THOUGH many of his townmates in Pola, Oriental Mindoro, remember Sen. Manuel “Noli” de Castro with fondness and admiration, his critics scoff at him as nothing more than a bundle of discrepancies.

As the May 10 election draws nearer, allegations have been made more stridently in the media against the man the opinion surveys consistently say is most likely to win the vice-presidential race.

Worse than what his enemies have said in the media are rumors and gossip (not only about his personal and family life) but about his allegedly vile doings. Among the reports:

• His being allegedly the protector of an illegal gambling lord whose operations cover the larger part of the industry in Central Luzon and Southern Tagalog.
• His allegedly having a team of Bureau of Customs men who, under his direction, can protect and advance the success of smugglers who bring in complete knockdown vehicles.
• His allegedly owning large tracts of land and businesses, amassed through extortion, and maintaining these as pleasurable and profitable undertakings without first obtaining proper permits and without paying proper license fees and taxes.
• His alleged violation of environmental laws because he has his personal zoo of pets, mostly endangered animals.
• His being an extortionist who has enriched himself using his widely watched and respected ABS-CBN Magandang Gabi, Bayan TV news and feature magazine program.

Many of these allegations, on deep investigation as these two reporters have done, have proved to be mostly baseless and possibly politically motivated gossip floated to keep de Castro from winning the vice-presidency and halting his anticipated advance to the presidency in 2010.

Data found by The Manila Times do show, however, that he has some explaining to do about at least three things.

What did he really spend in his 2001 senatorial campaign?  How were these expenses paid for?

Why did he use his wife’s Tax Identification Number (TIN) in both his 2001 and 2002 Statement of Assets and Liabilities (SAL)? He seems to have broken the law doing this.

Has he been keeping pets in violation of environmental rules? Or is he a genuine environmentalist whom this country’s greens must hold in admiration?

The Times sought in vain for an interview with de Castro about these questions for days on end. His lawyer tried to persuade The Times to junk this special report project altogether.

Assets and liabilities

R.A. 6713 (Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees) requires all government officials and employees to disclose, under oath, their assets, liabilities and net worth and their business interests, their financial connections and their relatives, if any, in government service.

If his 2001 and 2002 SALs are correct, de Castro was almost left with nothing after the 2001 election. His 2001 and 2002 SALs show that he must be as poor as or even poorer than the citizens from the lowest-income brackets who were among the 16 million Filipinos who voted him senator.

He declared total assets worth P29,843,960 in 2001. His total liabilities amounted to P5,960,750, leaving him a net worth of P23,843,960. He declared having spent more than P32.4 million to get elected to a Senate seat and received P3,932,066.60 in campaign contributions.

These figures make one wonder how much money he had in 2000 (when, not being in government, he was not required to file a SAL). How much in 2000 did he pay with his own money to buy in advance—for his use in the 2001 campaign—the materials, radio and TV airtime, airplane tickets and the like.

If he did not pay for these in advance, who picked up the tab? If someone else did, shouldn’t de Castro have declared those expenses as donations? In which case, was his declaration that he received contributions totaling only P3,932,066.60 untruthful?

These questions come up because in his 2002 SAL, his assets remained untouched. He should have sold some of his assets to be able to raise P29,491,192.61 for those 2001 election expenses not covered by P3,932,066.60 contributions he had received.

Noli de Castro apologists say this seeming discrepancy is a nonbrainer. Friends have paid for some of those election expenses—after the election period!  Therefore, he is not obliged to report those as contributions or donations to anybody anymore. Some of these expenses have remained unpaid—and he has been ducking bill collectors like most of our poorer countrymen, his defenders also say. So what’s so horribly wrong with that?

His subsequent SAL for 2002 shows that his wealth has not increased, but his liabilities have by about P2 million. Maybe, this is because some of the unpaid election expenses have become formal IOUs de Castro was forced to sign. He became P2 million poorer in 2002. His net worth as revealed in his 2002 SAL, dropped to only P21,861,463. His assets are the same as before, including bank savings of P2.4 million, his Tierra Pura home in Quezon City, six other real-estate property holdings, five luxury cars, jewelry and his businesses.

Wrong TIN a false declaration?

The documents may also indicate wrongdoing—that could be interpreted as fraud, a BIR lawyer says—by this popular radio and TV broadcaster with a reputation for being an anticrime and anticorruption crusader.

Senator de Castro in his two SALs used the Taxpayer Identification Number—TIN (102-873-357)—of his wife.

Bureau of Internal Revenue sources have confirmed to The Times that TIN 102-873-357, indeed, belongs to Mrs. Arlene Fatima Sinsuat de Castro.

The senator, these sources also confirm, has his own, proper TIN. It is TIN 200-831-680, issued to him only on April 17, 1998.

Many Filipinos are given their TINs when they get their first jobs. How is it that de Castro, who has been a professional media man and a businessman for decades, got his TIN only in 1998?

“You can’t use the TIN of your spouse to file your income-tax returns,” a BIR lawyer who requested anonymity told The Times. “That’s considered fraud under the prevailing tax jurisprudence.” In a married couple’s joint income-tax return, said the BIR lawyer, both spouses’ TINs must appear in the return. Never is the wife’s TIN to be filed alone.

He said this infraction falls under Section 255 of the National Internal Revenue Code, which deals, among others, with the failure to supply correct and accurate information to the BIR.

The offender could be fined not less than P10,000 and imprisoned for not less than one year.

Rex Oribiana, assistant chief of the Senate accounting division, told The Times that the TIN used by de Castro in his SALs may be the same TIN he has submitted to the Senate office.

Could de Castro be using two TINs in transacting with the BIR?

‘Something stinks’

De Castro’s use of his wife’s TIN in his two SALs casts doubts on his credibility as an authentic boses ng masa (voice of the masses), which he claims to be, Rodolfo Jimenez, a trial lawyer who figured in the historic investigation of Benigno Aquino’s assassination in 1981, told The Times. “It’s questionable. It’s worth looking into. It also opens to question his ethical qualification for the vice-presidency. It seems to me that something stinks in that TIN.”

Jimenez thinks de Castro may have to explain why he did not affix his own TIN in his two consecutive SALs. He asked, “Was there an attempt to lie or hide something? If you lie about one thing, you may also be lying about other things.”

This now raises questions whether de Castro’s income-tax returns as a senator has been unwittingly credited to his wife’s TIN.

But as far as the Integrated Tax System is concerned, BIR sources told The Times, neither filing of an income-tax return nor payment of income tax has been reflected on de Castro’s TIN since 2001. The same is true with his wife’s TIN, under which the latest payment for income tax made was in 1997.

De Castro’s wife was vice president for current affairs of the ABS-CBN TV network until her “resignation” from the network in January. The Times’ inquiry about that resignation has been left unanswered. So, whether she has really resigned or not is not quite clear.

ABS-CBN must have been filing reports about her withholding tax. But The Times could not get hold of these reports or certificates.

If ABS-CBN has not filed these reports (Form W-2316 for regular employees, Form W-2307 for persons rendering consultancy and other services as professionals), then it is guilty of an infraction against the Tax Code as well.

The Senate accounting division said it is up-to-date in its documentary and other transactions with the BIR concerning all the senators’ tax obligations. But an official of that Senate division told The Times it can’t be held responsible if a senator, like Noli de Castro has done, gives it the wrong TIN.

Unless the BIR audits de Castro’s income-tax returns as a senator, there is no way it can possibly spot and correct any errors. “There are so many taxpayers with problems and errors. De Castro may not be the only one,” the BIR lawyer said.  He believes that records of payments of the income tax and income-tax returns filed could be accessed from BIR districts, especially now that these are computerized.

But The Times’ efforts to follow the BIR lawyer’s cue and access the records failed.

Posted on Saturday, May 01, 2004

Noli  ‘baby’ of Lopezes, ABS-CBN

By Ric R. Puod and Annie Ruth Sabangan, Senior Reporters

(Second of a 4-part series)

Because Sen. Noli de Castro has publicly declared owning some companies, The Times looked into the MGB Food Company Corp. and Bayan Co., Inc.

It found that de Castro faces problems with documentary compliance at the Securities and Exchange Commission for both firms.

De Castro, his wife, Arlene, and another relative, Alan G. Sinsuat, are among the five incorporators. SEC records show that this company has not submitted the required general information sheet and financial statements to SEC.

A Times photographer went to the stated address of MGB Food and found no doughnut retailer or coffee shop there.

MGB’s certificate of registration has already been revoked, said SEC personnel.

(SEC is the same agency that revoked the certificate of registration of the AAA Foundation—headed by the intense de Castro critic Andrew Gonzales—after de Castro’s prime-time MGB TV program exposed AAA as “a bogus foundation.”  This is touched on in Part 3.)

“Wala nang personality ang MGB Food company na ’yan. [That MGB Food company has lost its personality],” said Atty. Benito Cataran, director of the Company Registration and Monitoring Department of SEC. He said SEC is giving de Castro’s company until next year to petition for the lifting of the revocation order and to file unsubmitted but required documents.

Bayan Co., Inc., on the other hand, which de Castro also listed in his SAL, has not been registered with SEC at all.

His financial interests, apparently, extend beyond what he has declared in his SAL. He and his wife control the Kabayan Noli de Castro Foundation, Inc. They registered it in April 1998 with cash in bank assets of P394,122.24, as seen in its December 1999 balance sheet.

It received cash donations of P631,034.96. Less than half of this amount was spent for various charitable works. Again, like the MGB and Bayan companies, Kabayan Foundation has not complied with SEC documentation requirements.

ABS-CBN Corp.

Sen. Noli de Castro has been a stockholder of ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corp. since 1986, with shares of stocks amounting to P2,057,020. On the Philippine Stock Exchange’s list of the TV corporation’s 100 top shareholders, de Castro was number 81 in September 2003 and number 79 in December 2003.

Out of the 100 top shareholders listed in December 2003, 25 are corporations and 75  are individuals.

Some would find it curious that many of the individual shareholders of ABS-CBN are Chinese Filipinos. There is nothing strange about that. For it only reflects the general reality of how wealth is distributed and concentrated in the Philippines.

Of the individual shareholders, 39—or 52 percent of all individual shareholders—are ethnic Chinese. Among these are Ching Tiong Keng, Leticia Dee, David Pua, and Sy Pio Lato. Tsinoy business leaders. The last named was tagged in various newspaper reports, during the rice crisis of 1995, as allegedly being a member of a rice cartel that controls the rise and fall of this basic staple’s market price.

Some of de Castro’s costock­holders of ABS-CBN are Sharon Cuneta, Aga Mulach, Jose Gui­ngona, Quezon City Mayor Feliciano Belmonte, and former ABS-CBN newscaster, Mel Tiangco, who is now a GMA-7 star broadcaster.

Ironically, Sen. Loren Legar­da’s name is not on the list. Legarda, de Castro’s closest rival for the vice-presidency, was once an “ABS-CBN baby” herself.  She also benefited from being a star of the Lopez-owned TV network when she ran for the Senate in 1998.

Her not being named as an ABS-CBN top 100 shareholder, however, does not necessarily mean she is not one. Legarda’s shares—if she has any—could be listed under the name of a corporation she owns.

There is no question, according to The Times’ sources in ABS-CBN, that de Castro is perceived by the network’s talents, workers and management as more truly someone with “the heart of the broadcaster” than Loren Legarda.

His colleagues see de Castro as more of “an ABS-CBN baby” than Legarda. Some even admiringly speak of their “Kabayan Noli” as “the soul of the Philippine radio-TV media.”

This must be why even after de Castro had won his Senate seat in 2001, he stopped being a TV Patrol amchor but continued to host his popular Magandang Gabi, Bayan (MGB) prime-time public affairs program.

He stopped being the regular MGB host only when press criticism of his conflict of interest became more shrill and ABS-CBN  network’s political objectivity came under fire. Yet up to now he is still supposed to be MGB’s host—no announcement has been made that he has bowed out. He actually ceased hosting MGB when the campaign became more hectic.

ABS-CBN insiders say de Castro remains a powerful figure in the network. And many ABS-CBN people do not hesitate to declare that they will also consider him a dear colleague no matter if he has become a senator, and becomes vice president soon and He is also, according to these sources, dearer and closer to the Lopezes (who are the main owners also of Meralco, First Gas and other businesses) than any other ABS-CBN broadcaster who ever ventured into politics.

No vassal-lord ties

The de Castro-Lopez/ABS-CBN relationship is not that of a vassal worker and his lord. Although de Castro is the first to admit that he owes a lot to ABS-CBN, insiders say the company and the Lopezes  owe him a lot too. Each has something large to offer for the other’s benefit. They are, one insider said, “locked to each other in an embrace of gratitude.”

Critics who dislike both de Castro and the Lopezes, however, describe the relationship malevolently. They recall the time—in the premartial-law years—when Philippine political and economic struggles almost always involved the sugar bloc, which the Lopezes led. In those days, broadcast (radio mainly because TV was in its infancy then) was not so much a vehicle for political decision-making although there already were radio commentators who were feared. Instead of TV public affairs program hosts, the Lopez men who worked to promote Lopez and sugar-bloc interests were the great names in print journalism associated with the Manila Chronicle. These were effective lobbyists in Congress and Malacañang.

Insiders told The Times that although ABS-CBN management could let go of its other equally popular and influential talents when push came to shove, de Castro is viewed as the most valuable and indispensable asset. “Noli is ABS-CBN and ABS-CBN is Noli,” an ABS-CBN talent of many years told The Times.

He claimed that the Lopezes’ bigwigs were the ones who convinced de Castro to run for vice president. Earlier, this talent claimed, they had also persuaded de Castro to run for the Senate. “The process of persuading Kabayan to seek the VP came to a point when the bigwigs spent nearly a whole day, over bottles of wine, to get Noli to say yes,” the talent in the know said.

“The Lopez factor in his candidacy is something in the people’s consciousness. They wouldn’t think that the family did not have a hand in de Castro’s venture into politics. Most intelligent people know ABS-CBN’s owners are helping transform de Castro’s media clout into political clout,” the talent said.

Some sources in ABS-CBN told The Times they have witnessed how the Lopezes extend support for de Castro’s vice-presidential candidacy beyond the normal. “Even the company’s camera and other equipment, the camera men and security guards are being used for his campaign,” they said.

This makes it unclear if the network has a policy of prohibiting its news talents from entering politics. An former ABS-CBN talent said, “It carries out this policy selectively.” He explained that talents whose politics are not clearly pro-Lopez, especially those who tend to be friendly to critics of the family and its business interests, are discouraged from becoming politicians and don’t get the help given to those who are Lopez loyalists.”

Empire within an empire

De Castro’s programs allegedly get preferential treatment from the company management. MGB has been line-produced by the de Castros. This means the budget comes from the network and the de Castros produce MGB as employees of the company. Yet, the Times’ sources said, the de Castros have always enjoyed semiautonomy. It does not completely depend on the company for its operational expenses. And income from the program, the sources claim,  is also divided between MGB and ABS-CBN.

“In our circle the de Castros’ MGB is like an empire within an empire on Channel 2.  To the viewing public outside, it’s just another program. But MGB enjoys a budget bigger than that of other current affairs programs. MGB almost always gets the newest equipment and cars used for production,” said a source.

This privilege, according to some insiders critical of de Castro,  is unfair to the other ABS-CBN current affairs program.

“MGB is not ABS’ best newsmagazine. It’s actually a long police report with occasional environmental stories unlike other programs which are required to painstakingly do investigative journalism. “Dun palang makikita mo ang preferential treatment over MGB,” said an insider.

De Castro haters whisper that MGB operates like a “syndicate” and trains its journalists how to be corrupt. Accusations of extortion have lately marred the program’s credibility.

Jim Libiran, however, a credible professional, a former producer at ABS-CBN who now heads ABC’s  news and current affairs department, says “this is far from the truth”  about those anti-de Castro and MGB attacks.

‘“Kabayan’ has exposed many wrongdoings. I don’t think he would do such a thing or it would return to harm him as karma. It is but normal for crusading journalists like him to be accused of being corrupt. It happens when you become critical of someone. That person would think you are doing that because you benefit from his or her enemies,” explained Libiran.

Others have even said that Mrs. Arlene de Castro’s rise in ABS-CBN, her promotion to vice president for current affairs, was all because of Noli de Castro’s pull. As VP for current affairs, Mrs. de Castro had supervisory powers over such programs as The Correspondents, Assignment, Inside Story, F, Pipol, Loren, Pinoy Exposed and Knowledge Power.

This attack was immediately disputed by others who said that Arlene is very competent and deserved her promotion at ABS-CBN.

“Tita Arlene treats her staff as if they are her own family. Hindi basta-basta maaapi ang current affairs because of her. She doesn’t want people to be under her wings. She makes sure that only competent talents are hired, people who can stand on their own.  As to her competence, don’t forget that she was actually the one who conceptualized Assignment as the English version of MGB,” said an insider.

As de Castro appears to be the candidate who will win the vice-presidency, many of Kabayan’s ABS-CBN colleagues are awed by his luck.

But for some, Noli’s road to power is not necessarily the good path for journalists to take.  They criticize Noli for having become a politician and at the same time a media man.

“The line should be very, very clear. When you are in the media you should stay in the media or else it would be a betrayal of public trust,” concluded Ed Lingao, head for operations of ABC 5’s news and current affairs department.

Not prophet to all in Pola

Although the Lopezes and Noli de Castro’s colleagues in the media, by and large, admire and respect him, many people in his hometown of Pola, Oriental Mindoro, only have the harshest things to say about him.

About 15,000 votes will be cast in Pola, where many of his kababayan are torn between him and Sen. Loren Legarda.

This is not, however, a case similar to what Jesus Himself encountered, making Him say to his townmates in Nazareth: “No prophet is without honor—except in his native place.”

For the bad feelings some in Pola have against de Castro are the result of disillusionment of people who have experienced being treated by de Castro’s “indifference” to them.

Some Pola residents, who claim to know know him well, assess him as unfit for the vice-presidency, which is just a heartbeat away from the presidency.

“In my view he lacks the experience. Many intelligent people at the national level are fit for the job,” said Elizalde Sigue, who claims to be de Castro’s distant relative.

He said de Castro came to the Senate unprepared. He thinks Noli’s performance these past two years in the Senate has been mediocre. “It’s not important to us whether he is our kababayan,” he said. “De Castro just has to make good in what he does.”

“Making good in what he does” means so many things. But for the Pola residents The Times talked to, it means de Castro must look back to where he came from.

The perception of de Castro’s indifference has also swept across the neighboring municipalities and as far as Calapan, a city where natural free-flowing water reaches every household faucet.

“But the water may not be free soon. That’s already true in many areas here,” said Allan Aquino, “because a water station has been put up near Bayanan Uno, siphoning off large volumes of Pola’s water underground and supplying it to residents of Calapan.”

They worry that they will soon be made to pay for water.  Some Pola associations, looking for stronger political intervention, traveled to Metro Manila, to  the Senate, hoping to get de Castro to help.

“We went to his office,” said Jose Valencia, a farmer. “We were never entertained there. We went there spending our own money and came back here empty-handed.”

Sigue said de Castro’s indifference to his kababayan is commonly known among Mindo­renos. “Mismong taga Mindoro hindi pinapansin sa Senado.”

Even Mayor Alex Aranas of Pola admitted to The Times he felt the same way. In one campaign sortie, the mayor reportedly told Pola residents to vote for Noli, “kahit may kaunti kayong hinanakit sa kanya.”

De Castro, though, is fairly credited to have made various contributions to Mindoro’s improvement. He wisely spent his countrywide development fund to build classrooms and open the Pola-Naujan road. But rumors persist in his own  province that other provinces may have benefited more from de Castro than the whole island of Mindoro.

What is commendable about de Castro is that he did not use his power as a media person and as a politician to enrich his relatives.

On Quijano Street in Zone II, the senator’s brother, Adolfo, lives in a dilapidated two-story house. That is where the senator spent his childhood. “He was shy and humble then,” recalled Diosdado Sigue, a retired employee of the Department of the Interior and Local Government. “He had never been involved in troubles. He was not one of the bad boys who hung around.”

Rocky Martinez, a vice mayoral aspirant under the Koalisyon ng Nagkakaisang Pilipino, said the party would cross party lines when it comes to supporting the vice-presidency. “We’re solid for Noli,” he told The Times. “It’s our pride to have a vice president from Pola.”

Having that pride, however, could hardly be translated into solid votes for De Castro. “Hindi! Hindi namin siya iboboto. Ako kay Loren ako,” an angry man who was listening to the interview snapped at Martinez. “Miniting ko lahat ng mga kamaganak at kakilala ko na hindi naming siya iboboto.”

The man, known as “Tatay Apo” in Payatas, proceeded with his litany of frustrating events at de Castro’s office in ABS-CBN. The man said he wanted to help some Payatas children through de Castro’s Kabayan Foundation. “Pinapasok kami ng guard, pero hindi naman kami niya [Noli] hinarap,” he said. “Nagbigay siya ng P500. Mas malaki pa ang naitulong ko. Tanungin mo ang mga Mindorenos na pumunta sa Senado at sa opisina niya sa Channel 2 kung ilan sa kanila ang umuwing luhaan.”

Some have been driven against Noli by some of his relatives.  Some people told The Times that some of Noli’s relatives became hard to approach when he became a popular ABS-CBN host and became worse when he became a senator.  As a result, the senator’s sister, Imelda Catapang, lost when she ran for councilor in Socorro town in the last election. “Pangalawa lang sya sa kulelat,” Sigue said.

But Manuel Delica, a resident from Socorro, says another Noli relative, Fe Castro, was friendly, accommodating and somebody who would “tease you sometimes.”

Posted on Sunday, May 02, 2004

2 Magandang Gabi ‘victims’

recall their nightmare

By Ric R. Puod and Annie Ruth Sabangan, Senior Reporters

(Third of a 4-part series)

RAFAEL T. Engle and Andrew M. Gonzales have accused Sen. Noli de Castro and his Magandang Gabi, Bayan program of causing them harm.

These are the stories they tell about their nightmarish sufferings as a result, they claim, of having been made to look like villains by the Magandang Gabi, Bayan program.

Because of MGB, Gonzales says, he lost four of his upper front teeth. He decided to look miserably toothless for two years to remind him of what he calls “his oppression.”

“I could have had dentures made. Pero tiniis kong hindi magpustiso. I wanted them to be a reminder of the day I was mauled by my angry fellow Bulakeños because of an episode shown on Ma­gandang Gabi, Ba­yan,” said Gonza­les.

He is the national director of the Bagong Lahing Pilipino Development Foundation, which at the time MGB featured it was called the East Pacific AAA Foundation.

Gonzales said that days before that MGB episode aired on February 2, 2002, he had excitedly informed his relatives, friends and foundation members that it was going to be featured on the prime-time TV program hosted by Sen. Noli de Castro.

“We were delighted by the thought of being featured on TV. Pero nung ipinalabas na, nabungi ako sa sapak ng mga tao sa amin sa Bulacan. Magnanakaw pala kayo, ang sabi nila. [But after it was shown, I lost my teeth from the blows I got from people in my place in Bulacan.  So you are really thieves, they said],” Gonzales related.

MGB did not present the foundation to the public as the image it wants. “We champion the poor people’s hope to own land and homes,” said Bagong Lahing Pilipino president Alvincent G. Bersales, who also calls himself Alvin Alvincent Almirante.

In the episode, MGB told the public that the foundation had a bogus character. Every member of the foundation, according to the episode, was asked to pay P200 for a P30 ID, P40 for a livelihood project seminar and P150 for a copy of the “blue book” or “business proposal.” In return each member was promised P500,000 for every P220 he or she invested.

Bersales, the episode reported, professed to be the real Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. and custodian of the Marcos gold hoard, which is where the promised P500,000 for every member would come from.

But, MGB reported to its audience, since the foundation started in 1998 not a single member has received the promised money.

On March 17, 2004, officials of Lahing Pilipino charged de Castro with blackmail and extortion at the Office of the Ombudsman. Gonzales had his teeth fixed. “It was actually a statement. We’ve decided to expose how de Castro and his MGB crew tried to extort from us. We were put in a bad light because we refused to give what they wanted,” said Gonzales.

Fixing his front dentures was a symbol that he—and his companions in his foundation—was putting up a fight.

Before Christmas of 2001 and in January 2002, Gonzales claimed, two women went to the foundation office in Makati City. The women, Gonzales said, had been instructed by the anchor of MGB to talk to the foundation’s officials. “Ang sabi nila maganda ang foundation namin  dahil maraming natutulungan. Puwede raw i-affiliate sa Kabayan Foundation, headed by de Castro. Mas makikilala raw kami kung ipi-feature sa MGB sa halagang P3.5 million,” Gonzales alleged.

Bersales, who had the decision-making power as president, claimed that he refused to take the offer. He said he told the women he could be helping more people if he would spend the money for their needs instead of spending it for publicity.

Gonzales and other officials of the foundation could have just let go of the incident. But much later, they claimed, they read on the Internet allegations of extortion and bribery against de Castro.

They discovered that “hindi pala kami nag-iisa. Marami na palang biktima. Doon kami nagkalakas ng loob na magsampa ng demanda. [It appeared that we were not alone. That there had been many victims. That gave us the boldness to go to court and sue,” said Gonzales.

But to Senator de Castro’s camp, Bersales and his foundation are the ones committing fraud. “MGB did not fabricate a story. It gathered information about a scam and a scumbag. It did so out of a sense of journalistic duty.”

De Castro’s camp also noted that some eight months after the airing of MGB’s exposé of Gonzales’ foundation, the Securities and Exchange Commission revoked the certificate of registration of the AAA Foundation.  SEC had found out that it was “guilty of serious misrepresentation to the great prejudice of or damage to the general public.”

Bersales, however, argued that although some of the individuals who perpetrated scams had been members of his foundation, they had long been out of the group.  He said he and his foundation should not be blamed if those people “continued to fool people by collecting money from them using the name of my foundation.”

“Our membership was seriously affected when MGB portrayed us as fake. Nagkawatak-watak kami. [We were dispersed.] Some collectors [who had been working for Bersales] took advantage of it. They continued collecting fees but they did not remit them to the foundation,” he said.

Bersales alleged that there are at least 10 similar groups led by individuals who imitate the propoor ideals of his foundation, but are in fact into extortion.

Gonzales has another complaint. He claims that he and other foundation officials have been getting threats against their lives since they filed the case against de Castro.

Gonzales is running for mayor of San Jose Del Monte, Bulacan. He said he could no longer campaign there, because he had lately been receiving anonymous calls telling him not to go home to Bulacan if he valued his life.

Another person claiming to be a victim is Rafael T. Engle.

If his reckoning is right, only a fraction of his long interview with the MGB crew was shown on television.

A furtive shot zooming in on him while he was putting his licensed gun in a drawer was shown in slow motion. This seemed to suggest he was a member of a criminal syndicate. This sequence was given more air time than the message he wanted to give the public: that he was looking for his wife.

After his video exposure on ABS-CBN’s Magandang Gabi, Bayan, Engle, who is now 49, ended up languishing in jail for seven years and four months. Three days after the segment was shown on MGB on September 30, 1995, Engle was arrested in his house in Malate without any warrant and was later on accused of kidnapping his own wife, Daisy Mañalac-Engle.

“I was dining with my two kids that night. . . I saw men emerging from the stairs. One was in ponytail and armed with an Uzi, the second was carrying an Armalite, the third was wearing an NBI (National Bureau of Investigation) cap and had an Armalite too and the fourth was carrying a camera, an ABS-CBN camera,” recalled Engle.

Engle did not solicit help from television for his missing wife. Two days after Daisy disappeared on August 10, 1995, Engle began his search, from her relatives and friends, to hospitals and even funeral parlors until he had two tabloids publish the story of Daisy’s disappearance.

Unexpected visitors

In the afternoon of the middle of that month, unexpected visitors came to his office. “There were four of them. Their names as I recalled were Yvonne, Cesar, Reggie and Julius. They introduced themselves as crew of de Castro. I noticed that the camera was already on while I was entering my office until I sat down and put my gun inside the table drawer,” Engle told The Times.

Engle said he evaded some of the crew’s questions about his marriage to Daisy, particularly the reason of their separation. “I did not answer them, because I didn’t want to expose my wife’s personal life. But the way the interview was edited and shown on TV, MGB took my reluctance for something else. They had formed a conclusion even before they gathered the facts. They insinuated that I had something to do with Daisy’s disappearance,” he said.

Engle told The Times that immediately after the interview, a crewman of the MGB said the interview was already “finished” and that they needed “panggastos [spending money]” supposedly for the segment’s production.

Engle told The Times that he replied in words showing he agreed that it was but normal for them to have expenses for the production. He asked them how much they needed. The crewman, according to Engle, replied they needed P2 million. That amount startled Engle. The crewman explained it was needed “para po gumanda ang image ninyo sa presentation [so that your image will look good in the presentation].” Engle said he flinched at hearing those words. He told The Times that he wondered why there should be a need to beautify his image when all his and supposedly the media’s primary concern should just be to look for his wife.

Engle claimed the crewman did not bother to reply.  He said that they instead whispered something to another crewman. The first crewman then called someone using Engle’s office telephone. Afterwards the crew left and Engle recalled the crewman saying: “Sige po. Tuloy na po kami. Bahala na po si Sir Noli.”

A stormy love affair

Engle and Daisy had met in a bank at  Mabini, Ermita, Manila, in 1982. “Daisy and I were both depositors,” Engle said. But their relationship, which bloomed the following year, appeared to have incurred more liabilities than gained more assets for him. They became a live-in couple. But, he told The Times, he left Daisy because he caught her in a hotel with another man.

Engle claimed that later, out of pity, he decided to reunite with her. He said Daisy “cut her wrist, had an overdose and was rushed to the hospital after our breakup.” He said his wife had a dark past. She had been abused and neglected “so I figured out that she wasn’t all to blame for her shortcomings.”

Even their marriage, according to Engle, was not planned but done out of necessity. “EDSA People Power I of 1986 brought jitters to the economy. There was instability. So Daisy and I decided to apply for a US visa. Daisy found it difficult to get a visa. She had no record, she had not yet traveled abroad. It was easier for me since I travel frequently,” he said.

Engle asked his travel consultant what to do best so that Daisy could get a visa. “He said  we should go on a honeymoon trip.  So we went to Makati City Hall and we got married. She was 26 and I was 32.”

Who is Engle?

Engle, who like his father  studied engineering, says he came from an affluent family in Tacloban. He said he was a certified inventor included on the list of the Philippine Inventors’ Commission. Among his inventions were a submersible pump which could operate without gasoline, an unpatented smoke killer and a state-of-the art electric power source.

But he wasn’t just scientific. He also had an artistic streak. He first became a stage actor in the early seventies playing Saint Peter in Jesus Christ Superstar, shown on Channel 4, and an actor in the Broadway musical My Fair Lady. Until he appeared in the movies and once became one of the leading men of Vilma Santos.

But Engle had some misgivings about show business. “It was fun but there were a lot of users and opportunists, so I had to stop,” he said. From 1976 to 1983, Engle said, he worked in Japan as an entertainer and English interpreter for N&B Co. in Tokyo.

In 1986 the couple did not push ahead with their plan of going to the US. They instead built their fortune in the country. The couple were lucky in business but not in their marriage.

In a 600-square-meter lot on Leon Guinto Street in Manila, the couple built a 25-room pension house, a restaurant and a sing-along bar. They also had another pension house and singalong restaurant built on Adriatico Street.

In their tacit business arrangement, Engle became the implementer, Daisy the administrator. There was one thing, though, that Daisy disapproved of. Engle wanted to give 10 percent of their income to the Heart of Jesus Foundation, which he established in 1991. This, Engle said, would help the needy. He said it could also somehow repay the blessings they received from God.”

Separation

In 1994 Engle expanded their business in Sarawak Aching Malaysia, where he established a trading firm with the Sokalingham family. When he went back home the same year, Engle noticed that their savings had dwindled. Becoming suspicious of Daisy’s affairs, Engle tapped the telephone line to monitor his wife’s activities.

“In 1995 I discovered that she had another man. I heard them on the phone plotting my elimination. So I decided to file a legal separation. In July 1995 I asked my lawyer to prepare an adultery case against Daisy,” said Engle.

A memorandum of understanding was also prepared for the separation of their conjugal properties. According to Engle, the memorandum was due to be signed by them on August 17 of that year. But on August 10 Daisy disappeared.

Engle said he discovered later on that she had withdrawn P5 million from their bank account. He also found out that Daisy had given a three-month salary advance to their nursemaid and had told her that she “had to be gone for a while as something big would happen.”

‘All because of the MGB episode’

Even though he was acquitted last year, more than seven years of detention practically took away everything from Engle. While he was detained at the NBI for two months, Engle claimed a “salvage” attempt was made on him. He also said five attempts were made on his life when he was finally transferred to the Manila City Jail.

“All because of that MGB episode used by the NBI as evidence against me, I lost my family. All my businesses collapsed. My kids still believe I had a hand in the disappearance of their mother. I never had a chance to look for my wife, because I was imprisoned. Who knows, I could have found and forgiven her just like what I did before for the sake of our children,” lamented Engle.

On January 24, 2003, a judgment of acquittal on the kidnapping case against Engle was rendered by Judge Reynato A. Alhambra of Branch 53 of the Regional Trial Court of Manila. In its decision, the court discussed the unreliability of the testimonies of the prosecution alleging that Engle was part of a drug syndicate and the mastermind of Daisy’s kidnapping.

The court stated that the testimony of Joseph Lim, the prosecution’s primary witness against Engle, was not only “full of inconsistencies”; the witnessed himself “lack[ed] credibility.”

Lim testified that he drove an L300 van used for the kidnapping of Daisy. The van, according to Lim, had been used in drug trafficking before the kidnapping. But Judge Alhambra pointed out that “it was highly improbable that the van was ever used” in the alleged kidnapping.

The court stated that records showed the van was stolen from the garage of Mr. and Mrs. Emmanuel and Marujita Palabrica in Parañaque on July 11, 1995. Atty. Palabrica reported to the police that his checkbook, a pair of shoes and a wall clock were inside the trunk of the van when it was stolen.

On July 15 the van figured in a collision with another car owned by one Romeo Ramos at Ilagan, Isabela. At the time the driver of the van was Lim, who settled the case by issuing a check worth P20,000 owned by Palabrica.

Because Palabrica had closed his checking account the same day he reported to the police about the stolen car, the check issued by Lim bounced.

Palabrica did not bother to recover the van, because of its damaged condition and just collected its insurance.

Doubtful

On July 12 and 20 an alarm for the arrest of Lim and the confiscation of the van was flashed by the Traffic Management Command. “There is serious doubt that the L300 van, despite the flash alarm for its confiscation, would have traveled freely through the major highways like the Maharlika Highway, which connects Samar to Northern Luzon, without being detected by several checkpoints through which the van allegedly traversed on the day of the kidnapping,” noted Alhambra.

What was clear, according to the judge, was that Lim, supposedly an accomplice of Engle, was arrested by the Aritao police in Nueva Vizcaya on August 11, 1995, for having driven away without paying the fuel pumped into the tank of the van.

The judge also pointed out that although other members of the alleged criminal syndicate were named by the prosecution, it did not charge any one of them except Engle. Charging them could have substantiated the claim of Lim that such a group was engaged in drug trafficking in Catbalogan, Samar.

The court also questioned the prosecution’s attempt to include Palabrica as part of the syndicate when the “evidence showed that [he] himself was a victim of Lim’s criminal activities.”

Lim’s narration of the date of the syndicate’s arrival and activities in Manila before eventually kidnapping Daisy “did not conform to the date of [her] actual disappearance,” Alhambra further noted.

Prosecution witness Joel Niegas testified that he last saw Daisy in the early morning of August 10. Two other witnesses, from the prosecution and the defense, corroborated Niegas’ testimony. However, Lim’s testimony did not concur with the other well-established testimonies, because his narration showed that the kidnapping occurred a day later than the actual disappearance of Daisy.

A frame-up victim

A tabloid reporter who wrote a series about the Engle kidnapping, presented by the prosecution as a hostile witness, had the impression that Engle was framed by the NBI and that Lim was a fake witness used to give damning statements that would point to Engle as the mastermind in the kidnapping of his wife.

Engle believed he was indeed framed. He said this did not appear in the MGB episode. “The bad image painted of me by that wicked, terrible and biased episode of MGB is a complete falsehood, because I did not kidnap my wife and I certainly am not a member of any criminal syndicate. Clearly, my refusal to pay Mr. de Castro and his crew P2 million they tried to extort from me earlier led to this episode,” Engle said in his recent sworn statement.

Most of those whom Engle suspected of being behind the frame-up—NBI director Federico Opinion, bureau lawyer Ali Vargas and Delia Morales, Daisy’s mother—have all died of sickness. “They’re all dead except for de Castro,” said Engle.

De Castro’s camp denied Engle’s allegations. On April 5 the vice-presidential candidate filed a P200-million libel suit against Engle and another of his accusers, Andrew M. Gonzales. De Castro denied Engle’s accusations, stressing that the MGB episode, which was not about Engle but about his wife, was “a fair and balanced report.”

“Daisy Engle, we believe, was kidnapped by rogues connected to a drug syndicate,” de Castro noted in a statement.

On April 21 Engle, accompanied by the running priest Robert Reyes, filed a P150-million moral damage suit against de Castro at the Manila Regional Trial Court. Engle claimed in the civil case that he was unjustly imprisoned for seven years due to a “baseless and malicious” segment in MGB.

De Castro claimed Engle might be one of those used by dirty politicians to malign his candidacy. He also questioned the timing of Engle’s accusation. He asked why it took Engle more than eight years to come out with his accusations.

De Castro also noted that although Engle had the opportunity to communicate with other people while in detention, “he never mentioned to anyone . . . anything about the alleged extortion and blackmailing scheme supposedly engineered by me and carried out by the MGB team.”

But Engle continues to claim, whether rightly or wrongly, that he was victimized by a man who might soon hold the country’s second highest position.

“I cry for justice and there is no better time than now for people to know about it.”

Posted on Monday, May 03, 2004

Man of virtues is not one of the boys

By Ric R. Puod and Annie Ruth Sabangan, Senior Reporters

(Conclusion)

SEN. Noli de Castro, this country’s most successful news and current affairs personality, could also well be the most-liked politician.

But his critics do not hesitate to say he is a menace from which this country should be saved.

Many in Poblacion, Pola, Oriental Mindoro, where Noli was born on July 6, 1949, cannot forget the simple boy who was never a headache to his parents. Instead, he helped them and his siblings struggle against their poverty. He even collected leftovers from the neighbors to feed the pigs the de Castros raised for a living.

The fifth child in the farming family of Manuel de Castro and Demetria Leuterio, Noli—then in grade school—felt the grief of his father’s early death. From then on, he and his siblings were solely raised by their Inay Nene.

Noli de Castro finished elementary education at the Pola Central School and secondary education at Pola Catholic High School.

At first, most likely influenced by the role he played in helping his Inay Nene in the piggery, he agreed with his mother—who was paying the tuition—that he should be a veterinarian. He enrolled at Gregorio Araneta University in Manila. Later he shifted to commerce and earned a BSC degree, major in banking and finance, from the University of the East.

His having been actually close to farm animals in his youth surely was the germ that developed into his environmentalist outlook. He has exposed ecologically harmful businesses. On radio and TV and in the Senate, he has advocated laws and regulations to create an atmosphere of more rigid and effective protection, conservation and sustainable development of the environment and Philippine wildlife.

Just recently, de Castro adopted a handicapped eagle. The NGO and DENR people directly involved in saving it honored de Castro by naming it Kabayan. When it had been nursed back to health, thanks to de Castro’s ministration and funding, the eagle was released to its natural habitat in Mt. Apo. Fanfare and print and radio-TV publicity attended the event for it was timed as a proenvironment and wildlife ceremony on April 22, Earth Day.

Some anti-de Castro officials and employees of the DENR, however, doubt de Castro’s sincerity as an environmentalist. “Pati inosenteng agila, sinasama niya sa pulitika. Bakit ipi­nangalan sa kanya? Tama ba’yon? [He has involved even the innocent eagle in politics. Why was it named after him? Is that right?],” said a supervisor of the DENR’s Protected Areas and Wildlife Bureau (PAWB).

Some people even suspect that his being genuinely a nature lover has driven de Castro to violate environmental laws for his private benefit.

De Castro has admitted maintaining a mini zoo at his Tierra Pura house in Tandang Sora, Quezon City. Some of the animals are said to belong to species officially identified as threatened, endangered or vulnerable.

He told a newspaper he has a cockatoo named Bayan, and a yellow macaw, Valentine.

The cockatoo is a critically endangered bird. It was commonplace some 50 years ago but their numbers have fallen sharply owing to the destruction of their lowland forest habitat in the past decades.

“As far as I know,” said Carlos Custodio, head of PAWB’s Wildlife Rescue Center, “we have no proof that his acquisition of certain endangered species is legal.”

Although he has a degree in commerce, the business world never turned de Castro on. He really wanted to be a broadcaster.

His early training in broadcasting was from the old DZBB, where he was hired by Bob Stewart who then owned Channel 7. In 1976 he became a field reporter for Johnny de Leon. He even had the lowly job of voicing over and reading phone-in questions for See True, an eighties’ celebrity talk show hosted by Inday Badiday.

His career in broadcasting was in the doldrums for some years. In the first half of the eighties he was just a standby announcer of DWWW, which was then owned by the RPN broadcasting system. He went to America and worked there as a clerk in an appliance store in Los Angeles for a year.

After the February 1986 EDSA uprising, the Lopezes reacquired DWWW from Marcos cronies and renamed it DZMM. There, de Castro came to anchor an early morning show, Kabayan—or Kapangyarihan ng Mamamayan, Balita at Talakayan.

When Channel 2 reopened, de Castro became a host for a portion in Pilipino of the sign-on program Good Morning Philippines. The main host was Merce Henares, who migrated to the United States. De Castro then took over.

The program was renamed Magandang Umaga and for two years Noli was co-host with Korina Sanchez. The ABS-CBN bosses tapped him to anchor the network’s prime-time flagship news program TV Patrol. This gave him the career boost that made Kabayan a national byword. Then in 1987 he got his own weekly public affairs program, Magandang Gabi, Bayan.

“It can’t be denied that Kabayan has practically become a part of every Filipino family’s breakfast and dinner. On early mornings you hear him on the radio, at night you see him on TV. For ordinary people like me, Kabayan has become the voice of the masses,” said Jim Libiran, formerly of ABS-CBN’s The Correspondents and now head for production of ABC 5’s news and current affairs department.

With inputs from this report’s project editor, Rene Q. Bas, assistant executive editor of The Manila Times.

Source: The manila Times

Tags: campaign contributions, kabayan, Noli De Castro, tv patrol, vice president

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