INQUIRER.net Eleksyon 2007

Juan Miguel Zubiri, podcast interview transcript, part 1

INQUIRER.net

Editor's Note: What follows is the first part of a preliminary transcript of the Eleksyon2007 podcast interview with senatorial candidate Juan Miguel Zubiri.

Leo Magno: Our guest for this podcast is Representative Juan Miguel Zubiri of the 3rd District of Bukidnon who is running for senator under the Administration's Team Unity Slate.

Welcome, Migz. Welcome to our podcast. But before anything else…

Miguel Zubiri: You first.

Leo Magno: Yeah Migz, let me introduce myself to you first. My name is Leo Magno, I'm the executive editor of INQUIRER.net and it's great to have you here.

Miguel Zubiri: Thank you very much, Leo, and it nice to be here, and it's my first time. I'm a little nervous. It's a different kind of format, but at least we're now talking to the youth through the Internet, and if there's any group of individuals that I'd like to talk to, or interact with are members--the young members of society, members of the youth group. And it's an honor to be with you guys.

Leo Magno: Thank you for being here, Migz. So the campaign trail has started. Tell me, how is it like campaigning alongside Tito Sotto and Tessie Aquino Oreta?

Miguel Zubiri: Well, I'm not used to a national Ccampaign. You can call me a virgin on this endeavor—or, OK, a neophyte, change that word [laughs] for those people might feel offended. But being a neophyte in the National campaign--it's like a whole new ball game. Like a whole new world for me.

We're used to going around the districts, you know in your district, in your barangays. It's not physically taxing as it is now. I just recently got my voice back. For almost a week I had no voice.

Just something new for all of us. But it's nice. It's a great experience. After all this is done, I probably can be a good tourism undersecretary. We pretty much travel all throughout the country.

But working with these people as your question stated. How is it working with people like Tessie Aquino-Oreta and Tito Sotto? It's been great. I mean, that's our name, that's our slogan: Team Unity.

At first of course, we didn't like the idea. I'm being very honest with you. Nagsisinungaling po ako kung di ko sasabihin na medyo ayaw namin at bakit naman ganoon. Tapos siyempre, pinaliwanag sa amin na ang concept ng Team Unity ay tama na ang pag-aaway. Kung pwede, magsama-sama na lang tayo, iba't-ibang political parties para mapa-unlad natin ang bansa.

And that's what we're fighting for now, I guess. We're trying to show everyone, if we can stay in one room together, and actually not just have fun but talk about issues and help each other out. Which is what we're doing. Actually, we've had so many sorties already these last two weeks. We've been to Cebu. We've been to Davao. We've been to Pangasinan, Pampanga.

Proclamation rallies. We’ve had bonding session in Villa Escudero and had nice pictures spread out actually in newspapers with our bonding session. I think that has given a message to the Filipino people that we're sick and tired of fighting and we just want to get together. Forget the political affiliations and work together for the betterment or the benefit of the county.

Leo Magno: Migz, you yourself said that the senatorial race is a totally different ballgame. You won by a landslide during your first term and also your second term as a congressman but this is totally different ballgame for you, the senatorial race. How do you think you'd fare considering that the surveys right now don't show you in the magic 12, or even the magic 15, and the opposition is saying that you're one of the six likely not to make it to the top 12.

Miguel Zubiri: Well, I think that's a challenge for all of us and of course, if you put that into consideration last January--I only made a decision to run January 9. So we had a survey done. I think the Palace had a survey done in December. It came out late December.

I was number 37 on the survey. I was on the second page. I only decided on January 9. We had a bio-fuel advocacy ad coming out to promote biofuel as the law, to let everybody know that we had a law on renewable fuels. My survey improved, my survey ratings improved a little bit. I was up 11 points. I was number 26 in the survey. I was already on the front page, which is a good thing from the second page.

So, I think, I don't have much to lose; I have a lot to gain. I think I'd rather be where I am now than many of those guys in the opposition who are really high up in the surveys because their namesake of their relatives are already in the Senate.

Actually, people think it's the same senator running for re-election but apparently it’s a brother or a sister or the son or the nephew. There's actually only one senatoriable there with the very famous last name but he walks through a crowd, nobody minds him. Nobody even knows who he is, until he stand up on stage and he's introduced.

I think that's the challenge now for us, who fought very hard to come up with reforms, electoral reforms and fought so hard to come up with at least candidates with credentials and background to be able to win these seats in the Senate.

I'd lie to you if I tell you that we thought about the awareness problem, and it's really a big problem because on the last survey, right I'm in number 26, my awareness to 66 percent. However, my conversion was not bad. I had a nice, I have pretty good conversion rate. In other words, for those people who knew me, that's 666 percent. Many of them, would like, would you call it to vote for me.

So it's just a matter raising the awareness and thanks to the advent of advertising--print, TV and radio--we can bring that higher to the next level. It's just expensive, and it's really expensive and I think that's what scaring a lot of people to run in this race.

You know, I want to tell everybody, the decision for me to run was basically when I read this phrase in a book. It said ,“For evil to reign, it only take a few good men to do nothing”, let's give more politically correct. “For evil to reign, it only take a few good people to do nothing.” We have women who are here with us in the room, and I don't want them to throw the water bottle at me. But it's really true and we always complain, what kind of candidates are trying to run for national positions? We don't have--we're always complaining na ganoon na lang? Sila sila na lang? Wala na bang iba?

So when the leaders of the administration party talked to me and raised that issue with me, and I said, well you know what? Ok what the heck. I’ll forgo my plans to have a family this year. I really wanted to have a family and make baby, I just got married. Because I'm sick and tired of complaining and saying that, you know, why these people running, they don't have, most of them don't have the background for it, most of them have credibility problems. Not that I'm saying that I'm credible, but I'm saying at least amongst many of the candidates there, I’ve had a clean slate in terms of credibility and morality issues so I said that's good. And if the people vote me into office, it's one for the books.

Here is a guy who started December of 2006, number 37 in the survey. Slowly went up the ranks and made it in the top twelve. That for me is an achievement on its own. If I make it and I'm happy, at least the system did not fail us. There is a chance for people like myself in local government to Congress to actually make it into the Senate.

Thea Alberto: Good afternoon,

Miguel Zubiri: Hi, Thea, good afternoon.

Thea Alberto: I'm Thea Alberto of INQUIRER.net. I cover Camp Crame. Yeah. For my first question, this is a very usual question but nevertheless worth asking, why are you running for the Senate?

Miguel Zubiri: First of all, before I answer that, I want to congratulate INQUIRER.net. You have very lovely ladies here, huh. Very difficult for me to work here. My wife will not agree. [laughs]

Thea Alberto: That's on the record. [laughs]

Miguel Zubiri: That's to soften you up, Thea. [laughs] After the nice question. Now why am I going to run? As I mentioned earlier with Leo, when I started the program, I remember the line for evil to reign, it only take few good people to do nothing. So, we always like to complain, that's a Filipino’s penchant, to complain about, about the economy, complain about peace and order, complain about so many things, and [we] me as a congressman, I've been a congressman for nine years, representative of third district of Bukidnon, and always complained. There's always been a gridlock in the Senate. You're always fighting with the congressmen; and, you know, we don't get any legislation done. Imagine for three years, we've had a re-enacted budget. For three years we failed to pass a budget because of the Senate and House in-fighting.

I think--that also pushed me to think: Well, if we can't beat them, why don't you join them? If you want more interaction between the House and the Senate, then we should have more members of the House graduate to the Senate. And therefore, we understand the dynamics of the legislative work.

I mean, who better people to be able to sit in the halls of the Senate than the legislators themselves? Because that's really our advocacy, that's really our job.

And in fairness to myself, I've come up with a lot of good bills, I think in the last nine years, I authored the Dangerous Drugs law. I authored the rain control act. I authored the Wildlife Observation Act. The renewable fuel which is the Bio-Fuels Act, and there are still several measures that are pending that I want to fight for the Senate. And hopefully…because they got stuck in the Senate.

I give you an example: renewable energy. We want to address the problem of global warming, the greenhouse gases that are being spread out because of pollution, and one way of doing that: We've already addressed the renewable fuel program. We must address the renewable energy program. It's stuck in the Senate. Hopefully, if I win, that's my Senate bill number one. And to push for more hydroelectric, geothermal, solar and wind power in our country.

Thea Alberto: Sir, what qualities are still…do you think that you have that makes you qualify to get a Senate seat?

Miguel Zubiri: Whenever I go around, even before I decided to run for Senate, I always talked to students, usually 'yung favorite group of ka-inter-action ko na grupo, itong mga estudyante dahil ang gaganda ng mga tanong nila, eh. I always tell them na pagdating sa halalan, it is only us to blame, really, if we fail to elect good leaders.

So I always tell them, look at the…yung good intentions alone is not enough. Good intentions alone is definitely not enough for a leader. What you need is credentials and credibility.

So OK if you have good intentions, you want to help? Fine. Then you have the credentials? You have the background. You were a legislator; you were a Mayor; you were a Governor; you were a secretary; and you've done all these work for your advocacies. That's the second thing we look for.

The third would be the credibility. Have you been following your principles from the very beginning? My father--and this is such a cliché the way he said it--my father always taught me--which is really true--before I got into politics my father always told me, that “Migz, you must stick with your principles. You can't go wishy-washy of issues, you can't fence-sit, and definitely you can't ride on two bancas--namamangka sa dalawang ilog, nakasakay sa dalawang bangka. Or else, sira ka sa mata ng tao at sira ka sa pulitiko.”

That's why, even amongst our friends in Congress and in local government, alam namin kung sino ang matapat na tao, na may paninindigan. At kilala din namin 'yung kung saan malakas ang hangin, nandoon sila. [We] And you know, it's also, and we're conscious of that. We're conscious of that. If there are issues that we need to fight for. We know if we can trust this guy, or we know if we can't trust this guy.

So credibility is very important. So if you have the credibility, credentials and good intentions, I think all three put together would make a good leader.

Thea Alberto: So if elected, how will you define your term?

Miguel Zubiri: Oh, if elected, I'm going to push for my three most important programs. It's a-- we call it KKK. Kabataan Kaunlaran at Kalikasan. We're going to focus on issues on the youth—SK [Sangguniang Kabataan] reform agenda, we're going to focus on,--I'm pushing for a PhilHealth program for all wlementary and high school government sponsored students.

In other words, if they're in national high schools or they're in central elementary schools, or barangay elementary schools, they have to be given, mandatory by government, Philhealth programs, part of the Philhealth programs.

That way, the parents don't have to worry how they can take care of their children. Their children are sponsored; they have insurance by the State, which by the way, is being done in many countries, many European countries, and that's what I'm going to be pushing for.

I'm the author of the NSTP law. It's the National Service Training Program wherein we demilitarized the universities. Before it was mandatory 'yung ROTC [Reserve Officer’s Training Corps]. And what? For two years, Thea, I'm marching under the sun. Lumabas na lang 'yung freckles ko. Hindi ako nangingitim eh. Namumula ako. Tapos lumalabas 'yung freckles ko. So ang nangyari d'yan was a lot of sunburn and a lot of wasted Saturday mornings.

So, nothing happened after two years. So, I authored…many of the congressmen decided, especially when this gentleman from UST [University of Santo Tomas] passed away because of hazing--it was an ROTC hazing case--we decided to demilitarize the universities and colleges and come up with another option for the students. If they want to go cadet training, fine, they can still do it. There's still a cadet program in schools.

But if they want to go [into] civic works, community works, they can plant trees. They can join Red Cross youths. They can become--they can clean the streets of their towns, etcetera, etcetera. That is the NSTP Program. National Service Training Program. I'm very proud of that.

And you want to continue with that for the youth, for the youth agenda. And for, of course, for the environment. That's my number one advocacy, I'm an environmentalist. We push for the bio-fuels program, not just to help the farmers--because I'm also a UPLB [University of the Philippines Los Banos] graduate which make me an agri-business--I'm an agriculturist…which in one stroke of the pen, which is basically the Bio-Fuels law, we helped farmers. We helped put industry in the countryside. We put in ethanol plants and bio-diesel plants all over the country.

We're going to provide labor to thousands of Filipinos [who] would be working in this plant. And the same time, we clean the air because 30 percent of--if you add 10 percent ethanol into your gasoline now, it brings down the carbon monoxide, this is tested; it's a United Nations study. And studied by many environmental groups.

You bring down 30 percent of the carbon monoxide emitted by cars, that's how green this fuel is. So, we're replacing carbon fuels or fossil fuels with what you call alcogas, which is green gas coming from sweet sorghum cassava, sugarcane, etcetera, etcetera.

[Zubiri is asked if he uses the fuel himself-ed.]

So, oh yes, I’m actually using it. Can we plug the company? There's a company that uses…we should charge them, but there's a company now that uses 10-percent ethanol blend. I always load up with the 10-percent ethanol blend.

As a matter of fact, the car that I'm using now has a big sign on the side. If you pick me up, if you see downstairs, it says, “ethanol-driven car” and it says “environment, employment and the economy.”

So we're now going to push…we've approved that. It's now a law and I'm proud to say that ASEAN [Association of Southeast Asian Nations] has adopted our bill as a bill to be followed in Malaysia and Indonesia. I'm so proud of that. And right now we'd like to push of the energy renewable energy program.

As I said, we have to push for new wind technology, solar power, geothermal and hydro. I want the Philippines to be number one in renewable energy programs.

Right now we're number three, believe or not. We're number three, next to Sweden and the Netherlands. So not so bad, the Philippines isn't so bad, but I want us to be number one.

I want 80 percent of our power to be fueled by renewable energy para wala na tayong carbon emissions, we should close PANGLAW, you know those Pagbilao, Mirant coal-fired plants, we should close all those coal-fired plants because if you watch the Al Gore movie, “An Inconvenient Truth,” the number one polluter or [source of ] greenhouse gas emissions are with the fossil fuels…gasoline and diesel. So we have to cut out emissions drastically. If you want our generation and the next generation, our kids--Thea, do you have kids?

Thea Alberto: I'm not yet married...

Miguel Zubiri: Oh, you're not yet married. Ok, it's a good thing to be married, but don't worry, you're still young. But really you want our kids to be able to see the sunlight and you want our kids to live on dry ground. If you don't melt all our ice caps in the next 30 years, then we're lucky. We have to do something now.

Thea Alberto: But I have one last question.

Miguel Zubiri: Sure. Sorry my answers are kilometric.

Thea Alberto: No, it's OK, sir...

Miguel Zubiri: I'm just ganado e. I like this group. [laughs]

Thea Alberto: Something light, sir. You know, the gay lesbian and bisexual population is growing…

Miguel Zubiri: Yes.

Thea Alberto: And it's magical.

Miguel Zubiri: Yeah.

Read part 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | Listen to Eleksyon 2007 Podcast: Juan Miguel Zubiri

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