What Mike, Korina and Luchi got

Wait a minute. Just because their names were in the so-called Ben Hur Luy files does not mean GMA TV’s Mike Enriquez, ABS-CBN’s Korina Sanchez and ABC 5’s Luchi Cruz-Valdez got money from Janet Lim Napoles nor are they partakers in the pork scandal that has so far dragged three senators and other prominent personalities and threatens to besmirch several hundreds of reputations yet.

In truth, all that we have here is the fact that the names of these iconic broadcasters are on the list of people who were supposedly given cash. That’s all there is. No one has any proof they got what was supposed to have been given to them.

Come on. I know these three have enough critics out there who would want to believe the worst about them, especially Korina, whose simple one-liners, like the one on Anderson Cooper last year, could provoke an outcry. But I think this is one time we have to give them the benefit of the doubt because a simple, cursory check on the facts as laid out by Luy tells us there is nothing substantial that could link them to the scam, except that their names are on the disbursement list.

Scenario No. 1: Their names may simply have been put there by someone who made money for himself or herself. Scenario No. 2: The list was made but wasn’t followed, so they did not receive anything. Scenario No. 3: Luy simply made it all up. Scenario No.4: The hard drive that was submitted last year yet to the Philippine Daily Inquirer may already have been contaminated, or worse, tampered with.

These may be far-fetched, but they are not exactly impossible, don’t you think so, enough to put a grain of doubt as to their guilt or “reasonable doubt” in which case, in the eyes of the law, they should be exonerated. This story is a bit too shaky to even consider, especially knowing that it has the potential of destroying, not just their reputations, but in fact their entre life work!

The list itself also states that the money that was disbursed for them was given to one Mon Arroyo, presumably one of those so-called media brokers, or operators, those men and women who work within our media circles massaging issues, fudging figures and stats sometimes, with the end view of influencing pubic opinion.

These men and women are oftentimes called PR people, which is not exactly correct but that came to be because these operators or brokers happened to spring from the PR industry and the line that separates them are thin and often blurred. But to be fair: PR people do not necessarily act as dealers nor brokers. Let’s put it this way: that Arroyo whoever he is, is no PR practitioner, but sometimes yes, the PR practitioner is also a broker.

That said, let us go back to what Mike, Korina and Luchi got, or did not get. We can debate what they received or not, but this one is irrefutable: they were dealt an unfair hand in this story.

It is a situation that can happen even here in the local media, considering that yes, there are also brokers and operators working in the shadows and sidelines, and sometimes, in the spotlights, too, of our media industry. There are lists like the one of Ben Hur Luy where media people on the take are on. And it could happen, as the case of Mike, Luchi and Korina might be, that the people whose names are included in those lists do not necessarily receive what those lists say they do.

Some years ago, while I was still editing the business section of this paper, an old friend from high school came to me with a list of media people who got gifts from her company which was then in the center of a controversy. In the list was the name of an editor who presumably got “flowers and cakes” and a broadcaster who got “perfume.” Both of course did not get any of these and you can guess where the budget for these items went.

In another instance, a media broker submitted my name in his proposal for funding from a local organization, not knowing the head was a personal friend who laughed when she saw my name on it. The proposal was junked but I don’t think the broker realized I knew he had used my name; I just hope that was the only time he did so.

There are plenty of other examples of media brokering to fill a book, and it should all end with a caveat: let us not rush to judgment. Mike and Luchi and Korina may have their sins, but I don’t think it is fair for us to conclude they are on the take, simply because their names were found on Luy’s list.

And as a comical aside, a good friend who’s familiar with the ways of media brokering in Manila said the list couldn’t be true, and for an altogether practical reason. “You don’t try to buy Korina and Mike with P50,000, that couldn’t even buy them a handbag or a pair of shoes! They’re not that cheap!”*

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