A full-time press secretary

With just barely five months left in office, President Arroyo has again relaunched a “charm offensive.” Actually, this was one of the ideas that the late press secretary Cerge Remonde suggested for the President to embark on as part of promoting her administration’s legacy mode as she winds down from office on June 30 this year.

It was a campaign to win over the support of private media to help project to the Filipino people the accomplishments of the administration since Arroyo first took office in January 2000. But before the President could even start the “charm offensive,” Cerge suffered a fatal heart attack last week.

The late press secretary originally scheduled a series of meetings of President Arroyo with top executives of media entities, officials and leaders of various media organizations, editors, and columnists. Two days after the demise of Cerge, the President instead met over lunch with the members of the Malacanang Press Corps (MPC) at the Palace.

It was with the MPC members — composed of the beat reporters covering her everyday in and out of the Palace — to whom she announced her appointment of Manila Bulletin editor-in-chief Crispulo Julio Icban Jr. as her new press secretary. The appointment of Icban as the new press secretary was well received by the Philippine media as he comes from our own ranks.

The minute I learned about his appointment, I called him up to confirm if indeed the news that spread like wildfire was true. We were just together in our regular Thursday lunch at the Mythers and Friends but he never mentioned anything about it. He confided that he was just as surprised because the President just called him up a few minutes earlier to tell him: “Jun, thank you ha.”

Actually, the President had a previously organized luncheon meeting with Icban’s Capampangan Media Inc. (CAMI), a group of journalists who trace their roots to Mrs. Arroyo’s home province of Pampanga. Icban is currently chairman of CAMI. That took place a day after the death of Cerge.

It was during their freewheeling talks at the luncheon with the President that she started looking then for a replacement for Cerge. After they saw each other, Icban said, the next thing he knew was getting the “thank you” phone call from the President.

President Arroyo’s late father, former President Diosdado Macapagal was the wedding godparent of Icban whose family also hails from Lubao. “We would like to help her in her last five months in office,” Icban told me. “It’s not our line of expertise but I will do my best,” he promised.

From there, the President pushed through with the previously arranged meetings with other media groups. So for the last few days, the President has been hosting sit-down gatherings, get-together receptions — either over lunch or dinner — at Malacanang Palace.

Last Sunday, the President sat down over dinner with the Manila Overseas Press Club (MOPC) officials who asked her how she was able to convince Icban to give up his otherwise less stressful job in the private media. The President’s quick retort was: “I talked with Don Emilio Yap and he said yes.” The Filipino-Chinese taipan owns the more than a century-old Bulletin Today and the Manila Hotel.  

Yap assured Icban he would be welcome to return to his post while on leave for the next five months to work as press secretary.

Then on Monday, I was one of those invited for lunch with the President along with my fellow columnist at The STAR Alex Magno; Business Mirror editor-in-chief Chuchay Fernandez; Philippine Daily Inquirer columnists Rina Jimenez-David, Ambeth Ocampo and Patricia Evangelista; Manila Times columnist Dan Mariano, and ABS-CBN DzMM radio news commentator Neil Ocampo.

The President took the opportunity to announce and introduce to us her new team of presidential spokespersons led by Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita and his deputies composed of Gary Olivar (for business and economy), Charito Planas (on legacy and other government programs and projects), and Ricardo Saludo as her newly designated spokesperson for governance.

With the death of her former press secretary who also used to dabble as her presidential spokesperson in concurrent capacity, President Arroyo admitted she needed to fill a big vacuum that Cerge left behind. Being a former radio broadcaster, Mrs. Arroyo cited, Cerge found it convenient to do both roles with ease.

The President disclosed her newly appointed press secretary, who comes from print media, has told her he prefers to work behind the scene and attend to managing the Palace press office, writing, composing and editing tasks. Icban confirmed this to us saying: “It’s (talking) not our line of expertise in the print (media).”

Icban is still at the stage of phasing in himself to the Office of the Press Secretary (OPS). In fact, Mrs. Arroyo revealed to us, Icban was in a luncheon meeting with her former Press Secretary Ignacio “Toting” Bunye while we were having our own lunch at the Palace.

Icban sought out Bunye for a briefing about the job he has accepted at the OPS. Bunye — now a member of the Monetary Board since he resigned from the Arroyo Cabinet — has distinguished himself as the press secretary cum presidential spokesperson who served the longest term at the Palace. And the two of them have traded places. After his departure from the Arroyo Cabinet, Bunye has been writing a regular column at the Bulletin.

Speaking of Bunye, he wrote a special tribute on the soon-to-come-out memoir book “From Macapagal to Macapagal.” It’s a biographical book written for Bunye’s former press undersecretary Carmen “Ching” Suva who served several Presidents of the Republic from the time of the late President Macapagal until President Arroyo. Tita Ching, as we in the MPC fondly call her, happens to be a colleague also of Icban at the Bulletin Today where she is vice president for public relations.

Bunye refused to tell me the trade secrets he shared with Icban to prepare him for his new job at the OPS. Though he would only be working for five months at the OPS, the 64-year old Icban needs all the trade secrets to survive that long at the so-called “snake pit” at the Palace.

Icban is taking over as full-time press secretary next week after he takes his oath of office at the end of the nine-day mourning for Cerge. Hopefully, it would not be a rough awakening for the new press secretary.