Here's Tulfo's article...


Raul Roco uncovered
Posted: 0:55 AM (Manila Time) | Dec. 16, 2003
Inquirer News Service

I NORMALLY don't talk about problems in the home and other men's domestic failures in this column. I am not above such problems. If I point an accusing finger at another man when it comes to domestic problems, three fingers are pointing right back at me.

In short, I don't gossip in this space and in other forums because it's not manly.


But last Sunday I created a stir when at The Buzz, a popular TV show at ABS-CBN, I accused former senator and presidential aspirant Raul Roco of beating up his wife.

I had to take an exception to my strict policy of non-involvement in another man's personal failings on Raul Roco because he is running for the country's highest post. I subscribe to the saying that Caesar's wife should be above reproach, meaning the personal life of a man seeking a high public office should be scrutinized.



* * *

Roco vehemently denied the serious charge. His wife, Sonia, was beside him when he made the denial.

Roco told the interviewer to ask his wife whether he made a punching bag out of her. As can be expected of a wife, Sonia backed the senator's statement.

But my friends who watched the TV show noticed that Ms Roco took several uncomfortable seconds to buttress Mr. Roco's denial.


* * *

Sonia Roco asked how I could accuse her husband of beating her up when she didn't know me personally and vice versa.

I admit I don't personally know the Rocos. But I have talked to people who know them very well. I have talked to Roco's close relative who said that indeed the former senator and education secretary would beat up his wife during a spat.

Why are their statements believable? Because Roco has a violent temper. His temper is his No. l shortcoming.


* * *

People who know the Rocos told me they take pity on Sonia because of the oppression she suffers from her husband.

A couple of years ago, Sonia ran away from home and went to Baguio after she was reportedly beaten black and blue by Raul.

As fate would have it, she was nearly killed when the hotel she checked into collapsed. People who saved her from the ruins of the hotel thought that the bruises she got from Roco's beating was caused by her being hit by debris.


* * *

What's the purpose of this exposé on Roco's very personal shortcoming?

In many speaking engagements, the former senator and education secretary always stresses the value of the family. He always says that the family should come first above everything else.

When he was still in the Senate, some women's groups conferred on Roco the title of "honorary woman" because of his espousal of women's rights in some of the laws he sponsored on the Senate floor.

But why couldn't Roco respect his wife's rights?

Isnt' that hypocrisy of the highest order?


* * *

Another presidential aspirant, Senator Panfilo "Ping" Lacson, who is notorious for executing members of the underworld and reportedly even innocent people, has not been known for physically hurting his wife, Alice.

Neither does actor Fernando Poe Jr., who reportedly also has a violent temper when he's drunk. He allegedly beats up movie stuntmen when he's had a drink too many.

In fact, FPJ is a very doting husband to wife Susan Roces. I was told that when he and Susan would have a quarrel, Ronnie Poe was the first to blink.


* * *

"Alam mo, kuya, lumuluhod pa yan sa harap ni Ate Swanie (Susan's nickname) habang humihingi ng patawad (You know, he kneels before Swanie while asking forgiveness," said a movie scribe close to the Poes.

In treating the "weaker ***," Poe and Lacson have an edge over Roco. Lacson probably because he thinks he's one of them.

There's a saying among macho Filipinos: "Ang babae ay hindi binubugbog, yan ay minamahal (The woman is not to be beaten up, she is to be loved)."