Honorable thing to do

Businessman Manuel Pangilinan’s decision to resign as chairman of the board of the Ateneo de Manila University is indeed a sad day for one of the country’s top academic institutions of which he is an alumnus and which he has helped nurture bigtime.

MVP, as he is more popularly known, has taken full and sole responsibility for what is largely believed is a mistake committed by a speechwriter in ‘copying’ the words of US President Barack Obama, author JK Rowling, and celebrity Oprah Winfrey and making them part of MVP’s Ateneo graduation speech without attributing them to the respective authors.

It takes a lot from somebody to claim full responsibility for the mistakes of another, especially if that somebody is a subordinate. It shows one’s true character and breeding.

While it is highly doubted that the Ateneo board will accept his resignation since according to university president Rev. Bienvenido Nebres, his apology was enough, we can’t help but admire MVP for his courage. Lesser mortals would have blamed it on the speechwriter.

With his hectic daily schedules, MVP would definitely not have the time to write all his speeches. He cannot be expected to know that a small part of the speech prepared for him had some parts ‘borrowed’ without the proper attributions.

I agree with one writer who said that this hardly made a dent on MVP’s credibility and stature as a business leader. We all make mistakes for which we have to pay for dearly. In this case, it wasn’t even MVP’s mistake.  Yet, he chose to do the honorable thing – of offering to resign as chairman of Ateneo and of accepting responsibility for the mistake. 

As British essayist Thomas Macaulay once said: “The measure of a man’s real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.” In MVP’s case, he could have blamed someone else, in this case the speechwriter. Nobody would have known if he wrote it or not. Instead, he took the blame.

We hope we can say the same of some of our leaders.

Vilifying the SC

People can’t help but ask if the controversy over the appointment by President Arroyo of a new Supreme Court chief justice is really about the legality and morality of the act, or more about the personalities involved in it.

This early, some quarters are already beginning to speculate as to how the powerful Sigma Rho fraternity would handle this affront against their very own, Associate Justice Antonio Carpio, the most senior member of the highest court and the most likely to succeed retiring Chief Justice Reynato Puno had the appointment process been allowed to take its natural course.

One major daily quoted court observers as saying that the vote of the nine SC justices favoring the President’s power to appoint the next Chief Justice was really a vote against Carpio.

The role of the Sigma Rho fraternity, observers say, cannot be overlooked. After all, among the prominent personalities in the bid to prevent the President from appointing the next CJ are Franklin Drilon and Philippine Bar Association president Simeon Marcelo, brods of Carpio.

There is also former Defense Secretary Avelino ‘Nonong’ Cruz, chief legal counsel of the Noynoy Aquino campaign, a Sigma Rhoan, and who belong to the same law firm as Marcelo, who some say is responsible for Noynoy’s unflinching stand that he will not recognize an SC Chief Justice appointed by Arroyo.

Another Sigma Rhoan reportedly running the Noynoy campaign from the background, former Integrated Bar of the Philippines president Jose Anselmo Cadiz created a controversy when he announced an “IBP position” on the SC succession row despite the absence of an authority and official capacity to do so, observers add.

There are those who have warned against a possible backlash against these nine SC justices by the fraternity, especially since there had been no Sigma Rhoan chief justice since the term of the late illustrious statesman Marcelo Fernan.

They say Carpio had been the best hope of the Sigma Rho and that hope may have been dashed by the SC decision backing Arroyo’s appointment of Puno’s successor. They add that had the nine voted against it, the power to name the next CJ would have been in the hands of the next president which, by Sigma Rho’s estimation, should and will be Noynoy Aquino.

However this debate ends, let us hope that the next Chief Justice can preserve the independence and integrity of the highest court of the land.

Failed bid?

The telecommunications industry is currently abuzz with speculations as to what would happen now to plans by one major telco to acquire certain frequencies from a group led by former party-list Rep. Jaime Zarraga who was recently arrested by agents of the National Bureau of Investigation.

The question is really this: Will this telco risk its reputation by dealing with a suspected criminal?

Two companies, Voice of Manila Broadcasting Corp. (VOM) and Exodus Broadcasting Corp., are owned by Zarraga, who surfaced recently to thwart attempts by the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) to reallocate certain frequencies of VOM for non-use. He was arrested immediately after appearing in court to dispute NTC’s claim.

Zarraga has been charged in at least 759 cases filed in different courts. These include 21 counts of large-scale and syndicated illegal recruitment and 95 counts of estafa, committed through his placement agency United Effort Manpower and General Services Inc.  

The cases were filed as early as 1995 while most of the arrest warrants were issued in 1996. Zarraga was thought to be in hiding until he appeared in the NTC case which VOM filed to stop the commission from reallocating the frequencies assigned to it.

The sale of frequencies between VOM and this major telco has long been a speculation, but was reinforced when after Zarraga’s arrest, a lawyer allegedly sent by the telco suddenly appeared before the NBI to aid the former solon. There is however another rumor that Zarraga simply has close ties with a ranking official of the telco, which is probably why the company seems to be showing so much concern for him.  

The NTC earlier said that it will benefit consumers more if VOM’s frequencies are to be reallocated instead of being left idle for nine years.  

Zarraga’s firms had blamed its failure to start operations and to use these frequencies to the sudden weakness of the peso against the dollar during the Asian financial crisis in the ‘90s. 

For comments, e-mail at [email protected]