When Noli went to pray in Lourdes, he didn’t get his wish

You’ve all, by now, heard most of the accusations and brickbats being hurled against the ruling K-4 coalition’s vice presidential bet, Magandang Gabi Bayan Senator Noli de Castro.

On our Impact 2004 program last Friday night, Kabayan denied all those allegations and insinuations, calling them "dirty" black propaganda. (He even brought along his daughter, Manueli, off-camera, to demonstrate her unstinting support and affection for him.) With good humor, he even shrugged off the innuendoes that he was "Noli de Cash-tro" or Magandang Gabi Bayad.

My TV co-host for that sequence, the witty and gutsy Ces Drilon, didn’t spare her ANC/ABS-CBN colleague any of the hard questions either – such as whether it had been unethical for Noli to have continued his television show, Magandang Gabi, Bayan even after he had been elected Senator on May 14, 2001.

De Castro declared he saw nothing wrong doing so, since he felt it his duty to continue "informing" the people. I said that I believed being on TV gave him unfair advantage over others, particularly in politics where visibility and "name recall" are paramount.

In any event, this quick exchange of replies and comments made the interview one of non-stop repartee, dialogue and discussion – but why not? Television is De Castro’s forte, and he’s a veteran trooper, having started his career as a broadcaster in 1976 as a field reporter of Johnny de Leon, later an announcer (in 1982) on RPN 9's radio station DWWW.

What shot him to fame, however, was when he joined DZMM, the radio station of ABS-CBN, as anchorman of Kabayan (a name he adopted as his all-time moniker), then surfaced a year later, in 1987, as host of Magandang Gabi . . . Bayan, and anchorman of TV Patrol.

There, you are. Trading on face, basso profundo voice, name, and radio-TV exposés, De Castro garnered 16.17 million votes, emerging number one in the 2001 Senatorial elections.

Noli, of course, was annoyed at the insinuations voiced by his former wife, Pacita Magellan Torralba, that he was a "drop-out" from sophomore year, not a college graduate. (Would this have placed him in the category of FPJ and Erap?) De Castro stated he graduated with a degree in Commerce, major in Banking and Finance, from the University of the East.

"Anybody can go to the U.E.," he huffed, "to check my records."

When I mentioned that there were attacks on him as being a know-nothing, do-nothing Senator – in other words nagbubutas ng silya sa Senado, as the saying goes – Noli snapped back that he had authored 200 bills and one had just been signed into law by the President (his runningmate, GMA) called the Dispute Settlement law. Indeed, De Castro was ready with facts, figures, and an outline of what he had been doing.

We spoke mostly in Tagalog, naturally, his language of choice, but he said he speaks English and is not linguistically challenged. Well, not too challenged, anyway.

Ces asked what Cabinet posts he would prefer to be given, if he – and, of course, GMA – win in May. Social Welfare? Agrarian Reform? I suggested he get the Foreign Affairs portfolio . . . so he could practice.

It was, all said, a "fun" interview. De Castro gave as good as he took. As they used to say about a world-famous international airline, "The priceless extra of experience". (Sadly, that airline has since folded.) Noli, on the other hand, is obviously soaring – not folding.

* * *

It’s already well-known that De Castro has a special devotion to the Nazareno, our Lord Jesus of Quiapo, joining the men carrying the Nazareno through the streets in that celebrated annual fiesta of frenzy, devotion, and petition.

He confirmed what I’d written about his having gone to Lourdes, the miraculous shrine in France (in the foothills of the Pyrenees) where the "Immaculate Conception" in the form of a beautiful Virgin had appeared to a tiny peasant girl named Bernadette Soubirous in 1858. His wife Arlene and he had stayed in Lourdes for two days, a few weeks ago, Kabayan admitted. But he didn’t pray for "guidance" as to whether he would accept the offer by GMA for him to run for vice president as her running-mate. Indeed, De Castro said, he had received the same offer from other candidates.

He said he had not dipped himself into the healing waters at Lourdes, but had drunk the water, then wrote his petition to God on one of the forms distributed by one of the nuns or volunteer workers. His wife Arlene Sinsuat did the same thing, he recalled, but had not shown him her "wish", nor did he know up to now what she had wished for. (Talk about keeping a secret.)

"What I asked for," Noli averred, "was that God would spare me from getting involved in the pressures, tensions, and hardships of running for the vice presidency, a question which was already bothering me."

In sum, then, I interrupted, "God rejected your wish!"

Smiling broadly, Kabayan said that this was obviously the case. I didn’t go further to inquire whether God had also told him that he (Noli) would win. Any answer to that would be hearsay, and I’m not sure whether I could get God on the hot-line to check it out. Not even during Holy Week. Was that "wish" for his too cute to be true, or was it cute because it was true?

A great deal more was said during our freewheeling "live" and unrehearsed, interview, but if you didn’t catch the replay on ABS-CBN, I suppose there’s nothing more to add.

Except that the boy who was born on July 6, 1949 in Pola, Oriental Mindoro, and started out as a sacristan, an altar boy, has come a long way. All the way up? It’s in God’s hands and that of the people. God already "rejected" his plea in Lourdes.

I don’t think Kabayan is unhappy with that.

* * *

Poor FPJ.

He lost his temper and berated GMA 7 TV journalist Sandra Aguinaldo on the grandstand in Tigbauan, Iloilo, in front of his rally crowd, shoving his microphone at her and allegedly saying, "ikaw na lang kaya ang magsalita" (Why don’t you just be the one to speak?). FPJ had been irritated, it seems, by Sandra positioning herself on stage to make her TV spiel while he was delivering his speech.

Whatever the reason, Ronnie’s show of temper – no matter how his grise eminence Sen. Tito Sotto, says about it being simply a comedy or an April Fools’ joke, etc. – will hurt him, in his dealings with the media, as well as cast some doubt on his character.

If La Gloria is the Queen of Taray, Le Poe is now being tarred in media circles as Da King of Taray. We can say that FPJ is exhausted, bothered by the summer heat, pulled right and left by quarrels within his inner circle, encircled by the ASO Gang, piqued by the antics of his Hawi Boys – but a candidate cannot afford such clashes with a media-person, even if he finds her irritating or pushy. Scenes like that on the Iloilo platform can’t be edited out, or written out of the script afterwards in the studio.

And the pro-GMA elements in the media (there are many) as well as the outraged other media, will never let FPJ forget it.

Nor will the propagandists of his rivals, who’re already cheerfully saying their own manoks or mother hens never lose their tempers with media: they’ll never let the front-runner forget the incident either. They believe they’ve found the chink in his armor. Politics is war, and the "star complex" temper will be concentrated on, when blows are inflicted in the in-fighting.

I asked La Presidenta whether it’s true she threw cellphones at people who enraged or disappointed her. She said she did not. (She banged the cellphone on the table. Poor cellphone. Must have gashed the table, too. But at a TV reporter? Not on camera).

Senadora Loren Legarda, despite her own TV savvy, didn’t come out of that contretemps looking too good either. There was no "sound" when she was importuning (or scolding?) the tearful TV reporter Sandra, but La Serenissima Lorena looked disapproving rather than sympathetic on the screen, or supportive. TV is a cruel medium. Everything shows on the screen, even sans parole.