GMA broadcasting network’s credibility to suffer greatly if…

When news of his negotiations with GMA broadcasting network bogged down, Ramon S. Ang, San Miguel Corp. (SMC) president and chief executive officer expressed optimism the P1 billion he put up as down payment with the broadcasting firm would be returned.

GMA unilaterally pulled out of the talks with RSA for the latter to put up more money so he could have controlling stocks in the network.

“Sir, these people are decent and honest. They will surely return (the amount),” RSA told this columnist when I told him about news reports that the P1 billion might not be given back to him.

(Ang—RSA to his friends and immediate subordinates—calls everyone “sir” or “ma’am”).

It seems RSA had misjudged the character and integrity of the GMA people he talked business with.

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If GMA executive officer Felipe L. Gozon, members of his family and other stockholders and officers of the broadcast giant don’t return the P1 billion to RSA, the network’s credibility will greatly suffer.

Never mind the syndicated estafa case filed by RSA against the GMA officials, which is a non-bailable offense.

Perhaps, because of their influence as officials of a giant network they can have the offense downgraded to a bailable offense of plain estafa.

But one’s integrity and, therefore, credibility is degraded when he faces a case of estafa which involves moral turpitude.

If the estafa case goes on and is always in the news, GMA will go down in the battle of the networks where ABS-CBN is No. 1.

GMA and TV5 might change places: TV5 to the No. 2 spot while GMA, from No. 2, to go way down to a poor third.

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The political fever is already upon us after President Noynoy endorsed last Friday as his successor Interior Secretary Mar Roxas in next year’s election.

Roxas joins Vice President Jojo Binay and other possible presidential contenders, Sen. Grace Poe and Davao City Mayor Rody Duterte, in courting the country’s voters.

It’s no longer mango season, one of our more popular fruits, but if we were to compare our presidential aspirants to a mango in various stages of development:

—Roxas would taste sour as he is not acceptable to the masses, who compose the majority of the voting population.

—Poe would be a baby mango fresh from being a bud which has yet to grow into a fully-grown fruit.

—Binay would be a mango reject, so over-ripe it has become rotten.

Who wants to eat a rotten mango except insects?

—Duterte would be a full-grown and newly ripened mango ready to be eaten.

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Since Senator Poe appears to be headed to a presidential run in 2016, her character is now under a microscope.

Reports in the social media, according to entertainment columnist Ervin Santiago of Bandera, sister publication of the Inquirer, were very damaging to the neophyte senator.

Santiago said based on the social media reports, Poe is a hot-tempered drunk who maltreats her domestic help.

Still quoting the same sources, Santiago went on to write that Poe had a drug problem that required her undergoing rehab.

Of course entertainment columnists sometimes exaggerate their reports-cum-opinions to make their copy livelier or more colorful to entice a bigger readership.

But the fact is   there are such reports on social media. Santiago was merely quoting these reports.

It would be better for Poe to not only deny the reports but to go to great lengths to prove these wrong.

After all, as the saying goes, where there’s smoke there’s fire.