FPJ silence raises doubts on honesty

If Fernando Poe Jr.’s short takes with the press are remarkable for their emptiness, more stunning are words left unsaid. He avoids talking about his bosom pal Joseph Estrada, to dispel murmurs that he is running for President only to free him if he wins. But he recruited into his senatorial slate Estrada’s son and plunder coaccused Jinggoy, who was granted bail only for medical treatment of rectal bleeding. Poe banks on experience in running a film outfit to qualify him to run the country as well. Yet that company paid only P400,000 in taxes in 2002, which puts it at par with small gas stations in the outbacks. Poe proclaims honesty as his top credential to become President. Yet he cannot explain why he paid that year only P80,000 income tax, less than three percent of gross income, compared to a whopping P2.8 million or 27 percent by his movie pal Rudy Fernandez.

Poe admitted early in the campaign to siring a son out of wedlock. The disclosure pained his wife Susan Roces, who has had to bear the public scrutiny while spokesmen hailed his supposed honesty. Left unsaid were other illegitimate children.

Reporters had asked Sen. Tito Sotto, Poe’s campaign manager, about this before the candidate revealed the love child with actress Ana Marin. Specifically they inquired about a child with comedienne Nova Villa. "Di ko alam," Sotto stammered, "Alam ko may anak sa pagka-binata. nasa States, non-show biz. Di ko alam kung sino’ng mother. May edad na, may anak na nga e." The reporters pressed for more, if there is not one but two unrevealed children. "Di ko alam e, di ko talaga alam," Sotto said, "could be one, could be more, I really don’t know." They asked if Poe will admit the others as well. "Of course, he’s not the kind who hides, he’s open," Sotto was adamant. "Noong isang araw kinukuwento niya e, sa mga senador at sa amin."

When Poe himself was asked about this, all he said was "huwag na natin saktan ang kanilang damdamin."

Since then, Pilipino STAR Ngayon editor-in-chief Al Pedroche has written that Poe has not one or two, but five daughters out of wedlock. One is 30 years old, by an actress named Monica in the ’70s. Another is a 13-year-old named Lovely, who studies at an exclusive school in Manila, by actress Rowena Moran whom Poe reportedly married in the US after she co-starred in his movie, Kapag Puno na ang Salop. The third is by a non-show biz girlfriend named Amelia. Fourth is in Cebu, fifth is in Baguio.

Poe’s silence about them belies his vaunted sincerity.

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Insincerity is also plastered all over Vice President Tito Guingona’s "defection" to Poe’s camp. To begin with, it was not a defection. He had long resigned as president of Gloria Arroyo’s ruling Lakas party. That he waited this long to enlist as Poe’s adviser is purely personal politics. Nothing of the lofty aim about Poe uniting the fractious nation.

Guingona wanted Poe to anoint his wife Ruth and son Teofisto Jr as official opposition candidates, respectively, for mayor of Gingoog City and congressman of Bukidnon’s second district. Poe’s supporters in the Laban party resisted, for they had been with the opposition while Guingona was busy trying in vain to become the Lakas presidential standard bearer. Poe relented to Guingona last week, and the latter promptly jumped aboard. This, despite their proclaimed adherence to one of Guingona’s eight-point political agenda; that is, to reject political dynasties.

Voters with long memories are not surprised with Guingona, whom President Arroyo chose over then-Senate President Aquilino Pimentel Jr as VP after EDSA-2 in 2001. They had voted him into the 1970 Constitutional Convention because he was a staunch critic of then-President Ferdinand Marcos, who did not disguise a desire for lifting term limits in the Charter. Marcos declared martial law while the Con-Con was in session. The delegates finished their job in 1973, giving Marcos sole power to rule indefinitely. During the Con-Con’s heated voting on the final version, Guingona – with Raul Roco – voted "yes", along with Marcos crony Edgardo Angara. Only one man stood up to declare: "I will not participate in this farce." That was Pimentel, now running for senator in Poe’s ticket with Marcos minions Juan Ponce Enrile and Kit Tatad. Angara, as Laban president and KNP chairman, is their foremost campaigner.

Tatad, after serving as Marcos’s spokesman, fought him in a mock election during martial law. Enrile and Angara defected to Cory Aquino’s civil-disobedience drive in the wake of the fraudulent snap poll of 1986. People power toppled Marcos. Months later Tatad, Enrile and Angara were back with the Marcos family, and later with Estrada. Guingona in 2000 sparked Estrada’s, and was almost expelled from the Senate by Tatad and Enrile. Now he is Poe, whose main support comes from Estrada loyalists.

No wonder people are saying of Guingona, "they can have him–and Pimentel too." Birds of the same feather....

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Has it become habit for the NBI to harass whistleblowers? Ernesto Hiansen is asking so after being charged along with the very persons he has exposed for multimillion-peso tax fraud. He’s now in the same boat as Land Bank manager Acsa Ramirez, who had tipped off the NBI about similar fraud, only to end up being the accused.

Hiansen, head of the finance department’s one-stop shop of tax credit certificates, was implicated by one of the persons he investigated for selling fake TCCs. Part of his job is to review all TCC transactions. It was in the course of such review that a new syndicate was discovered to be trading in fake TCCs. This, after Hiansen too exposed an older syndicate involved in a multibillion-peso TCC scam with the Chingkoe Group. After Hiansen’s latest exposé, one of the culprits vowed revenge through strong connections. Now the NBI is saying that Hiansen is no whistleblower, but that culprit is.

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