Will the real Jose Pidal please stand up?

Who is the real Jose Pidal?

According to an Internet search, Jose Pidal can be anyone from a 1950s Mexican actor to a Spanish senator before the First World War, or even a Belgian social worker.

But any links to a real flesh and blood Jose Pidal that holds office on the 8th floor of a Makati building turned up negative.

An Internet search for "Jose Pidal" — which Sen. Panfilo Lacson claims is the alias used by First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo to launder his billions — using the Google engine showed that an obscure Mexican actor with that name became a face on the silver screen in the 1950s.

No profile of the actor is available, but the search showed that among the movies wherein Pidal starred in minor roles were El and El Señor Fotografo.

El is a "funny critique of male obsessions with female purity and faithfulness," according to www.rottentomatoes.com, a website about foreign movies.

El Señor Fotografo is a 101-minute movie about "a trouble-prone photographer whose assignments inevitably end in slapstick confusion," www.blockbuster.com showed.

There was also a Jose Pidal who became "life senator" of Spain in 1911, according to the Spanish website www.xtec.es.

Born in Cadiz in 1849, Pidal rose through the ranks in the Spanish navy. He was a sailor who took part in the battle of Alcolea, where he was promoted to lieutenant and later to captain.

In 1910, he was promoted to admiral and became navy chief from 1912 to 1918. He died in Madrid two years later.

A search using yahoo.com’s people search also showed that there is a 36-year-old Belgian social worker by the name of Jose Pidal.

His profile, written in Spanish, can be found at http://profiles.yahoo.com/josepidal. In the entry for civil status, Mr. Pidal gave no reply.

The Internet did not yield any data on the forebear of Mr. Arroyo, the Pidal now buried in an Iloilo cemetery. — Nereo Lujan/The Guardian