On Holy Thursday, political muckraker Ramon Tulfo wrote about a most unholy topic in the Philippine Daily Inquirer. He claimed that:

THE WIFE OF A CANDIDATE FOR A national position found out that her husband has a fashion model for a girlfriend. Furious, the wife confronted the candidate about his extramarital affairs. As expected, the candidate denied the accusation.

Tulfo, who is always armed with several guns, continued:

But the wife allegedly showed him photographs of the two caught on camera in a public display of affection. The photos were supposedly given to the candidate’s wife by a close rival of their son who is aspiring for a local post. The wife reportedly asked her husband to sign papers for the separation of their conjugal property amounting to billions of pesos. When the candidate refused, she threatened to expose how he amassed wealth while in office and added that she was moving over to his rival’s camp on the campaign trail. Fearing a national scandal, the candidate signed the papers.

Now let’s take the advice of that popular host of “Blue’s Clues” to guess  Tulfo’s man of the hour. Let’s list down the clues:

1. The philandering husband wants to be president, vice-president or senator.
2. This man. together with the wife, owns billions of pesos worth of assets.
3. He has a son running for local office, not a national post where voting is done nationwide.
4. He is still married, not separated.
5. His angry wife threatened to move over to his rival’s camp if he did not sign legal documents dividing their conjugal property.

Hmmmm.

That narrows down the choice to four national candidates at most:

• Presidential candidate Manny Villar
• Presidential candidate Joseph “Erap” Estrada
• Vice-presidential candidate Jejomar Binay and
• Senatorial candidate Juan Ponce Enrile

Why them?

Because of the clues.

Only the four are probably rich enough. Only the four have sons old enough and who are actually running for office.

Villar is hands-down a multi-billionaire. His son Mark is running for the Lower House of Congress, a local post, and Villar is still married. But what about his loving wife Congresswoman Cynthia Villar? I don’t know about that. But last month she told ABS-CBN what I thought was a very curious remark. She said, if her husband wasn’t running for president she would go for his handsome and younger rival, former defense secretary Gilberto Teodoro. To read her remarks, click on this link.

What did Tulfo say about the wife threatening to move over to the rival camp of her husband? But of course I could be very wrong.

And of course the usual suspect is Estrada, the serial adulterer whose wife seems to live by the Holy Bible admonition to forgive one’s transgressor 70 times seven.

Estrada turned out to have a billion pesos in the Jose Velarde account (which he insists to this day is not his). And he seems to have deeper pockets because he is running for president, not town mayor. Joseph Victor “JV” Ejercito, his son by Guia Gomez, is also running for congressman, a local post. But would the long suffering former Senator Loi Ejercito threaten to move over to a rival camp when she never did that in all the years Estrada had been blatantly unfaithful to her? Perish the thought. But still, count Estrada in.

How about Jejomar Binay, the benevolent warlord mayor of Makati City? He is not a declared billionaire but he sure became super wealthy after becoming mayor. His son Jejomar “JunJun” Junior is running for mayor. I know nothing of the state of Binay’s marriage so I’ll pass.

And finally, there’s Enrile who some years back made headlines over his extra-marital flights of fancy. His son Jack is also running for Congress. Enrile is very wealthy, too -  from coconuts, matches, lumber, etcetera.

Now you might ask, why is an alleged serious journalist like myself dealing with gossip?

I’ll throw the question back to you. Would you like another candidate with a taste for embarrassing liaisons occupying a national office, say the presidency? Think of the scandal, the blackmail and political risk that would accompany each furtive embrace.

Please, Mon Tulfo, tell me what you’re saying isn’t true.

I wrote this feature for Asian Dragon magazine, which also permitted me to post it on my blog. I wrote it without personal comment and with the aim of  stating facts as they are, hoping to help readers make an informed choice.

By age 60 when most Filipinos retire, Senator Manuel Villar is bent on launching instead an “entrepreneurial revolution”. He wants to turn the Philippines from a nation of employees into a nation of employers by using what he calls “Divisoria economics”.

Photo sent to Raissa Robles by source

He also wants to enable state hospitals to provide free health care to all Filipinos for life-threatening illnesses like cancer, heart and kidney diseases.

But first he needs to be elected the nation’s president next year and he’s working very hard on that now.

“If I will be given a chance to be the man who will turn this country around, that would be achieving something no money can buy and nobody has ever done before,” he told Asian Dragon magazine in an exclusive interview.

Villar has come a long way from growing up in a shack in Manila’s poor section of Tondo to owning a historic mansion – once the home of a Philippine president – which he and his lawmaker-wife Cynthia have furnished like a Roman villa.

The construction magnate, who prefers to dress like a building foreman when out campaigning, has a conjugal fortune valued by Forbes business magazine at US$540 million making him the ninth richest in the country this year. Two years ago, though, he was number five with his fortune valued at US$940 million.

He doesn’t want to be called a magnate. “I prefer being called a management man. I have managed the House of Representatives and the Senate and a business concern.”

Villar has also managed to revive the long comatose Nacionalista Party. “When I took over the party, it had no one.” Its spurt is “proof in fact of my competence as a builder and manager.”

“I really feel this country has been mismanaged,” he said adding
shyly, “do I sound conceited?”

Sen. Manuel Villar - Photo by Raissa Robles

Even if he does, he has earned bragging rights. In 2007, he revived the sagging fortunes of his company, C&P Homes, by forming Vista Land and Landscapes, Inc., a holding firm. From at least 21 billion pesos that Vista Land raised through an initial and secondary public offering, Villar was able to retire the P5 billion debt owed by C&P.

“I’m not getting any younger. I’m turning 60 (this December 13). This is like my last quarter. I’ve been a House Speaker and Senate President. I’ve planted a million trees,” he said.

“I (once) told myself, one day I will establish myself as the Filipino who has built the most number of houses and I’ve built 200,000 homes. My business has become number one and my family is okay.”

“And now the door is open and it’s like I’ve been brought to this door, it’s not as if the desire (to be president) just came out of  nowhere.” (more…)