MANILA, Philippines?Interior Undersecretary Rico E. Puno claimed that five groups including one led by Local Government Secretary Jesse Robredo are working to have me ousted.

Puno told the Inquirer on Thursday night it was these five groups that had fed Archbishop Emeritus Oscar Cruz information that he was on the take from operators of the illegal numbers game ?jueteng.?

He named them as the group headed by Robredo, the Balay group, the Samar group, one composed of people interested in his post and another affiliated with former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

Puno claimed he belonged to neither the Balay nor Samar group.

?I?m with the Times group,? he joked, referring to the street where the Aquino residence is. ?I?m not a politician, so I?m not a member of the Liberal Party. I?m not a classmate because I graduated from UP. I?m not a lawyer so I?m not with [Ateneo Law] Class of 1984.?

The Balay group refers to the faction in Malacañang allied with President Aquino?s defeated running mate Mar Roxas, and composed mostly of LP members. Its name is derived from the Roxases? residence (?Balay?) in Cubao, Quezon City.

The Samar group (named after its headquarters on Samar Avenue) is the faction that pushed the tandem of Mr. Aquino and now Vice President Jejomar Binay in the May elections. Samar is headed by Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa and was Mr. Aquino?s campaign headquarters during the elections.

Robredo group first

When asked which groups might have fed Archbishop Cruz information that he was collecting jueteng payola, Puno put the Robredo group first.

?There are several groups. One group would be [led by] the secretary. Another group would be people from the group of Balay. The other group is from Samar,? Puno said.

He said another group was composed of ?people interested in the position [of interior undersecretary]. You have people interested in having a hold on the PNP (Philippine National Police), which I do not. I am not in command of that bureau,? he said.

As for the purported group loyal to Arroyo, he said: ?Then you have people [who want] to have an issue so they won?t be the talk of the town. You have GMA (Arroyo) there, getting another issue so they won?t be talked about. Then there are people who want to destroy the presidency.?

President Aquino has divided functions at the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), assigning Puno, his shooting range buddy, to take charge of police matters, and Robredo, of local governments.

Contacted Friday for comment, Robredo said Puno?s claim was ?unfair.?

The multiawarded former mayor of Naga City said he wrote Puno on Aug. 10 citing talk that the latter was collecting jueteng money and suggesting that Puno do something about it.

Robredo said the letter was intended to be constructive.

?Its unfair when you try to protect the organization and then [attacks] become personal,? he said.

Robredo recalled that Puno issued a press release at the height of the jueteng payola scandal saying that the two officials were getting along despite the accusations.

?So it turns out that that was a lie. It pains me because I really thought we were okay,? Robredo said.

Dissolved DILG unit

Puno said he became the subject of attacks in the media, mainly in the tabloids, after he dissolved a DILG unit that he described as having bloated positions and a questionable mandate.

He said the unit composed of 176 cops was supposed to be in charge of providing security for the interior secretary and six undersecretaries but that he discovered that its job was ?more of collection than protection.?

Asked if the unit was involved in the collection of jueteng money, he said: ?I don?t know. But that (collection) was what they were doing.?

Puno said the attacks in the media might also have something to do with his decision to stop the purported practice of giving grease money to certain reporters covering the DILG.

He said he had told some members of the media: ?If you were receiving something before, forgive us [because] we have no fund for that.?

Later, Puno said, he was offered a public relations team and asked to shell out P15 million to finance a crisis PR blitz.

?Sir, you need a PR team,? he quoted someone as telling him. ?You need a handler. This is how you do it. It?s the game. You will need to spend this much.?

But Puno apparently did not need to cough up the amount.

He said he had told the President: ?I?m afraid I?m already a burden to you. There are so many controversies coming our way. You know I?m not involved.?

Mr. Aquino?s purported reply was: ?I know you are not involved there.?

Aborted resignation

Puno has drawn flak not only for his alleged involvement in the P30-billion jueteng racket but also for the failed police operation that resulted in the deaths of eight Hong Kong tourists held hostage on a tour bus in Manila on Aug. 23.

He said late last month that he would tender a courtesy resignation when Mr. Aquino returned from a trip to the United States.

The two men are longtime friends with a common passion for firearms.

As it happened, Mr. Aquino spoke with Puno on Oct. 2?a week after returning from the United States?but apparently did not bother to read the prepared resignation letter.

?I was supposed to give [the letter to him] and tell him [that I wanted to resign],? Puno told the Inquirer. ?But he suddenly gave me so many orders then told me, ?Carry on. Everything will come to pass. So just relax.??

Citing a friendship spanning more than two decades, Puno said the President ?knew? that ?there is really nothing? to the accusations against him.

?We understand each other,? he said in Filipino. ?We never dipped our fingers in [jueteng]. It?s not our line.?

Campaign to taint reputation

Asked Friday if it was true that he had stopped Puno from resigning, the President said he and the undersecretary reached an understanding after he pointed out the many errors the latter had committed in the course of his duties.

?There is really a campaign to disparage his reputation,? Mr. Aquino told reporters in Reina Mercedes, Isabela. ?Up to now, nobody has said that he is also an agriculturist. They developed machines specifically for rice and they implemented it in Tarlac.?

?He has so many skills,? Mr. Aquino added. ?But when you look at the reports, it appears that he?s just a frequenter of the shooting range.?

Puno, an agricultural economics graduate of the University of the Philippines in Los Baños, was a consultant on security matters and antinarcotics programs in the Senate during Mr. Aquino?s three-year stint as senator.

?The last time I talked to [Puno], I pointed out so many errors?how he answered, how he prepared for the questions,? Mr. Aquino said, adding:

?I told him to do certain things. He entrusted activities to certain other people and these people did not carry through. There were eight or nine points that I took up with him.?

Mr. Aquino said he had made Puno?s functions clearer to the undersecretary. He said he had also given ?practical tips? on how to deal with the media and how to delegate assignments to subordinates.

?We reached a meeting of the minds. We?ve been together for a long time,? Mr. Aquino said.

Noy warning on intrigues

As early as July, Puno said, Mr. Aquino warned him to brace himself for attacks. He said he was told that ?there are really people sowing intrigues.?

?My friend, be careful. No more honeymoon. No more [first] 100 days,? he quoted Mr. Aquino as telling him in Filipino, referring to the practice of withholding criticism of a new president during the so-called honeymoon period.

Puno also said he was so confident of his innocence that he had assured Mr. Aquino that his critics could not ?present anyone? to validate the allegations against him.

He claimed that his closest encounter with jueteng was through an emissary, who tried to arrange a meeting between him and Rodolfo ?Bong? Pineda, a known big-time operator of the underground racket.

He said he was invited to such a meeting thrice, and declined the invitation each time.

?I don?t speak with them (jueteng operators),? he said he would tell the emissaries.