data before I take the assignment.
In sum, he acquitted himself. There were testimonies and records that supported his story that I simply felt I no longer had any reason to doubt him. So I readily joined the Lacson-for-President camp.
It was then when I decided to continue my research on him and finally came up with “The Lies and Truth about Ping Lacson”.
***
But before the campaign, he found himself exposing “Jose Pidal” and crossed swords for the first time with the mighty Arroyo brothers Mike and Iggy. His resolve “to keep what right and to set right what is wrong” inspired me to no end. Alas, even a firm conviction and a determination can never be enough to win the presidency.
After the election, he asked me to form a foundation whose mandate it will be to expose and file cases against corrupt officials, hence the Sinag ng Bayan Foundation was born. We filed cases against the DPWH officials involved in the anomalous national bridges program and Joc-joc Bolante for the fertilizer scam before the ombudsman. (The next case will be likely against the Dagupan City officials and persons involved in the controversial Magsaysay Park project, if they will insist on the illegal process).
Sinag’s activities are a far cry from running a political campaign but the senator asked me to do his 2007 campaign because Lito Banayo, the original campaign manager, recently decided to throw his hat into the political arena as Senator Alfredo Lim’s vice mayoralty candidate in Manila. I tried to reject it but to no avail.
So there. I just hope I don’t bungle it.
***
MY FAVORITE MAYOR AND I. In the middle of the courtesy call of Senator Lacson and Cong. Alan Cayetano (not the pirated “Peter Cayetano”) to Archbishop Oscar Cruz, I chanced (?) upon my favorite mayor Mr. Benjie Lim, but who else? And as fate would have it, he and I got pushed into a corner by the hordes of media feasting on the archbishop, Lacson and Cayetano.
But since we have been good friends before he became my favorite mayor, it was not difficult to break the ice. I casually asked him how things stood with him, particularly the Magsaysay project. And he let loose a stream of frustrations (sounded like alibis) about how difficult his situation vis-a-vis his relations with some of the councilors and yes, his vice mayor, Alvin Fernandez. I had to cut him short for I knew where the whole thing was leading to… the justification of his acts that I questioned. In this instance, I told him that the means he employed can never justify the ends that he tried to describe, that the process that he chose to employ was highly irregular. (For a while there I thought I was writing another column in my mind).
Except for his feeble statement that he would “review” the situation, nothing conclusive came out of our “chance meeting”. But since we both had not expected anything to be resolved, we both proceeded to partake of the archbishop’s gracious hospitality.
But he did try hard to impress upon me that he will be a congressional candidate to give Speaker JdV a run for his money, and not as a mayoralty candidate this year. Methinks he wants me to lose my bet with the PUNCH’s fire-player Gonz Duque but the more he talked, the more I was convinced he will eventually fold and stay clear of Joe de V.
I cannot ever believe that my favorite mayor, a compleat entrepreneur will sacrifice sure profits for fleeting political glory by fielding himself and his son in do-or-die political situations. No sir! Not today, not tomorrow.
(For past columns, click http://sundaypunch.prepys.com/archives/category/opinion/punchline/)
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