Rep. Gilbert Remulla's Point of View

Cavite Rep. Gilbert C. Remulla, Chair of the five-commitee joint hearing on the "Hello Garci" tapes, will be at the BSLR-East Lecture Room, UP College of Medicine (Pedro Gil St., Manila) tomorrow, 7/26/2005 (Tuesday) 8:00-10:00 am. He will be with former DSWD Sec. Dinky Soliman.

Which side is this promising young solon on? Is he a GMA ally or an opposition stalwart? See you at the forum.

Sponsors:
University Student Council UP Manila
UP Medicine Student Council

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http://news.inq7.net/sunday/index.php?index=1&story_id=44612

Hello, Gilbert!
First posted 02:23pm (Mla time) July 24, 2005
By Fe Zamora
Inquirer News Service

BY the time you read this, Cavite Rep. Gilbert C. Remulla and his wife Georgia would have returned from their wedding anniversary trip to Hong Kong. By this time, too, Remulla, who steered the five-committee joint hearing on the controversial "Hello Garci" tapes last month, would have made the final, irrevocable decision of affixing his signature on the impeachment raps against President Arroyo. But then again, he may not.

There seems to be no second-guessing this young legislator who has so far proven himself to be a walking bundle of contradictions.

On the eve of his flight to Hong Kong, Remulla confides that he had been thinking "long and hard" on the charges that the President had stolen the mandate from rival presidential candidate Fernando Poe Jr., and that he had concluded that Ms. Arroyo must be given her day in court. "She must be given a chance to answer the accusations that she cheated, not only in media, but according to the constitutional processes," he says.

He was rather perturbed, adds Remulla, about the possibility that if the Lower House ignores the accusations, the people's clamor for redress could explode in violence. Yet he could not dismiss outright the sinister view proffered by Palace partisans that if Ms Arroyo were impeached, the military would intervene.

So, has he made up his mind? He laughs: "I already know where my heart lies."

Sipping coffee at the lobby of a five-star hotel, the congressman was cool to strangers' warm commendations about his handling of the hearings on the "Hello Garci" tapes. He also visibly shrank into his seat when a government official and known ally of the First Couple sauntered by. He claims the official had been making offers to House representatives for them to spurn the opposition's plan to impeach the President.

Yet he refuses to publicly condemn the practice of buying off legislators to ensure Ms Arroyo's continued grip on power. "There is a culture of political patronage," Remulla says wistfully. "Changing all these would take time." He continues: "When I entered politics, I knew what not to be. It was not to be in the mold of a traditional politician."

And yet again, he admits to having supported Jose de Venecia-known hereabouts as the quintessential "trapo"-in his bid to become House speaker, for purely political reasons. According to Remulla, the Partido Magdalo, which was founded by the Remulla patriarch, former Cavite Governor Juanito "Johnny" Remula, had allied itself with the Nacionalista Party which, in turn, supports the ruling Lakas party that JDV represented.

Severed ties

During the campaign, however, the Magdalo party became allied with the opposition Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino (LDP) that later split into the Sen. Edgardo Angara and the Sen. Panfilo Lacson factions. The Angara-wing supported FPJ, while the Magdalos supported fellow Caviteo and blood-relative Lacson. But the Remullas later found out that Lacson had junked the congressional bid of Jesus Crispin "Boying" Remulla for the 3rd district of Cavite, in favor of ex-Magdalo member Ruben Madlangsacay.

Boying, who was chief of the Presidential Management Staff during the Estrada administration, won but bad blood had been spilled. The Remullas severed their ties with the LDP opposition, to join the NP under the ruling coalition. But the NP is not monolithic, clarifies Remulla. "Some members are with the opposition, others with the administration."

He himself was originally opposition from 2001 to 2004, when he served his first term. In fact, Remulla belonged to the "Brat Pack," a group of young legislators who tried to impeach Chief Justice Hilario Davide in 2003. "I was a very vocal critic of Ms Arroyo. Now, I try hard to stop myself from criticizing her," he says with a guffaw.

Although the Remullas have dominated Cavite politics since the Marcos era in the late '70s, the broadcaster-turned-congressman is a virtual neophyte who, however, gained public notice when, at 34, he became chair of the high-profile congressional hearings on the "Garci" tapes.

So far, he has gotten good reviews for the job. "Rep. Remulla is incredibly competent. He has restored credibility to congress," goes the text message of beauty queen Sabrina Simonette Artadi to SIM. Businesswoman Rose Comilang commended Remulla for "his ability to control everybody, including older congressmen." Journalists, who had worked with him in the '90s when he was a reporter for Channel 2, are as amazed at his transformation. "Gilbert was not exceptional as a journalist," a former colleague at the network says. "He has improved a lot."

Back then, another fellow journalist recalls, the young Remulla was "cocky" and could definitely use a few lessons on ethics. "We were both covering Congress," the print reporter recounts. "I was busy typing out my story on my computer when I noticed the other reporters signaling to me. That was when I looked up and noticed somebody behind me, reading over my head. It was Gilbert, and he was taking down notes from my computer screen. I glared at him, and it was only then that he moved away."

Despite the lapse, Remulla never bothered to apologize nor explain his action to the print journalist who says he decided to just ignore the incident. "He strutted around like a big shot, probably because his network was then lording it over the other stations," adds the offended reporter. "Even the other reporters described him as malakas ang dating. He came on too strong."

Remulla, who would stay on as broadcast journalist for seven years before entering politics, himself admits to landing the job through the back door. A 1992 Broadcast Journalism graduate from the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City, he had his heart set on a career in television. His mother, he says, called up her good friend, Freddie Garcia, then the top honcho at ABS-CBN. "So I got interviewed by network vice presidents Boo Chanco and Rod Reyes who made me trainee," he reveals.

Poor little rich boy

His first job was to transcribe "a stack of tapes" on interviews about the assassination of former senator Ninoy Aquino. He buckled down to work "without even asking about the salary." In six months, he was "promoted" to all-around runner and eventually, production assistant. In December 1993, he was sent to cover a robbery-homicide involving a taxi driver. It would be the "graveyard" shift for him for a year before he was fielded to cover the daytime news.

To many at the network, Remulla was just the "poor little rich boy" who would do anything to be on television. "Some newsmen made fun of him, but he was game," a former deskman recalls. Remulla confirms this. "They sent me on errands, which I did, while driving a Mercedez Benz station wagon. I was amused, I didn't care," he laughs. Other personnel even called him the "son of a warlord." But he was so meek and boyishly charming that nobody could imagine him brandishing guns as sons of warlords are expected to.

The "warlord" referred to was of course the Remulla patriarch, former Cavite governor Juanito Remulla, now 72. The young Remulla however disputes the "warlord" tag and decries suggestions that Cavite is one of the perennial election hotspots in the country.

"There are so many places worse than Cavite," he says, enumerating such provinces. As to his patriarch's "warlord" tag, Remulla says the iron hand was necessary to clean up the province. "But did he actually wipe out villages? Did he burn down barrios like what happened in Ilocos?"

The elder Remulla was no patsy of a governer. Appointed to the post by President Marcos in 1979, Remulla soon after transformed Cavite from agricultural hicktown to industrial suburbia with farmlands converted into residential subdivisions. He would be called the architect of Cavite's industrialization although the honor would be tainted with allegations that he did so at the expense of poor Caviteños.

When Marcos was ousted in 1986, Remulla was replaced by Fernando Campos as officer-in-charge of Cavite. Unbowed, the former governor organized his Partido Magdalo and returned to power in 1988. A few days after the 1992 presidential elections, he nearly died from a stroke. In an article on Father's Day published in the Inquirer on June 15, 2003, the youngest Remulla recalled that fateful day when his father was reduced from "indestructible" to helpless invalid.

"Here was the tough guy, that kingpin lying on a hospital bed, struggling with the effects of a stroke that had paralyzed his left side. I was dumbfounded," Remulla continued. The governor recovered, but "his political career took a nosedive," his son continued. Three years later, in 1995, the older Remulla lost his final bid for the governorship to former National Bureau of Investigation director Epimaco Velasco. The political defeat was blamed on Remulla's alleged anti-workers' policy, as he had decreed a "a no strike" policy at the Cavite Export Processing Zone. No matter, he conceded without fuss on the day after the elections. "With my head held high, I exit the stage of politics." the former governor said. Assisting him on that day in May, 1995, was his youngest son, Gilbert.

Harsh realities

Though their father was governor, the young Remullas were raised shielded from the harsh realities of politics, claims the congressman. In fact, they lived in Manila even while their father was Cavite governor. Jesus Crispin, the eldest, is nine years older than Gilbert. Between them are Troy, an opthalmologist, and John Vic, the current vice-governor of Cavite.

The Remulla boys spent their elementary years at La Salle, high school at the Ateneo and college at UP Diliman where they all joined the Upsilon fraternity. In 1999, after spending seven years at Channel 2, Remulla decided to take up his MA in International Affairs at the Columbia University in New York. He came back in 2000 hoping to resume work at his old network. "But I got bored with journalism. I have an MA, but what do I do now?" he wondered. He had also married Georgia Diaz-Roa, a pediatric dentist by profession and daughter of Ruby Diaz, one of the sisters of former Ms Universe Gloria Diaz.

At the wedding, the Remullas were easily overcrowded by the Diaz clan, such that his brothers teased Gilbert about marrying "the entire population." Later that year, then Cavite Rep. Ireneo "Ayong" Maliksi, a long-time ally of the older Remulla, said he wanted to run for governor. "I asked my dad if I could run for the seat vacated by Maliksi, and he said okay," Gilbert says.

Actually, he was also inspired by the group of then neophyte congressmen Mike Defensor, Robert Ace Barbers, Juan Miguel Zubiri and Ricky Sandoval, who were collectively known as the Spice Boys. "They were just a year older than me, so I said, maybe I can do this," Remulla recalls. But the older Remulla also warned him "it's not that easy."

John Vic, then already a vice-governor, introduced his kid brother around as a "matinee idol type" who sang and delivered speeches. In the middle of the campaign, Remulla's wife Georgia gave birth to Roxanne. "The baby has good timing. It was Holy Week," the young father laughs. Another daughter, Rocio, would be born during the campaign period last year.

Remulla won in 2001, and got reelected in 2004. It's a full-blown political career with good prospects ahead of him, but he still has qualms, he says. "My brother and I, we have come to talking about an exit strategy from politics. We know this is not forever. We don't want to grow old not knowing anything else but politics," he says.

That, veteran political observers and skeptics might say, remains to be seen.