Of all of President-elect Rodrigo Duterte’s Cabinet appointments, none has been as controversial as that of lawyer Salvador S. Panelo.
The objections to the nattily dressed and dapper presidential spokesman are anchored on three grounds. One, he has been a lawyer of the Ampatuan family, which is accused for the massacre of 58 victims, 34 of them journalists. Two, he can often be abrasive to people who do not share his views. He has the habit of cutting them off in the middle of a conversation. Three, and this can really be petty, his fashion taste straddles the extravagant and the flamboyant.
You should neither be envious of nor angry at Panelo. Commiserate with him. In recent weeks, Duterte has displayed incredible lack of manners (he said he learned Good Manners and Right Conduct as early as Grade 4) and open hostility towards what he calls “corrupt” journalists and those on the take. Sal’s could be the most difficult job in the cabinet.
Duterte has shown sensitivity to criticism and media bashing, remarkable for a man who has been in politics for more than 22 years and who was a prosecutor for almost 10 years.
On May 31, he wolf-whistled at a comely lady journalist (who is pregnant). It was obviously sexual harassment but Duterte justified it as freedom of speech even though a Davao City ordinance penalizes it as a sexual offense. In the same press conference, the incoming president appeared to justify the killing of journalists if they are “rotten sons of bitches.” In succeeding press conferences, Duterte challenged the press to boycott his press conferences. He also promised not to grant media interviews during his six years in office.
The most powerful executive of the land thus has declared war on media. Now, wars by the powerful are good fodder for an adversarial press. Media will enjoy it to the hilt.
Caught in the crossfire is Sal Panelo. I don’t know how long he can survive.
Meanwhile, the Ampatuan massacre of Nov. 23, 2009 is considered the single biggest and deadliest attack on journalists in the world.
The issue about Panelo is not at all about competence. He is literate, articulate, versatile, a part-time columnist and broadcaster, and a prominent lawyer. He is such a good lawyer he is in demand by those who run afoul of the law and those who are victims of injustice, oppression and violation of human rights. It is in serving the first group of litigants–the transgressors of the law–that has raised alarums about him as the president’s spokesman, alter ego and troubleshooter.
Panelo’s coterie of clients include the murderous Ampatuan family, the rapist Calauan, Laguna mayor Antonio Sanchez, the actress Nida Blanca murderer Philip Madel, murder suspect Masbate Mayor Moises Espinosa, the fabulous Imelda Marcos, the equally fabulous broadcaster Korina Sanchez, the rebellious Nur Misuari, the “moderate your greed” Comelec chair Benjamin Abalos, among lascivious and drug-using actors, and politicians who either have won or lost an election.
The activist National Union of Journalists of the Philippines is dismayed with Panelo as presidential spokesperson. “This is not right,” NUJP said in a statement, citing Sal’s engagement with the Ampatuans.
For its part, the National Press Club of the Philippines through its president, Paul Gutierrez, asked Rodrigo Duterte to reconsider Panelo’s appointment.
“Definitely, members of the press would find it hard to interact, and work with, a press secretary whose main client are the suspects in the wholesale murder of the members of the press that has outraged the entire world,” Gutierrez said. The NPC has launched a signature campaign to stop Panelo’s appointment.
To his credit, Panelo resigned from being the counsel of Andal Ampatuan Jr., the principal accused, in late November 2015 when Duterte’s presidential ambitions were still a matter of conjecture. Panelo was hired, he said for a minimal fee, in December 2013, after the previous lawyers, after collecting a handsome fee, resigned from the case.
Duterte has strongly defended his appointees. His appointees, he said, are “valedictorians,” “experts in their fields,” and “are not corrupt.”
Panelo has been a long-time friend of Duterte’s. “I met him when he was a prosecutor in Davao and I was representing Unilab,” Sal explains. The two easily hit it off. They are, after all, brothers in the profession and as lawyers, live by the dictum—decide cases on the basis of evidence.
Also, ideologically, Panelo and Duterte are certifiable leftists. Duterte went to Manila’s Lyceum of the Philippines to imbibe the leftist and socialist doctrine. As a young man, Duterte was an activist. In fact, he joined the Kabataang Makabayan, the youth arm of the Communist Party of the Philippines. But the president-elect clarifies that he is not a communist. He is a leftist and a socialist.
For his part, Panelo was also an activist. He learned his activism at the state University of the Philippines. For a number of years, he spent his youth in the mountains, as a New People’s Army guerrilla in Bicol, his home region.
Both men are self-made. Duterte is the son of a Davao lawyer and a school teacher. He forced himself to finish college and law despite repeatedly being ousted from schools. Both his parents were lower middle class professionals.
As activists, rebels and as lawyers, there is one thing Duterte and Panelo hate most—oppression. “We don’t want to be oppressed,” says Panelo.
“Oppression is when the rights of people are violated or assaulted. Every human being has rights. When you assault that right, you are being oppressive,” explains the lawyer in Sal. That does mean the two will stop oppressing the press sometime soon?
Says Panelo: “The President’s style is that he has one-liners. So my job is to expound on his one-liners, explain the context by which it is said or delivered. Since I have known him for several decades, I know how his mind works. He has told me, ‘you can read my mind.’”
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