The first is from the column of Emil Jurado, 'To the Point'
And the second is from the column of Alvin Capino, 'Counterpoint'
ALL POLITICS IS LOCAL
This paper ran a front-page story a few days ago that the Lopez-owned ABS-CBN has become a kingmaker. People get most of their news and information about the forthcoming elections from the radio-television network.
I hate to admit it, but television especially is an impact medium that carries a lot of weight.
Since broadcast must have a franchise and permit to operate, because the airlanes form part of the state’s eminent domain, it’s mandated to be fair, balanced without fear or favor. That’s why broadcast media outfits are under the National Telecommunications Commission which grants them their frequencies.
Sadly enough, the Lopez network, with all its influence, has prostituted freedom of the press with its slanted broadcast. Even its anchors are blatantly biased in favor of Liberal Party candidate Senator Benigno Aquino III.
When columnists and opinion-writers take sides in an election, that’s only one man’s opinion. In the US, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The San Franciso Chronicle and The Los Angeles Examiner also take sides during an election, but they do so only editorially.
But, when news broadcasts and public affairs programs are clearly slanted by a television network, that’s already prostitution of press freedom.
I can understand the bias of the Lopezes for Noynoy. The late President Cory Aquino gave the network back on a silver platter to them after Edsa 1. No questions asked. Cory also handed over Meralco to the Lopezes in spite of the fact that the Lopezes already sold it to Kokoy Romualdez, as records show.
Gratitude is good but why prostitute press freedom in the process?
NOYNOY'S LOW ANTI-CORRUPTION STANDARDS
In, Capiz, the home province of Liberal Party vice presidential candidate Senator Mar Roxas, there is a popular movement called MAR.
No the group is not promoting the candidacy of Roxas. It’s surprising to know that its aim is the exact opposite. The Capiz-based MAR stands for Movement Against Roxas.
People behind MAR say that they want to send a message to Roxas that they’re unhappy with the way the Roxas family has treated Capiz. The province has not progressed much despite the fact that the Roxas family has been a force in national politics for a long, long time.
Among others, the Roxas family has produced a president, Pres. Manuel Roxas, an outstanding senator and one-time a leading presidential contender Senator Gerry Roxas, a congressman, Rep. Dinggoy Roxas and of course Sen. Mar Roxas who appears to be headed to be the next vice president based on surveys.
However, if the Movement Against Roxas is to be believed, Capiz has not profited much from the political success of the Roxas family.
Of course, Roxas’ people would probably dismiss MAR as the handiwork of former Agriculture Undersecretary Jocelyn “Jocjoc” Bolante who is leading the gubernatorial race in Capiz and who apparently has no love lost for the senator who was one of the vocal critics of Bolante in the so-called fertilizer scam controversy.
Ultimately, however, it is the people of Capiz who would decide to vote for Sen. Mar Roxas or not. Whether he wins for the vice presidency or not, it would be embarrassing for the senator to lose in his own home province.
This is a ghost that will haunt him when he runs as president in 2016.
* * *
Roxas’ running mate, Liberal Party presidential candidate Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III, is haunted by another ghost—the ghost of the security agency he put up shortly after his mother was installed by People Power in 1986.
It is indeed ironic that Aquino whose campaign is mainly fuelled by his anti-corruption stance is tainted by the accusations that he committed graft and corruption when he set up the Best Security Agency Inc. The company obtained contracts with a government agency and other enterprises vulnerable to government pressure.It might be coincidental or it might be deliberate but even the initials chosen for the security agency was intimidating. BSA, of course, is the initials of Senator Noynoy Aquino’s father, Senator Benigno Servillano Aquino Jr. 
Noynoy is finding it difficult to exorcise the ghost of the BSA security agency and his attempt to explain his involvement only serves to underscore the fact that he is not “walang bahid” (untainted).
If you listen to his explanations on the BSA security agency, it would appear that Aquino has very low anti-corruption threshold.
His critics, of course, are making a big issue out of the fact that the security agency’s business address is no less than the Arlegui official residence of the President of the Philippines at that time.
And what was Noynoy’s response on why a security agency soliciting business with government agencies and sequestered government corporations is using Arlegui, the equivalent of the White House at that time?
The Manila Standard Today story by Christine Herrera which broke out this issue last March 26 quoted Aquino as saying: “What could I do? I lived in Arlegui at the time. What’s so illegal about that?”
If Aquino see nothing wrong with using the official residence of the Philippines as the official address of a security guard agency soliciting business with government agencies and sequestered companies, then we have to question his sense of propriety and delicadeza and more important his anti-corruption standards.
With an address like Arlegui and with the presidential son as one of the owners and vice president from 1986 to 1993, BSA did very well and had some 1,000 security guards in its employ. It serviced the government-owned Philippine National Construction Corp. (PNCC) which at that time was the operator of the South Luzon Expressway and the North Luzon Expressway, the facilities and buildings of sequestered companies under the Presidential Commission on Good Government, as well as private clients like AsiaTrust, Tanduay Distillers of taipan Lucio Tan and Uniwide.
Aquino has admitted that he is an incorporator of BSA but said in a press conference in Baliuag the other week that he divested from the company when his mother became president.
This explanation is confusing especially in the light of the fact that BSA used the Arlegui address which became the official residence of the President of the Philippines during the time of President Aquino.
Of course this explanation evades the fact that Noynoy was vice president of BSA from 1986 to 1993 meaning that he was involved in the company during the whole term of his mother as president.
Aquino also tried to explain that if he really wanted to take advantage of the Aquino presidency to get rich, it would not be through a security agency where he said “we’d be lucky to get five percent from the gross profits.”
He said that after he divested his shares from BSA he became just an employee of the agency and that he worked in the backroom.
The owners and officers of BSA were Noynoy’s uncle Len Oreta who was chairman of the board and president, Cipriano Lacson was director-treasurer, while Aquino, George Gaddi, Bienvenido Reyes, Alexander Lopez and Jacob Acuna were directors.
This issue actually was raised as early as 1987 when Mrs. Aquino was still president. I was a Malacañang reporter at that time and if I remember correctly, the justification cited by the Palace at that time was that the agency was put up to help give jobs to those who approach the presidential son.
There were talks at that time that BSA was part of the rumored Yellow Army.
This was apparently confirmed by Aquino himself when he admitted in the press conference in Bulacan that BSA was put up as a response to the threats from forces still loyal to President Marcos.
Then as now, Senator Noynoy Aquino has failed to explain why no graft and corruption was committed when he was involved in a security agency which had contracts with the government.
His critics are saying that his involvement in BSA as owner-incorporator and as vice president which he has admitted having a conflict of interest and violating the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act of 1965, which made it “unlawful for any person having family or close personal relations with any public official to capitalize or exploit or rake advantage of such family or close personal relations...”
Here we have no less than the son of the President of the Philippines involved in a security agency doing business with the government.
Senator Aquino should give a clear answer to this issue. This way, we would know if he is sincere in his promise to fight graft and corruption.
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