Marcos Jr. avoids tough hearings, public interviews for tough job

In 1986, Ferdinand Marcos Sr. evaded facing on television his only opponent in the presidential election, the widow Cory Aquino. Top-rate American talk-show host Ted Koppel was set to interview them, but the dictator kept delaying it for weeks.

Three days before the Friday Election Day, Marcos alibied that their first TV appearance together should be on a Philippine, not foreign, network. A lame excuse, since it was on Koppel’s show months earlier where, in bravado reaction to reports about his waning support, Marcos had called for the snap balloting. None of the three broadcast stations of his crony Roberto Benedicto or the government outlet wanted to sponsor the face-off.

The only three newspapers, owned by his brother-in-law Kokoy Romualdez, his aide Hans Menzi and Benedicto, carried solely his “praise” releases. Photos of him staggering up the stage and being rushed away by bodyguards on a stretcher, bleeding from a secret organ transplant were censored. False news were being published that Cory was avoiding the one-on-one when in fact, as Koppel confirmed, she had agreed to the topics and format.

Koppel reset their interview one last time for Wednesday night, US time, Thursday noon in Manila. Marcos was saved by the bell, as the Comelec reminded that all campaigning must end by Wednesday midnight, Philippine time. Marcos went on to steal the votes as planned.

Last Saturday, Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. snubbed a TV appearance with fellow presidential aspirants Ping Lacson, Isko Moreno, Manny Pacquiao and Leni Robredo. His spokesman claimed that the interviewer, veteran journalist Jessica Soho, was “biased.”

“Spoken like a true son of a dictator,” Congresswoman Arlene Brosas remarked of Marcos Jr.’s attack against the multi-awarded Soho’s credibility. “A clear act of cowardice and a sneak peek on how bad he will treat the media if he wins the presidency” in May 2022.

Calling Marcos’ declining to join “unfortunate,” Soho’s GMA network stated: “In this must-see special, Ms. Soho boldly asks the presidential aspirants the questions that need to be asked – their intentions behind running for the position, the controversies thrown at them, their stand on pressing issues and their concrete plans should they be elected. The questions are tough because the job of the presidency is tough.”

Marcos Jr. explained that he didn’t want to talk about anticipated questions on his father’s human rights violations and plunder of state coffers. He wished to expound only on pressing issues like unemployment and the pandemic – about which Soho did ask the other candidates.

In 2016, Marcos Jr. also skipped the face-off of vice presidential bets on ABS-CBN network. Netizens asked why. Was it because, in the Comelec-organized debate days before, he couldn’t answer rivals’ direct questions about the doubling of his personal wealth to P250 million when he had no business or job other than being senator.

Last Jan. 7, Marcos Jr. absented himself from the hearing of the Comelec First Division on his disqualification case. That was despite Commissioner Rowena Guanzon’s stern reminder for the DQ petitioners, respondent Marcos Jr. and their lawyers to attend and prepare. His counsel said he was in self-isolation after close contact with two aides who tested positive for COVID-19.

Can’t he show up even for a moment, even via teleconferencing, Guanzon asked. No, the counsel replied, he was avoiding contaminating others.

A medical certificate was later publicized, stating that Marcos Jr. already was slightly feverish and had extremely sore throat the previous morning. Yet, netizens noted, he had hour-long early morning and late afternoon broadcast interviews that day and had mentioned nothing about it.

Marcos Jr.’s camp seems to have an uncanny ability to prophesy interview questions and events. This showed late last year in a separate petition to invalidate his candidacy. The petitioners took exception to his spokesman’s “undue, intimate, insider familiarity with the Commission.” That spokesman is not a Marcos Jr. “counsel on record, therefore an outsider.” Yet he announced in the morning of Nov. 18 that they had been granted the previous day, Nov. 17, a deadline extension to answer. The Second Division acted only in the afternoon of Nov. 18.

That Second Division junked the other week the petition against Marcos Jr.’s candidacy. The case is on appeal before the Comelec en banc, with a request for the three Second Division commissioners to inhibit themselves.

Guanzon’s First Division is rushing to rule on the separate DQ before she retires next month along with Comelec Chairman Sheriff Abas and Commissioner Antonio Kho Jr. of the Second Division. The case cites the perpetual ban from public office of tax evaders like Marcos Jr., and the automatic DQ of any candidate previously convicted for a crime involving moral turpitude.