Fred Lim roundly denies trying to silence Chavit with P500 M or any ‘bribe’ - BY THE WAY by Max V. Soliven

Of course he denied it. Interior and Local Government Secretary Alfredo Lim called a press conference yesterday to categorically deny he had offered Ilocos Sur Governor Luis "Chavit" Singson a P500 million bribe to gain his "silence" on the President’s alleged links to jueteng.

He said that his kumpadre Chavit must have been misquoted, or was "dreaming" when he told the press at his own press-con at the Manila Yacht Club that Lim had visited him on the night of October 7 to attempt to convince him to reconsider his exposé plan.

"Tell the truth!" Lim challenged his "former" friend Singson, although he softened his retort by saying that he still didn’t believe that Chavit would "deliberately tell a lie." Don’t be so mild or forgiving, Fred. When you’re too polite in responding to such a deadly accusation, many people might think you’re "guilty."

The truth is that many were shocked and disbelieving yesterday when the story about the Lim "bribe" offer appeared on our newspaper’s front page. When Singson accused President Estrada, it’s clear that (unfortunately for Erap) the public tended to accept Singson’s version over Estrada’s denials. When Chavit testified in the Senate following his opening salvo at the Club Filipino, his credibility held up despite the badgering of several Senators, even as it came hard on the heels of clumsy maneuvers in the House of Representatives by Estrada partisans to muzzle him.

However, when Singson accuses somebody widely admired for his integrity like Fred Lim, in a case of "my word against yours", Chavit ought to know that he can only lose out in that manu-mano. Lim’s not perfect (he’ll never be able to shrug off that Sweepstakes "first prize" incident which continues to dog him) but he’s almost universally regarded as a tough cop, a sterling public servant, and a stand-up guy. Slow down, Chavit. You’re ahead, so don’t blow it.

After all, Chavit "confessed" that he was a jueteng lord, but pointed out he had run illegal gambling for the President. In short, what Chavit admitted was: "I’m a rat – but Erap is King Rat." Lim, on the other hand, enjoys a well-deserved reputation as a two-fisted, uncompromising crime-fighter. Going around offering people P500 million bribes is not his style. It’s simply out of character for him. What is he? A dumb cluck? Why should he offer a "bribe" and take a fall for even his friend Erap, knowing that Chavit as the tough guy he is, won't blink, and can be expected to damn the torpedoes and charge at full gallop even against a President? It doesn’t stand to reason.

Lim admitted yesterday he had indeed visited Singson at his Blue Ridge home in Quezon City some days after the attempted ambush of the governor last October 3 on San Marcelino street, Manila. He explained he had been invited along to visit Singson by Caloocan Rep. Luis "Baby" Asistio. That’s what he gets, I’ll have to say, by being in the company of Asistio.

On the other hand, Lim says he had in fact – during that visit – offered to assign new police bodyguards to Singson after the PNP Director General Panfilo Lacson had "recalled" Chavit’s original police bodyguards. What puzzles me, by the way, is why before he broke with the President my cousin Chavit had police bodyguards assigned to him. Are all Presidential cronies afforded this courtesy? (And it’s no doubt, he used to be one). After the stupid assassination caper which failed last Oct. 3, of course, Chavit would have been entitled to "police protection." But then, Singson trusts no policemen following that incident. After all, as he tells it, two police prowl cars and one civilian car full of cops armed with high-powered weapons had intercepted his Chevy Suburban van at 11 p.m. in the dark of night – on a mere "blinker" violation.

No, sir. To Singson, from now on, the police are the "enemy." Who can blame him?

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Speaker Manny Villar is the Man of the Hour. He was greeted with a large wave of applause yesterday morning when he visited our coffee tertulia, the "Tuesday Club", in the Islands Coffee Shop of the EDSA Plaza Shangri-La.

That blitzkrieg move last Monday in the House of Representatives – in which he outfoxed all the wise guys of the pro-Malacañang majority in the chamber by opening the session with a prayer, next reading the report of the Committee on Justice without a pause in rapid-fire succession, then declaring that thereby he was sending the Articles of Impeachment immediately up to the Senate for trial – caught the Palace man-to-man guarding contingent in the Lower House completely by surprise. Before they realized it, the deed was done, and Villar snappily banged his gavel to declare a "recess."

With all the smart lawyers in the chamber, a graduate of Business Administration and Accountancy (he got his BS and Masters in those disciplines at the U.P.) simply outmaneuvered those legal beagles. They were caught with their mouths – in fact, their flies – open. That was Villar’s finest hour.

Subsequently, of course, the pro-Palace majority punished him (as they had, after all, intended) by ousting him from the Speakership and "electing" Rep. Arnulfo P. Fuentebella, NPC, Third District, Camarines Sur (who finished Law at the U.P. in 1970 and placed seventh in the Bar the same year) as the new Speaker. Even Fuentebella, a Bar topnotcher, was caught napping by the Villar fast-break. And even then, the vote was close, if you legally nitpick, not even decisive. Villar lost narrowly, garnering 93 votes to Fuentebella’s 114.

Manny told us yesterday that only two other persons knew of his "lightning" strategy in advance – his own lawyer and Quezon City Rep. Feliciano "Sonny" Belmonte, the opposition Minority Floor Leader and co-author of the Impeachment Resolution. Now that he is no longer "Speaker", Villar said (he’s an Independent, having bolted the LAMP) he will be free to move around. He declared he won’t seek to become Minority Floor Leader, for, after all Belmonte "is doing a fine job as leader of the Opposition."

Congressman Belmonte is one of the 11 "prosecutors" selected by the House to prosecute the Impeachment of the President in the Senate. By his advocacy of the impeachment from the start, Sonny has gained a quantum leap in his ratings, which will be useful if or when he runs for Mayor of Quezon City against actor Rudy Fernandez (aren’t they tired of actors by now?) and Mel Mathay’s anointed son Chuck Mathay. Chuck is so fervently running for the mayorship that he’s basking in the publicity of sexy star Ara Mina announcing that he’s her "father", she thinks.

* * *

The inside story is that the President offered businessman Luis "Sito" Lorenzo Jr., the son of the late business magnate and former Ateneo basketball star Luis "Moro" Lorenzo, the vacant post of Secretary of Trade and Industry.

Sito, who was reluctant to accept the position, met with the President at 4 p.m. Monday afternoon in the P.R. (Presidential Residence) in Malacañang after "thinking it over", to politely decline the Cabinet nomination. Present at that meeting were Finance Secretary Jose "Titoy" Pardo, Agriculture Secretary Ed Angara (a close friend who has been urging Sito to accept), businessmen George Drysdale and Tony Garcia (whom Sito had tagged along for "moral support").

Lorenzo suggested to the President, however, that he go about choosing a new Trade and Industry Secretary in another way designed to elicit the cooperation, however grudging, of even the hostile sectors of the business and banking community.

He said to Erap: "Mr. President, why don’t you request the leading business and finance organizations, such as the Makati Business Club (‘even if they don’t like you’), the Management Association of the Philippines, the Financial Executives of the Philippines, the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Bankers Association, and the Chamber of Real Estate and Builders Association, etc., to name ‘three’ persons with whom they would be willing to interact as DTI Secretary?"

When the names come in, Sito suggested, the President could choose the replacement of exited DTI chief Manuel "Mar" Roxas II from the three proposed "eminent persons."

Let’s face it. The business community, or most of it, may delight in witnessing the economic and currency meltdown as a means of propelling Estrada from office but such a downtrend would devastate their own enterprises, throw hundreds of thousands out of jobs, create widespread misery – and plunge the economy into such a free-fall that even the next President or a new dispensation might find it impossible to "recover." What if the Senate acquits Estrada? What if he stonewalls and refuses (as he vows) to never resign? Then everybody would have to deal with Estrada, even if a "lameduck" President, for the next three and a half years. And so would the world.

So it makes sense to help "choose" the right man for DTI. Even the much-touted campaign of "civil disobedience" some hot-headed elements are insisting on could be painfully counterproductive. The anti-Erap forces might succeed only in throwing out the baby with the bath.

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THE ROVING EYE . . . Yesterday’s mammoth welga ng bayan delivered a sharp message to the President and the administration, but it was also worrisome to ordinary citizens and those neutral in this confrontation. The proliferation of Red banners and streamers shows that there’s a dangerous alliance between the radical Leftists and the capitalists and employers. Some people might live to regret this "marriage of convenience" – the Communists and their vicious front organizations are now in the process of creating a "revolutionary situation" in the Marxist-Leninist mold, piggy-backing on the indignation of the middle class and the upper class. Just remember the French Revolution. It sent a king, his queen, and the hated aristocracy to the Guillotine, then, the Terror it unleashed started devouring its own children – including Robespierre, Danton, and the other organizers of the Revolution. There are so many Madam Lefarges cackling over their clenched fists and "thumbs down" gestures that this may be a portent of violent things to come. Estrada himself has been helping provoke this terrifying situation by trying to mobilize the "poor", the mahirap and kapus-palad against what he deplorably terms the "elitists", the burgis, the insulares and the rich. If he persists in this folly, he could be devoured, too. Beware . . . The President was savaged by the CNBC’s television host Rico Hizon when he consented to a one-on-one interview on worldwide cable TV. He stammered and bumbled through his answers, while Hizon cheekily and mischievously heckled him and threw loaded questions at him. Erap also muffed his appearance before the Foreign Correspondents’ Association of the Philippines (FOCAP), stumbling through his replies. It is dawning on many that Erap may speak passable English, but he’s horribly clumsy and ill at ease when struggling to express himself in English. (He can’t even voice his explanations or alibis convincingly in English.) For instance, he twice said in the CNBC interview that he had "succumbed" to the offers of "friends" to lend their lavish mansions to him for the use of his families (I think he meant "tinanggap ko" – or "accepted" their offers of providing mansions for his use – who knows? "Succumbed" sounded that he had succumbed to temptation). Why doesn’t Erap insist, like most Presidents and Prime Ministers all over the world do, on speaking in our native language, Filipino or Tagalog, in which he is fluent? Let the interpreters and translators cope with his replies. The Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat used to reply to queries or give interviews in halting English, but finally realized that he came off better when he spoke in Arabic, with interpreters smoothly interpreting what he wanted to say. This is no time for Eraptions. The President is embroiled in a struggle for survival, and every word is a weapon, or else, a landmine which could explode in his face . . . Manny Villar will tell the "inside" story of how he sped the Impeachment of the President to the Senate. This gripping tale will be told this morning at the Greenhills Walking Corporation forum in the Ristorante La Dolce Fontana on Annapolis street, Greenhills. The other guest speaker is the new Senate President Aquilino "Nene" Pimentel who will reveal how the Impeachment will be "tried" in the Senate and completed by February at the latest. Pimentel will also unveil his Senate program. The session will start promptly at 7:30 a.m. because the Senate President has to rush back to the Senate to preside over a Budget meeting.