Ed Angara on hometown Baler, UP days and politicians
Former Senate President and University of the Philippines president Edgardo J. Angara has retired from politics after three decades of outstanding public service as “philosopher statesman” advocating education, agriculture, arts, science and technology, heath care, senior citizens, economics and good governance. Now his son, Harvard and London School of Economics graduate, Senator Sonny Angara is continuing the tradition.
Educated in UP and the University of Michigan, Ed Angara is a top-notch lawyer who co-founded the prestigious ACCRA law firm. Now spending most of his time in his idyllic hometown Baler overlooking the Pacific Ocean, Angara continues his advocacies through his Angara Center for Law and Economics.
STAR recently had an exclusive interview with Ed Angara after I, his wife former Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) chairman Gloria Manalang Angara and others took the comfortable inaugural flight of Skyjet from Manila to Baler on Aug. 17, which took only 25 minutes.
Excerpts from the interview:
PHILIPPINE STAR: Your wife Gloria told me Tourism Secretary Mon Jimenez remarked that he has rarely seen a man so enamored with his hometown like you are with Baler. You are prime mover behind the new 106-room Costa Pacifica Resort, how’s Baler tourism doing?
EDGARDO J. ANGARA: We already had 400,000 tourists by June 2014 and our Baler population is only 200,000 people. To facilitate more tourism, Skyjet is flying from Manila to Baler three times a week now every Wednesday, Friday and Sunday.
Who were the most famous visitors to Baler apart from Hollywood actor Tom Cruise and director Francis Ford Coppola? Did the late actor Fernando Poe Jr. visit?
Yes, FPJ once came here and had lunch in Baler.
I heard former presidential daughter Luli Arroyo Bernas has surfed in Baler. Has former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo been here too?
Yes, Gloria has been coming to surf here with her husband Mike.
She’s very good in surfing. She has been to Baler countless times.
What about Vice President Jojo Binay?
He visited us here two years ago, he went to Casiguran after the big typhoon. He was the only national leader who came then.
Has President Noynoy Aquino been here?
Three years ago, President Aquino came here to speak at the plaza. On the way to the hospital, he told me: “Manong, ang road network ninyo dito mas maganda pa doon sa distrito ko. Tinutulungan ko (Elder brother, your road network here is nicer than that of my own district. I prefer to help) those people who I see are using their public funds well.”
Has ex-President Erap Estrada been to Baler?
Hindi si Erap mahilig sa nature, gusto niya natural (Erap isn’t so interested in nature, he likes the natural). (chuckles)
Other VIPs who had visited Baler?
President Ramon Magsaysay, President Diosdado Macapagal, Marlon Brando as you had mentioned earlier, when he shot the movie Apocalypse Now. Brando and director Francis Ford Coppola stayed here for one month.
Where did they stay in Baler?
There were no hotels yet here. They built their own camp in Sabang beach of Baler.
Where did Anne Curtis and Jericho Rosales shoot their movie beach scene?
Nagpagulonggulong sina Anne at Jericho (Anne and Jericho rolled all over) here in my property at Dicasaralin beach of Baler, right there (pointing to the beach facing the Pacific Ocean). Anne Curtis was still a starlet when she and Jericho shot Baler the movie, and she won Best Actress Award at the Metro Manila Film Festival. That movie won many awards, including the Best Picture Award.
What is the size of your property here, how long is the beachfront?
It’s 115 hectares. The beachfront is half-kilometer long. The sand is not white, but almost white and very clean.
Now there are half-hour direct flights via Jetstar from Manila to Baler and the bus ride is only five hours, how was the travel time before?
Before we travelled to Manila for 12 hours by jeep or weapons carrier. Now the bus ride is only five hours via all-concrete roads.
What about during the time of Baler’s famous President Manuel L. Quezon, how did he travel from Manila to his hometown?
He sailed here on the presidential yacht named Casiana. Maybe it took him one day to arrive here in Baler. He’d board it in Atimonan town of Quezon province where he would come via train. In the pre-war era, the train was good, the first-class section had aircon with stewardesses serving food, there was the Bicol Express, from Manila’s Tutuban station traveling to Lucena City and then on to Legazpi City. President Quezon would travel by train from Manila to Atimonan for three or four hours, then he would ride the yacht. This yacht would earlier sail from Manila, then to Mindoro, down to Romblon, then go to Atimonan where Quezon would ride it.
Any memories of the late, colorful President Quezon? Have you ever seen him as a kid?
Quezon was my hero, my role model. We grew up here in Baler knowing no other hero except Quezon and Dr. Jose Rizal. Yes, I saw President Quezon once when he spoke in the town plaza of Baler. He threw coins and we all scrambled to gather the coins. I was five or six years old then.
Was it true that although Quezon later became an officer of the Philippine Revolution, his late father Lucio Quezon was loyal to the Spanish colonizers and that the Katipunan rebels killed him and another son?
Yes, President Quezon hunted them and prosecuted them.
By the way, you’re a former U.P. president, how come your basketball team in the UAAP has been floundering for many years?
It was under my presidency and after 50 years, that was the only time UP won as UAAP champion in basketball.
How did President Ferdinand Marcos come to appoint you as UP president?
No, it was Education Minister Onofre D. Corpuz who called me about it. I was then a 46-year-old lawyer and I told him I had no experience in the academe. Corpuz told me there’s no need for experience in academe to be UP president, that the only things needed are people skills, organizational skills and — of course — common sense.
Were you at UP when presidential daughter Imee Marcos was a law student, how was she as a student?
Imee is brilliant, magaling ‘yan (she’s capable). I looked at her academic records. If Imee had just completed her two remaining units in Princeton University, she would have been magna cum laude. If she had completed her Princeton degree, she would also have graduated from UP Law School also with magna cum laude honors.
I heard from former presidential candidate Gibo C. Teodoro that you were UP president who allowed him to enrol at your law school without the entrance exam, that it was one of the reasons he studied very hard and ended up becoming bar topnotcher?
Yes, Gibo is brilliant. He was late for the entrance exam to UP Law School because he did his undergraduate degree in the US. Gibo’s got a good head.
Gibo seems to be a person who could have been a good president. Is it true you knew the late Rafael Salas? SGV Group founder Washington SyCip said Salas was one brilliant guy who could have been a good president, too. Why did he leave as Executive Secretary of President Marcos and go abroad?
It wasn’t Marcos, it was more the First Lady Imelda Marcos who was jealous of Salas. The Philippines achieved rice self-sufficiency because of Salas.
Other presidential candidates who worked with your ACCRA law firm included Senators Raul Roco and Richard Gordon, the late Senator Rene Cayetano was also with ACCRA, your impressions of them?
I recruited them to ACCRA. Cayetano was a go-getter and very aggressive. Roco was a good thinker, intellectual and eloquent. Dick Gordon is eloquent, energetic.
I heard former politician Homobono Adaza was your dormmate in UP?
Lintik! Roommate ko nga siya sa UP South Dorm (He was indeed my roommate at UP South Dorm). Bono Adaza is a genius, if he’s not misguided and being against everybody, up against the world, he should have been senator. Ang galing niya sumulat (He writes so very well).
What is your assessment of the seeming rivalry between UP classmates Senate President Franklin Drilon and Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago?
I also recruited Frank Drilon to ACCRA. Drilon is very pragmatic, solution-oriented. Miriam is more intellectual, more academic-oriented. By the way, Drilon’s late wife Violy was the first woman who became partner in a major Philippine law firm, mahal na mahal ni Cory Aquino ‘yon (Cory Aquino loved her).
Your impressions of VP Binay?
He’s very pragmatic, a practical man. He’s a person who gets things done. ‘Yan ang kailangan natin sa Pilipinas (That’s the kind of people we need in the Philippines). He can get things done.
Any impressions of Senator Grace Poe when you were with the FPJ campaign?
She wasn’t here yet then.
Your impressions of DILG Secretary Mar Roxas?
He’s intelligent, also a friend.
Is it possible Mar Roxas has high IQ, but low in EQ?
Conclusion mo ‘yan ha (That’s your conclusion).
Who are the dark horses you see on the horizon for the 2016 presidential election?
The darkest of all is Binay (laughs).
Can the now imprisoned Senators Jinggoy Estrada or Bong Revilla run for vice president?
There’s no legal prohibition on people in prison, because they’re just charged.
Was President Marcos really brilliant as lawyer and politician?
When I was still in law school, I would go to the Senate to watch and I was very impressed with Marcos, Lorenzo Tañada, Jovito Salonga and Lorenzo Sumulong.
Was it true President Quezon was allegedly a playboy?
I heard that he and General Douglas MacArthur used to be the last to close the pre-war Santa Ana Cabaret. I heard many pre-war carnival queens became his girlfriends.
Are you a bit similar to Quezon, I heard that you were once romantically linked to even winners of international beauty pageants?
Those are just plain rumors (He gestures with his index finger in his mouth). I’m masunurin (obedient).
Why are you so supportive of culture and the arts?
It’s because I love beauty. My life’s work in the preservation of our heritage and the promotion of Filipino culture and arts is perhaps about anchoring our “collective imaginations,” our notions of nationhood, on things we can see, touch, or hear such as with pieces of art, songs and stories.
Apart from Baler being your hometown, what motivated you to produce Baler, the movie?
It’s a unique and beautiful story. Baler in relative isolation on the narrow east coast of Luzon, on the seaward slope of the Sierra Madre, was the last garrison of the Spanish empire anywhere in the world. The Spanish soldiers didn’t know that Spain had already sold the Philippines to the Americans, they took refuge in the church here in Baler for 333 days. Baler was also the only place where the Filipino rebels won against Spain and America.
Do you have any other dream movie project and when?
The Balangiga massacre story in Samar, hopefully next year.
How do you feel that you have so many accomplishments as educator, legislator and leader, but many politicians win elections based only on popularity in poll surveys but without any real track record in governance or even in work?
May kasabihan nga (There’s a saying), the people deserve the leaders they elect. Iyan ang parusa ng Maykapal (That is a punishment from God).
Why don’t we adopt a parliamentary form of government like many progressive nations have, so our national leader won’t be chosen based only on popularity?
That was our proposal when I was elected to the 1971 constitutional convention but Raul Manglapus and our group — we were outnumbered then.
What are your success secrets as topnotch lawyer and statesman?
It’s because I always do my homework. Whatever you assign to me, I’ll do it and in the best way and manner possible. I am also very curious. I ask questions, maybe that’s why I learned a lot… My approach in life is this: If I see a problem, I find a solution, if not a solution at least a mitigation of that problem.
* * *
Thanks for your feedback! Email willsoonflourish@gmail.com or follow WilsonLeeFlores on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and http://willsoonflourish.blogspot.com/
