Barican admits telling white lies

Now it can be told.

As President Estrada's official mouthpiece, it was Fernando "Jerry" Barican's job to inform the public about the affairs of the President and other goings-on in the government as well as to parry verbal attacks on the administration.

Barican swears he never lied to the media and the public - on important issues, at least. Occasionally, however, he made white lies. That, he says, is the truth.

After serving Mr. Estrada for 20 months as spokesman, Barican left Malacañang two weeks ago for a less stressful job as a board director of the state-run Development Bank of the Philippines.

He admitted having spoken "untruths" in a taped cable television interview in the "On-Line" program aired Easter Sunday night over SNN channel. Its "Out of Malacañang" episode featured Barican.

Reached by The STAR at his home that night, Barican clarified he only told "white lies" on minor concerns.

Without going into details, Barican hinted that he was less than candid over the on-and-off issue of alleged Cabinet infighting that included him, which they all denied every time the media poked around the issue.

"Actually, it is impossible for you to be in government and hold your opinion all the time. There were many times (when) we (Cabinet members) disagree. But that is not your job. Your job is when a decision is made, you fall in line to that decision," Barican said.

"As to lying, my nose is growing bigger," Barican joked, alluding to the fairy tale character, Pinocchio, a wooden puppet whose nose grew longer each time he told a lie.

Turning serious, Barican said he never told "white lies" to mislead the public about presidential thinking, or the lack of it.

"But to the best of my knowledge, I never deliberately told untruths. Sometimes, the effect was I was simply repeating information being given to me by Cabinet members," he said.

As presidential spokesman, Barican explained, he consulted with Cabinet members on issues affecting their departments whenever the media asked about them.

"That information is given to me, I take it at face value and then I will repeat that statement given to me to the media. Of course, there will be people who will say 'I don't think he's (Barican) telling the truth.' It's like saying 'I don't think the source of the information was accurate.' I wasn't really the source of information and that was my responsibility," he said.

"So I never ever really deliberately told a lie on substantive matters. But minor matters, sometimes the President's schedules or things like that, sometimes I was less than totally candid."

Barican was replaced by former STAR columnist and ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corp. news executive Ricardo Puno, who also holds the position of Press Secretary.

Although out of the Cabinet, Barican remains one of Mr. Estrada's valued advisers as a member of the weekly Monday breakfast meeting at Malacañang of the erstwhile Crisis Management Committee, which evaluates national issues coming out in the media.

A Harvard law graduate, Barican said he plans to go back soon to newspaper column writing and to private law practice.