Erap: Only FPJ can top my record!

Curtain-raisers:

• In yesterday’s edition of MTB, hosts Amy Perez, Ai-Ai delas and Pia Guanio were making fun of the persistent rumor that MTB might soon fade out, to be replaced by a new show called B.A.W. (with Aga Muhlach, Cesar Montano and Willie Revillame). Tsk, tsk, tsk! Poor girls! Maybe they don’t know what they were making fun of. Let’s see who will have the last laugh.

• Could it be true that John Estrada might move from ABS-CBN to GMA so he could be with fellow Douglas Quijano talents Joey Marquez, Richard Gomez, Anjo Yllana and Jomari Yllana? All in the family, eh?

• Piolo Pascual has a new leading lady in the person of Claudine Barretto. They’re set to do a movie in Milan, Italy, with Olive Lamasan as director. Good match, aren’t they?

•••

I was with a select group which paid President Erap Estrada and son Jinggoy a visit Friday last week at the Veterans Memorial Medical Center (VMMC). Throughout that afternoon, well-wishers and visitors came and went, among them San Francisco-based former actress Anna Gonzales (here for a vacation) who looked as sexy and as beautiful as she did in the late ’60s when she was among the top sexy stars.

Jinggoy, looking healthier (read: several pounds slimmer) than he was three months earlier when we last saw him, said that Christmas and New Year’s Eve were quiet and strictly family affairs for him and his Dad. No, there wasn’t a single explosion; only the rustle of the leaves in that huge compound "rang out the old and rang in the new." Well...

No, father and son never got their Christmas wish – to spend Christmas and New Year with their family at home and not at the VMMC which has been their, uh, "retreat house?" for more than 20 months now.

The visit was purely friendly chika-chika and not an interview (even if the group was made up mostly of journalists). No cameras or tape recorders were allowed inside the presidential room, and neither were cellphones.

His recent "healing visit" and quick bath at the miracle fountain of Sister Gloria Ross in Caloocan City must have done Erap good because he was walking with ease, he wasn’t limping at all like he did also three months ago.

The first thing we asked Erap when he joined our table (after the group of Former Justice Secretary Estelito Mendoza, also Erap’s lawyer during the Senate impeachment trial, bade their goodbyes) was, you guessed it, "Will FPJ run or not?"

Smiling enigmatically, Erap said, "He hasn’t said yes and neither has he said no."

A friend in need and a friend indeed, FPJ (along with such showbiz true friends as Rudy Fernandez and Phillip Salvador) dropped by last Christmas Day and on New Year’s Day and, according to Erap, they did talk politics.

"My Erap (FPJ) said that what’s keeping him from running is his lack of experience in politics. But I told him to hire the best and brilliant minds to help him run the government," adding, "only FPJ can top my record as a politician," referring to his 12-million-plus victory, the highest number of votes garnered by a Presidential bet ever, in the 1998 Presidential race. "When I was active in showbiz I never beat FPJ at the box office; it was only in the awards race that I beat him. FPJ has the mass base; only he can mobilize the masa. He’ll make a good leader because he’s honest."

In the next breath, Erap said that the current presidential system should be replaced by the parliamentary system. If and when – and if FPJ does run and, for sure, win the elections hands down – "He can reign and not rule, and let the Prime Minister run the government."

Asked what could covince FPJ to run, Erap said that if there’s a clamor, FPJ just might.

"As of now," Erap smiled, "he hasn’t made up his mind yet."

How soon do we have to wait for FPJ to, that’s it, make up his mind?

Erap smiled again, as if to say, "Just wait and see."

The Big Scam, Beware!

Congratulations. The last four digits of your cellphone won in our control panel board last Dec. 16, 2002. Please call for more information Mr. Joey Gomez at 0920-77448137.

So my friend, who received that text message, called that guy on that number and he was told that he won P1 million. That guy said he was from Smart Info. But before he could get the money, my friend was told, he had to send his account number to Smart Info and phone in the code numbers of three unscratched Smart cell cards.

Before the friend could jump with joy, I told him to wait. I called up Girlie Rodis who told me to call up Mon Isberto, head of Public Affairs of Smart Communications and Mon said that it’s a hoax, a scam!

It turned out that not only my friend but dozens of other people have received that "congratulatory" text message, so beware!

If you fall into the trap, according to Mon, the crooks behind the scam could empty your bank account in a jiffy. They’re that smart, huh!

Oh my, if those crooks could only use their "brilliant" minds to good, positive use!

Again, beware!