NOLI DE CASTRO

'Manuel "Noli" Leuterio De Castro, Jr.' (born July 6, 1949) is a politician and former broadcast journalist in the Philippines. De Castro was elected Senator in 2001 and was elected as Vice President of the Republic of the Philippines in 2004. He is also the current secretary for housing and urban development. He is the first independent Senatorial topnotcher and the first elected independent Vice-President.

Contents

Biography

Early life and broadcasting career

Political career

The De Castro-Soliman Issue

2005 Arroyo wiretapping scandal

Bigamy and Abandonment Cases

See also

External links

Biography

Early life and broadcasting career

Noli de Castro was born in the town of Pola, Oriental Mindoro. He graduated from the University of the East in 1971 with a degree in Bachelor of Commerce,majoring in Banking and Finance.
De Castro began his career as a broadcaster during the Marcos dictatorship, when press freedoms were suppressed. He worked as a field reporter for Johnny de Leon, a popular radio announcer at the time. He later became a radio announcer in RPN's DWWW station from 1982 to 1986.
After the ouster of Marcos, de Castro joined ABS-CBN. He got his break into television as the segment host of Good Morning, Philippines' "At your Service". He also joined dzMM, a radio station of ABS-CBN, as the anchorman of "Kabayan". It was because of the popularity of the program that he gained the nickname "Kabayan Noli".

In 1987, De Castro became host of "Magandang Gabi Bayan" and anchorman of the news and public affairs hit, "TV Patrol". In January 1999 he became overall head of production of "TV Patrol" and vice president of dzMM.

Political career

In 2001, De Castro successfully ran for senator as an independent candidate, though he campaigned with the opposition. He garnered more than 16 million votes, the highest ever for a senator in the history of Philippine politics at that time.
As a senator, De Castro authored Senate Bill No. 2029 or the "Local Government Transparency Act" which aimed to end corruption through transparency measures in the local government units.
In the 2004 Philippine election, De Castro ran for vice president. He won by a narrow margin over Senator Loren Legarda but an electoral protest was filed by the latter and is still on-going.

The De Castro-Soliman Issue

Issues of political patronage immediately began to swirl around the president when rumors that VP-elect Noli de Castro would be taking over as Secretary of the Department of Social Welfare and Development, replacing incumbent Secretary Dinky Soliman. Soliman, an ardent supporter of President Arroyo during the campaign in the urban poor areas, announced in a tearful press conference that she felt betrayed. Several weeks later, De Castro formally said he would not accept the DSWD post.

2005 Arroyo wiretapping scandal

In June 2005, President Gloria Arroyo's popularity was rocked by allegations of receiving payments from illegal gambling (juetengate) and by wiretapped conversations that allegedly recorded her involvement in fixing the presidential elections with an elections official (Gloriagate). There were calls for Arroyo to resign, and for de Castro to succeed. However, conventional wisdom was that de Castro was not supported by the elites, and seen as an intellectual lightweight, given his TV anchorman roots.

Bigamy and Abandonment Cases

On August 17, 2007, De Castro has claimed that the bigamy charges filed by Sinsuat's first husband against him and wife Arlene Sinsuat was politically-motivated, to diminish his chances in the 2010 presidential elections, just like the abandonment family suit previously filed by Sinsuat's two sons in her first marriage before the NBI.[1]
Brothers Jhoveenel Ombus, 34, and Arjurie Omar Sinsuat Olor filed charges of bigamy, falsification of public documents, perjury, threats and obstruction of justice against De Castro and the woman they call their mother, Arlene Sinsuat de Castro, now the wife of Vice President Noli de Castro at the Quezon City regional trial court on August 16, 2007. De Castro said that these were politically motivated. Jhoveneel accused Arlene Sinsuat de Castro of abandoning them at Calamba, Laguna in 1979, and of having failed to acknowledge that they were her sons and lamented: “''I was 6 years old and my brother was five when my mother left us. That was my last memory of her and she never looked back''.” The Olor brothers alleged that the De Castros were married on July 16, 1991, although Arlene’s alleged previous marriage on Nov. 17, 1971 to Juanito Olor, their father, had not been annuled. The brothers further accused Noli of perjury for stating on the marriage certificate that he was of the Islamic faith when “''he is known nationwide as a Catholic and a devotee of the Black Nazarene in Quiapo''.”[2]

See also

★ Philippine electoral crisis, 2005

★ Vice President of the Philippines

External links

★ Office of the Vice President of the Philippines