The lightning rod

You know it’s confirmation time when "white papers" proliferate and Cabinet members make the rounds disputing rumors and black propaganda. Among the most controversial in President Arroyo’s official family is Justice Secretary Hernando Perez. Bad news about him reached me even throughout my month-long stay in the United States.

I must confess that in my years as a reporter Perez was one of the few public officials I avoided interviewing. My rare encounters with him I found him cantankerous and seemingly full of himself. He was nearly as cranky as the pre-presidential Fidel Ramos. Compared with his current nemesis, Ping Lacson, Perez could look like an ogre. If Nani Perez was in deep trouble, I told myself, he probably had it coming.

One night last week, however, I found Perez transformed. I don’t know if I just missed this side of him all those years, but there he was, all charm and good cheer, a man who is quick to erupt in loud laughter, a guy who loves orchids and… women?

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As most of you know, the latest scandal in the life of Nani Perez involves at least one woman in the Department of Justice. Perez has already denied the story, telling everyone that he and his wife had a good laugh about it.

How did he develop a reputation for being a man who loves women? Must be the mustache, he says flippantly, telling STAR editors how he trims it. The woman from the justice department, however, is not the most controversial in Perez’s life. In this town of rumor mongers, the buzz is that the justice secretary’s special friend is no less than the boss herself, President Arroyo. Political enemies refer to Perez as the Second Gentleman, and he’s supposed to head one of the most powerful blocs in the Arroyo administration.

Perez naturally has heard the rumors. Last month he reportedly commented, "It’s like a houseboy being linked to his boss."

He remembers meeting Gloria Macapagal for the first time when he was a professor at the Ateneo de Manila and Mike Arroyo was a law student. Several years later Perez met her again, when he was a congressman crafting tax reform legislation and she was the representative from the Department of Trade and Industry.

Perez remembers being impressed enough with the DTI undersecretary to recommend her to then Speaker Ramon Mitra Jr. as a senatorial candidate of the Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino. His pitch to Mitra: the woman was brilliant and had the right pedigree. Mitra agreed. And GMA, after some hesitation because her family was allied with the Liberal Party, also agreed.

For this draft she would refer once to Perez as her "original political mentor." But Perez emphasizes that her political success was chiefly her own doing. "She’s a natural," he says, recalling that during her campaigns, GMA not only greeted people in their dialect but also delivered entire speeches in the local tongue.

Back then did he ever think GMA might one day become president? "Yes," he says. These days he calls her "ma’am" and says he makes it a point to be nice to her aides so he can be constantly assured of a direct line to the boss.

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Is he the closest adviser of the President? Perez is humble enough to point to Executive Secretary Bert Romulo as the President’s top adviser. But Perez does admit that the President calls him regularly, sometimes at way past 2 in the morning, about matters that aren’t always connected to politics or legal issues.

And he does feel that among Cabinet members, he is getting the most flak because of perceptions that he is closest to the President. Hit him and you hit President GMA. Sometimes, he concedes, he feels like a lightning rod for his boss.

Perez thinks people being prosecuted by the government are behind what he describes as a demolition campaign against him. He’s defensive about the IMPSA deal, saying he hasn’t signed anything. He also claims he didn’t know the deal was the reason deposed President Joseph Estrada sued the Manila Times.

These days Perez, who also heads the National Anti-Crime Commission, must contend with threats to his life. In his first months as justice secretary the threats, rumors and scandals nearly made him quit and just seek his old seat in Congress. But his son was running, and then Estrada’s supporters attacked Malacañang. There was work to do and Perez couldn’t back out.

So for better or worse Perez is staying put in his job. And the lightning rod is bracing for a bruising battle before the Commission on Appointments.