I know whereof I speak. I was press secretary and spokesman of President Corazon Aquino for almost three years. It was a job I didn’t seek, enjoying as I did then the emoluments of Agence France-Presse Manila bureau chief and a roving foreign correspondent. But Cory Aquino beckoned and her martyred husband a bosom friend of mine, I eventually relented. Why not? In retrospect. It was a chance to serve the nation. It was also a chance to prove one could be a model public servant without looting the public till I figured besides I was excellently qualified for the job, having labored in the vineyards of journalism for 36 years.
In just about two weeks’ time, I realized I blundered.
I will not mention Palace names. But there was around President Aquino a cordon sanitaire, barracudas Lupita Aquino Kashiwahara called them. Lupita, younger sister of Ninoy Aquino, wasn’t exactly glad I took the job but said, okay, for Ninoy’s sake. From the outset, the cordon sanitaire didn’t like me, darted dagger looks in my direction. Even in the Guest House, the secretariat there, ladies all, coiled like aroused rattlesnakes wherever I was around. My only friend and ally was Ching Escaler, presidential appointments secretary. She was a protégé of Jimmy Ongpin, at the time the bête noire of the three-man cordon sanitaire. Poor Jimmy. They dragged his name through the mire at the Guest House. Unang bulong, as they say into the president’s ears, and therefore the most lethal bulong.
Proximity is power. And the cordon sanitaire is the most proximate to Cory Aquino. They had virtually life-and-death powers over any paper or document that sought entry to Cory Aquino’s office. The only way I could seek unimpeded entry to the president’s office was to ride piggy-back on Ching Escaler. The cordon couldn’t stop, neutralize, or marginalize Ching. Jimmy helped heaps during the 1986 electoral campaign, his helicopters and planes at Cory’s service. Contributions flowed from the business community to the electoral war chest, because Jimmy Ongpin did a yeoman’s job here.
But back to our subject. In less than three weeks’ time, I wanted to get out of Malacañang like nobody’s business.
It was not my cup of coffee. At the Agence France Presse, I was the big boss. As press secretary, I found myself a supernumerary, a note-taker, a sort of beat reporter all over again, glued to the president, listening to her every word, scribbling furiously, making sure I understood everything she said, fathoming her mind all the time on the great and paramount issues of the day. It was back-breaking work, on top of which I had to run the Press Office, attend to the infinite demands of the bureaucracy, make sure I touched base with that most demanding of domestic press organizations–the Malacañang Press Corps. That probably was the most difficult job. Trying to please and satisfy the horde of media covering Malacañang was like doing housekeeping in a raging volcano.
Anyway, I told President Aquino I wanted out in less than three weeks.
Cory Aquino looked at me with eyes that brooked no dissent. "Magtiis ka," she said. "Lahat tayo nagtitiis. Ako’y talagang nagtitiis. Maghintay ka. Huwag ka munang umalis." And that was that. After that, I tried a couple of times more to leave. I asked for several months leave of absence. She easily saw through that and said no. Cory Aquino saying no is like seeing and hearing the heavens opening and the word no streaking out like a lightning bolt. But I knew, I just knew one day I would just have to get out. I hated the job, hated every moment of it. If the President was up in the ratings, it was because she was a gosh-and-golly chief of state. If the President was down or faltering, it was the fault of the press secretary. And he had to be skewered, impaled on the rack, scorched with expletives.
Now, let’s go to Bobi Tiglao.
He can deny it till the lowing cows come home, President GMA can deny it any kind of language including Esperanto and Swahili, but you can smell it a mile away. Bobi was booby-trapped into leaving. Virtually all power had been stripped from him. His undersecretaries and deputies were not his appointees. He, unlike Rod Reyes, was never an insider. Eventually, if not soon enough, he came to realize who was boss of the whole shebang – Dante Ang. Who is Dante Ang? I’ll tell you who is Dante Ang. He is GMA’s capo di tutti cappi, boss of all bosses, who has earned the president’s trust, confidence over the years.
It was Dante Ang who worked GMA up to look like Nora Aunor. Gloria was shorty and therefore a frailty. But Dante remedied this by hooking her up to the entertainment world where the likes of Boy Abunda gussied her up. Soon she was almost Nora Aunor to the core as she ran for the Senate in 1992. Political shows were verboten. Sitcoms were the thing, entertainment shows were the booster rocket to political fame. In a sense, this prefigured the phenomenon of Rico Yan. Gloria was cute, pert, pretty, cuddly and wondrously, a Nora Aunor look-alike. This Dante Ang played to the hilt. Media took care of the rest. Gloria soared to topnotcher in the Senate race.
I once asked GMA, when I handled overall strategy for her as a presidential candidate in 1996-97 why she couldn’t bump off Dante Ang. Her answer was simple enough: "Everytime I need him, he is there. Everytime I need a press conference, he hustles it fast. I admit he is not a deep thinker. He hates research. He is not a strategist, but he is loyal and dedicated, and I need a man like him, always around me, ready to do my bidding." What GMA did not mention was that Dante Ang and her hubby Mike Arroyo were buddy-buddies, inseparables, each toting the other like Damon and Pythias. Both like the good things in life. At one time, Dante Ang was buying race-horses–mirabili dictu! – from the Cojuangco cousins. Big breeders they.
Dante Ang was a shoo-in for the portfolio of Press Secretary when GMA became president. I understand, however, many around GMA just didn’t like him, particularly the Kompil camarilla of Vicky Garchitorena. But that didn’t matter much. It was just a question of biding time. Dante Ang inhabited the shadows, always loomed over GMA together with Mike Arroyo. In the meantime, he was casing Malacañang, calling virtually all the shots, where it came to media and communications, lorded it they say over Broadcast City, bought the Manila Times. And, I do not know what else.
It didn’t take long, I am sure, before Bobi Tiglao realized he was in leg irons and handcuffs.
Dante Ang, of course with GMA’s enthusiastic blessing, loves to spread his shadow over Malacañang. He now has, I understand, the title of "senior media adviser," whatever that means. What I understand by that is everybody in the Press Office and Malacañang’s communications set-up, including the government’s sequestered TV-radio empire kowtows to Dante Ang. Boy, they really love "Angs" in Malacañang. Joseph Estrada had his Atong Ang. Atong was the only wrongo in town who could give Erap a lesson or two in getting in and out of revolving doors in a split-second.
It takes a gorilla’s hide, a baboon’s stomach, and a monkey’s brain to stomach Malacañang. I weathered it for almost three years. When I got out, it was like getting out of Treblinka.
Bobi’s just not the type to take orders from Dante Ang. What Dante knows about journalism, Bobi has already forgotten. As I didn’t like to pander, Mr. Tiglao also doesn’t want to. You can see that in his face. It has a thin layer of melancholy, a pain waiting to get out but can’t, eyes that lie but often seek refuge. I think I know the guy. When he got his first honor scroll from the Catholic Mass Media Awards many, many years ago, I was a member of the board of judges and insisted he and he alone deserved the award for reporting. He was a damn good business writer and proved this by eventually getting the coveted job of Manila bureau chief for the Far Eastern Economic Review.
Eventually, he became president of the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines (FOCAP) which I founded in 1973. When he deserted his column in the Inquirer to take over the job of presidential spokesman, I wondered what made him do it? Ambition? Quest for power? Opportunity to make big money? I figured he wouldn’t last. And I was right. Tiglao was never tailored for the job. I do not know if he was ever the target of GMA’s volatile temper. I never was. But if he was, after all the years he worked as a foreign correspondent, that would have been humbling and humiliating.
All things considered, he did the right thing. Married. Got out.