Villar denies secret meeting with First Gentleman, GMA

HACIENDA LUISITA, Tarlac City , Philippines  - Sen. Manuel Villar Jr. yesterday vehemently denied text messages alleging that he met with First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo or President Arroyo in a secret meeting in a bid to ally himself with the administration.

“I have never seen nor met with the First Gentleman and President Arroyo since I was ousted as Senate President. There are even reports that I met them in a side trip in Syria, but I have never been in the country,” said Villar in an interview prior to his speech at the 9th National Convention of the Philippine Guardians Brotherhood Inc. (PGBI), where he was introduced by its Grand Supremo, Sen. Gregorio Honasan.

Text messages circulated yesterday alleging that Villar struck an agreement with Mr. Arroyo to make the President, who is running for a congressional seat in Pampanga, Speaker, supposedly in exchange for poll fraud operations in the coming May elections.

The Nacionalista Party (NP) described the proliferation of the text messages as desperate moves from the camp of his main rival, Sen. Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III.

NP senatorial candidate and spokesman Rep. Gilbert Remulla turned the tables on the Liberal Party (LP), saying the opposing party has pushed the panic button after Villar tied Aquino in the latest poll surveys.

“The Liberal Party is too desperate. We know that they were responsible for the proliferation of the text messages. We have our inside information that this came from their special operations team. There is absolutely no truth to it,” Remulla said.

The NP complained of the “text blast” coming from anonymous sources which claimed that the First Gentleman met with Villar at the house of former Rep. Mike Defensor last Jan. 7 to talk about an alliance between Villar and the administration. 

Remulla denied the meeting, saying that the NP standard bearer and Mr. Arroyo have not been on good terms since the Senate consented to the investigation of the fertilizer scam and the national broadband network (NBN) deal with ZTE Corp. of China.

“ How could MBV (Villar) have a meeting with FG? First of all, they are not on speaking terms because they have grudge towards each other. Second, Mike Defensor arrived on Jan. 8 from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. There is really no truth to their accusations, they just want to smear the name of the good senator,” Remulla said.

He said the NP received information that the LP has resorted to dirty tactics as it has created a special operations team for purposes of disseminating nasty text messages.

Remulla said the LP’s campaign of good versus evil has waned, that is why they are shifting to another strategy, linking Villar to the Arroyo administration, in a bid to bring down the NP standard bearer’s ratings.

Villar’s presidential bid got a boost from the 2.5-million strong PGBI after Honasan’s endorsement.

Speaking before a crowd of about 5,000 members from all over the country, Honasan introduced Villar as a son of the masses that sympathizes with the Guardians.

The PGBI endorsement made clear the ties that bind between Villar and Honasan, who supported Villar in the recent controversy at the Senate in connection with the C5 Road extension controversy.       – With Charlie Lagasca