A campaign built on lies

The trouble with the Villar campaign is that it has been, from Day One, built on lying. A friend who was drafted into the Villar pre-campaign by mutual friends who thought Mar Roxas could not exude the aura of a victor nor attract the big bucks required to mount a presidential campaign, tried his best. He built the message of Villar’s campaign around what he then thought were genuinely “poor” beginnings (galing sa mahirap) and tried to make it resonate further by an approach towards “tumutulong sa mahirap” through the OFW ads where Manny was shown helping some distressed Filipinos maltreated by foreign masters. Those were great beginnings for the Villar campaign.

He had a story to tell (roots of poverty), and a goal to propagate (wants to help the poor). It was a compelling anthem Mar Roxas could only lip-synch, through his “padyak” and a return to the “palengke”. Clearly, that attempt fell flat in the onslaught of Manny Villar’s “inspiring” tale.

But when Cory died and an instant euphoria pushed her son Noynoy to the fore, Manny Villar and his propagandists had to go through a cold assessment of chances. The team no longer included my friend who gave up on Villar in early 2009. If Aquino’s numbers were sustained, Villar’s chances were kaput. Fortunately for them, instant euphoria lulled the Noynoy handlers into complacency. Absolutely giddy numbers of 51%, even higher, showed a simple truth --- this was an election Noynoy could not lose, except that he had three months of a formal campaign to go, and three months of a pre-campaign to consolidate those numbers and sustain them over a six-month period, which is a long, long time in politics.

Prior to Cory, Villar’s handlers wisely assumed that: (1) Erap would likely be disqualified; (2) Chiz Escudero would be unable to raise the kind of money to put up a decent fight; (3) Mar Roxas would no longer fly; (4) Gibo would be unable to shrug off his “kiss of death”; and (5) Loren’s “bridge” was falling down.

The strategy was therefore cut and dried. Believing that billions alone make a campaign successful, he deciphered that when the money does not come, Chiz and/or Loren will be his for the taking, as running-mate that is. He wooed Chiz, but the young man wouldn’t cozy up to him after learning the truth behind the C-5 that Ping and Jamby broke. But when Chiz left his NPC, by which time Noynoy had entered the scene, Loren became easy picking.

As they had fondly wished, Noynoy was lulled into near-fatal complacency. And while the enemy was asleep, Villar’s handlers, with unlimited funds to throw in, rolled out the dice and hit pairs of sevens with their bouncing hymn to poverty, utilizing the Baseco kids. Side by side with the hymn to poverty were depictions of Villar’s amazing rags to riches story. And Noynoy’s numbers dropped, most of them parked with Villar.

Villar’s tall tales of poverty went on overload, saturating the airwaves. But meantime, layer by slow layer (slow because Villar’s gatekeepers in media killed much of the “negative” but true news about their principal), the veneer that covered the origins of Villar’s wealth broke to public attention. His numbers reached plateau. C-5 gained attention, no thanks to Jamby’s clumsy communications handling coupled with an overflow of funds to “kill” the truth , but because of Villar, mismo. He refused to face his peers, and his Senate President publicly declared him “duwag”. The masa, still half-comprehending the magnitude of Villar’s guilt, nonetheless asked themselves --- “kung walang kasalanan, bakit ayaw harapin?” And, to borrow his acolyte Alan Peter Cayetano’s description of Mike Arroyo in the heat of his ill-researched Bank Hypovereins accusation, the masa thought --- “mukhang guilty”.

Then Dumagat farmers from Norzagaray tried to bring their tale of woe to town. Their forebears tilled some 485 hectares of land (part of a total 718 has.) to which they were finally granted a free patent and original certificate of title by the Republic during the time of Macapagal I and Marcos. The politically powerful and wealthy Puyats tried to bulldoze them out of the land in martial law days. They went to its fringes, coming back when the Puyat ventures all failed, from poultry to piggery to brick-making. Karma? But later they faced a more insidious claimant, Manuel B. Villar Jr. When the 1997 Asian recession hit the Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae combined of the Philippines called Camella and Palmera, its sister company, Capitol Bank, fell under. It hocked these 485 hectares to no less than the Bangko Sentral, which parted with 1.5 billion of the people’s money to stanch the haemorrhage in the family-owned self-dealing bank. The BSP had the Villar titles transferred to it, which the Malolos Register of Deeds, along with the BSP lawyers, failed to see or deliberately missed out on the date of original transfer, which was July 25, 1944, the Japanese occupation, when transfers of property were nullified by an amendment to Commonwealth Act 141. The Dumagats have OCT’s granted by the Republic because these lands were beyond the commerce of man, and by law, only the Republic could grant these to its poor settlers. But the BSP did not run after Villar. Truth is, they were hoping Villar would buy these fake titles back from them, so they could forthwith launder their stupidity or conspiracy and clean their books of rubbish. Ironically, Villar got the Bangko Sentral to “swim in a sea of garbage”.

But media hardly noticed the poor Dumagats. Only this space and a few more bothered, shocked as we were, not only by the financial legerdemain, but more so by the utter villainy of dispossessing poor farmers. Then, up in Iloilo, Frank Drilon and Boy Mejorada discovered that prime ricelands, irrigated at much expense to the public treasury, were illegally converted into prime residential subdivisions by the same Manny Villar who came to town boasting that his forebears were Ilonggo. Villar called his Iloilo possessions Savannah, in the tradition of the antebellum South (probably having run out of Italian or French-sounding names).

And then urban poor from the barren hills of San Pedro came to town likewise, saying they were being driven out by pobre turned uber wealthy Villar, on the basis of a spurious title despite the PCGG-certified fact that the 2.8 hectare property was under lis pendens because same was sequestered from the estate of Marcos crony Maximo Argana.
Ted Failon caught Villar lying on cam when he denied that his project, the Daang Hari that connected Bacoor to Alabang, passed just a few of his properties, when in fact, some 22 subdivisions of his flagship Vista Land flanked left and right of the snaking concrete thoroughfare paid for by, once again, funds of the Philippine treasury!

As we wrote in our sister publication Abante once --- “Hindi pala maka-mahirap. Pahirap sa mahihirap.” And at the expense of taxpayer money.

More tales will surely be unravelled. Already, Lila Ramos Shahani has written on her blog an incisive analysis of Villar’s Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth, which showed not only the astronomical increase in his wealth from the time he entered politics as the congressman of Las Pinas until 2008, when he was yet President of the Senate. Most quizzical in these SALN’s was the finding that the bulk of his declared billion-peso wealth (some 700 million) was in the form of “accounts receivable” which were never liquidated, nor explained. Except as Lila, daughter of a respected former senator and niece of a former President, wondered --- was it money-laundering to predicate his oft-repeated statements that he would fund his own campaign?

But there is something else that I deliberately left out for later in this chronology of suspicious prevarications and obfuscations. Part of the Villar campaign strategy rested on: Fact One – Gilbert Teodoro’s plane would never take-off; which in turn would lead to Fact Two - Gloria and her Mike would need a new champion to ensure their political and economic longevity long after June 30, 2010, beyond the pale of simple justice. They had to have insurance from the man who would sit in the throne inside the stinking palace beside the stinking river. And thus was borne the hybrid Villar-royo.

At first even friends kept telling me I was engaging in the realm of speculation, to which I would only smile a knowing smile. For I knew that in the first week of May 2009, a day or two before Gloria Macapagal Arroyo flew to Egypt and Syria accompanied by a crony, Mr. and Mrs. Manuel Villar Jr. flew to Spain. Rendezvous somewhere astride the Mediterranean was arranged, but a tip from us to Jamby Madrigal blew the cover, and attempted tete-a-tete did not materialize en-suite. But as intent to transact was clear to me, predicate was laid for future deal.

Then the irrepressible Manny, along with his spokespersons Gilbert and Adel, couldn’t hide their excitement over future “recruits” from floundering Pa-La-Ka. In Davao last month, Villar himself used a metaphor, Davao’s green ponkam (pa-la-ka’s are green too) metastasizing (yes, that’s what it is) into jailbird orange as campaign progressed. And soon enough, the changing of the colours began. Davao del Sur’s Cagas; Aumentado and Herrera of Bohol; Pacquiao of Las Vegas; Joe Zubiri of the Higaonon highlands; Madrona of Romblon; the Villafuertes of Camarines Sur; Winston and his brood in Cebu; and then, the piece de la resistance, El Duque de Nueva Segovia, mismo, El Senor Don Luis Singson. el Chavit de Ciudad Fernandina en fondo de la Gloria! What dolt would ever believe that in the case of the last two at the very least, permission was not sought, and was not given? Why, even Gibo had to resign in disgust, although he bravely taunts the mercies of the Fates. And who did the Dona choose to replace Gibo as chair of Pa-La-Ka? Not its vice-chairman, Speaker Prospero Nograles, but her yaya who is so very close to Manny Villar as well, Girlie Villarosa of Mindoro.

Thus, Villarroyo resonated, which now Money and his chattels decry as “black propaganda”. Black is when it is false. When it is fiction transposed into seemingly credible “truth”. But when it is truth to begin with, it is as white as driven snow.

Doubtless in a state of panic depression, the Villarroyos first go into name-calling, trademark of its chief barker, Alan Peter Cayetano. His semantic masterpiece --- “topak”, whatever that meant. Si Alan, kailangan na naman siguro ang gasolina para sa Taguig. How does he call Money V --- “Tito”, the same false endearment he used for Mike Arroyo, as in “Tito…tito, kulang pa”?

But two days after, tasteless language became vulgar trick. The blackest of the black --- a “fake” medical analysis of an alleged encounter between Noynoy and unnamed because non-existent psychologists of the Ateneo University, done supposedly in 1996, two years before Noynoy embarked on a political career. It was signed by Fr. Carmelo Caluag, who forthwith denounced it as bogus. Thanks to ABS-CBN, what was peddled hours before in the internet became primetime news. And ABS declared that the fakery was supplied to them by two sources from the Nacionalista camp. Ninong Doy and Tio Pito (Laurel) must be rolling uneasy in their graves. Oh what a dastardly insult upon their grand old party Villar had wrought!

The morning after, spokesman and senatoriable Adel Tamano was denying to death on TV and radio, even foolishly insinuating that the Liberals must have shot their foot themselves to elicit sympathy. “Topak” became sly and evil plan, not just a crazed outburst from Cayetano’s motor-mouth. It was pasa-kalye to the blackest of black.

And confirmation came when Money Villarroyo, mismo, went on teleradyo, interviewed by seemingly sympathetic media persons, where he said in so many contortions, that whether or not the medical certificate (or whatever he called it) was true or fake, Noynoy should explain, because one who goes for the presidency must not hide anything from the public.

So there you are. Villarroyo himself virtually admitted that his camp peddled the lie. And he had the cheek to demand that Aquino explains his side on fiction! As fake as the titles he pawned to the Bangko Sentral. As fake as the title he used to try to drive away the urban settlers of San Pedro. As fake as the conversion of lands in Iloilo without DAR permission, illegal to begin with. As fake as the poor boy from Moriones and the poor brother who died because Manny Villar Sr. and Aling Curing “could not afford medication” for illness that was beyond medical science to cure.

The Villar campaign is built upon layers and layers of lies. Good thing these are now seeing the light. And the true character of this man who desperately needs to be President to cover his crimes, is now unmasked. Indeed, there is God.

(banayo_at@yahoo.com)

LITO BANAYO
MALAYA Column for Thursday, 15 April 2010