Tell-all book on Max

The family of our late publisher led by his widow, former UNESCO secretary-general in the Philippines Preciosa Soliven, will formally launch tomorrow the book MAXIMO V. SOLIVEN: The Man and the Journalist. It was written by journalist Nelson N. Navarro, a family friend of the Solivens. He came up with many insights and details that would make readers understand certain behind-the-scene events in our country where Soliven figured prominently until his death on November 24, 2006.

A chapter of the book was devoted to Soliven’s revered stature as a journalist who, despite his stinging criticisms of certain government policies and decisions, his wise counsel was sought out, especially during the shortened term of former President Joseph Estrada.

So here are some choice excerpts of that chapter of the book which could relate to issues besetting the present dispensation now in office at Malacanang Palace.

* * *

On the surface, Max’s high standing as publisher and columnist would be undisturbed and even enhanced during the 31 tempestuous months of what would become the aborted Joseph Estrada presidency. The new President would turn out to be more deferential to Max than the more taciturn Ramos.

More than the hero of Edsa and former president who read Max’s columns and often reacted to the latter’s views by phoning him directly or sending emissaries, Estrada had no hesitations about reaching out to his old neighbor in Greehills. The Solivens and Ejercitos were not only neighbors but friends of long standing.

Technocrat Eki Cardenas, a deputy executive secretary who worked closely with the President, was a nephew of Max and a willing conduit between president and publisher. Max never had such direct and effective connections to the president except in the succeeding Arroyo administration when Max was regarded as a virtual crony, although a temperamental and erratic one.

Estrada and his entourage would drop by La Dolce Fontana Ristorante, an Italian restaurant Precious opened on the ground floor of OB Montessori, and which became the venue of Max’s new breakfast group for journalists and politicians.

Not only Joseph Estrada but Gloria Arroyo curried favor with Max by showing up at the Ristorante from time to time. This was the signal for officials and critics of the two presidents to regard the place as a watering hole of choice.

Seeds of a coup

A smart politician, Estrada used his easy charm and folksy ways to get important people on his side and balance his enemies. Max was a special target, observers said at that time, because of Estrada’s problems with the Ramos group, particularly Teddy Benigno.

Benigno declared war on Estrada even before the latter could assume the presidency on June 30, 1998 by declaring that he would allow the unburied Marcos remains to be given a hero’s burial at the Libingan ng mga Bayani in Taguig City. This touched a raw nerve in Benigno, a Cory ally and also a member of Ramos’ inner circle, who was a Philippine STAR columnist and host of a hard-hitting talkshow on GMA-7.

The Marcos burial issue was only the tip of the iceberg; it represented the first salvo of the recently defeated Edsa forces who could not accept the de facto Marcos restoration that Estrada’s victory represented. Estrada’s victory had been so smashing that immediate fears were expressed that he could become a dictator in the Marcos tradition. With his popularity, he could conceivably change the Constitution to be able to run for a second term, a trick Ramos could not pull off...

Estrada was realistic enough to know that Max as The STAR publisher would never gag Benigno or cross swords with him on Erap’s behalf. Max was estranged from the Edsa crowd, but he harbored as much, if not more, resentments against the Marcos crowd. The most that could be expected was for Erap to be on Max’s good side and not an active partner of the irreconcilable Teddy Benigno in bashing the administration.

With the Inquirer a declared enemy of the regime, The STAR had to be encouraged to take a more balanced position...

Left opportunism

...Max was further alarmed when Estrada picked Orlando Mercado, a former broadcaster and senator with a leftist past, as Secretary of Defense. But these reservations would be gradually erased as Estrada, irritated by the MILF’s military build-up in Southern Mindanao, decided to wage an all-out war against the Muslim rebels in March 2000.

The government’s offensive would rage for three months after foreign tourists were kidnapped by the Abu Sayyaf, a rogue Muslim paramilitary group, in Sipadan, Malaysia and brought to Basilan as hostages. The long-drawn hostage crisis would become a major embarrassment for the government...

The peace negotiations with the exiled Sison faction in the Netherlands would amount to a convenient cover for political opportunism. Roving NPA guerrilla bands merely enhanced the negotiating maneuvers of the above-ground revolutionaries.

In time, the left would be torn between two murderous factions: the reaffirm or Sison group and the rejectionist led by the Akbayan of Etta Rosales and Walden Bello. The anti-MILF war in Mindanao, the passage of the VFA and the re-imposition of the death penalty, actually passed late in the Ramos regime, were just some of the issues that put Estrada on Max’s “good side.”

Media Wars

   Keeping Max and The STAR happy was essential to Estrada’s moves to stem adverse publicity that had become personal and spiteful within months of his assumption of office...

Somehow, Estrada’s friendly relations with Max enabled the paper to have the best of both worlds. It could attack Estrada because Benigno was in its pages, but it was not harassed like the Inquirer. It had the cachet of an opposition paper without earning the ire of the vindictive administration.

“The song and dance number of Soliven and Benigno,” quipped one of their common friends, “proved to be good business for their newspaper. The more they took opposite positions or argued passionately against each other, the better to stimulate interest in the newspaper.”

For the rest of the stories, the tell-all book on Max has 400 pages and will be available at P1,000 for softbound and P1,500 for hardbound at your favorite bookstores.