The candidates: De los Reyes

Reading the 62-page “Passport to a New Philippines” of Ang Kapatiran (The Brotherhood) is like reading a missal.

The mini paperback contains the detailed campaign platform of the party’s standard-bearer, John Carlos Gordon de los Reyes, at 40 the youngest of the nine presidential aspirants.

After a long talk with “JC” de los Reyes, you can understand why he is the Catholic bishops’ choice. What was the last book he read? The Bible, which he read that morning, he told us the other day. Apart from this? “The Compendium of the Social Teachings of the Church.”

De los Reyes, a graduate of Theology in Ohio who nearly joined the priesthood, is for a gun-less society, which is the main advocacy of the party’s founder and chairman emeritus, Nandy Pacheco. De los Reyes is also against the death penalty, contraception and the reproductive health bill, divorce, gay rights (except political) and gay marriage – in short, everything that the Roman Catholic Church stands for.

Campaigning on a platform of moral renewal, De los Reyes believes he is in the best position among his rivals to wage a genuine battle against corruption, end political dynasties and dismantle private armies.

De los Reyes is part of a prominent dynasty himself, being the other Gordon seeking the nation’s highest office in this race. JC arrived at The STAR in a Mercedes Benz, and he drove a vintage Benz even in his student days at the University of the Philippines in Los Baños, where he studied sociology for one semester and was known as John C.

JC’s candidacy has created a deep rift within the family that has governed Olongapo for decades, and has hurt the presidential bid of his mother’s brother, Sen. Richard Gordon. Or is the uncle hurting the nephew’s bid?

De los Reyes, a councilor in Olongapo, told us that he has not been in good terms politically with his uncle for the past 15 years.

“He never thought I’d be the leader that I am now,” De los Reyes told us.

“I’m rebelling against them.”

For his rebellion, and for daring to go against the heavy hitters in Philippine politics, De los Reyes said he and his wife and three children are being ostracized, with people telling the kids, aged 11, 9 and 7, that their father must have a loose screw.

“We are undergoing tremendous persecution,” he said. “This is my cross… I don’t want to carry it again.”

He quickly clarified this and said if fielded by his party again, he would accept it.

In 2007, the party delivered 800,000 votes to its candidates, he said. This time, De los Reyes is expecting to garner more than a million votes.

The number could be bigger, he said, if he and his supporters, including the Catholic bishops, could “wake up a sleeping giant” – the Catholic vote.

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De los Reyes is pragmatic enough to realize that there is no such vote in this country. But he believes “there is always a first time.”

“We should acknowledge that the problem of our nation is moral,” he told us. “We’re trying to build up a Catholic Church constituency… they have to be politically engaged.”

Although surveys put him at the tailend in the presidential race, De los Reyes emphasized to us that “I haven’t thrown in the towel.” When we asked what made him angry, his quick reply was, “People who say I can’t win… because only God knows (what will happen) tomorrow.”

On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being the best, he placed his odds of winning “electorally” at only six to seven, but at 10 “in the hearts and minds of the people.”

De los Reyes is the only one of the candidates The STAR has interviewed so far to declare that he used drugs, but he said it was only marijuana, and only when he was a teenager.

Today he has no vices and is in good health, and he wants to serve as a model for a solid family life.

In this predominantly Catholic country, why is such a presidential candidate not gaining ground, at least in the surveys? De los Reyes said mass media has failed to highlight the virtues of individuals and groups “that really want change.” Borrowing words from a Ramon Magsaysay awardee, he told us, “Journalism should breed idealism.”

What stopped him from joining the priesthood? He had returned to the Philippines in 1991 from his Theology studies and was appalled, he said, by the daily blackouts and breakdown of peace and order, characterized by the killing of Maureen Hultman and her friend Roland John Chapman and wounding of Jussi Leino by the son and namesake of the late Chief Justice Claudio Teehankee.

De los Reyes was permanently drawn away from the priesthood when Fr. James Reuter introduced him to his future wife Dunia, a Filipino-Brazilian.

“We are in politics because of our faith,” De los Reyes told us. 

He said it was tough – “hirap talaga” – to introduce “new politics” in this country where most people merely pay lip service to the need for change. “These are tough times for me.”

His seven-year-old daughter, he says, throws a tantrum and cries each time he leaves home to campaign.

De los Reyes emphasizes that he is not messianic. His “Passport to a New Philippines” includes guidelines on character building, and explanations on the “politics of virtue” and the “unity of religion and politics.”

If voters “are not responsive” to his message, he told us, “at least we’ve planted the seeds of change.”