Luli’s on the news again

By Alex P. Vidal

“Harass me and you will probably end up on social media.” –  Steven Magee

WE first heard about Evangeline Lourdes “Luli” Arroyo-Bernas when she filed a sexual harassment case against now retired diplomat Jose Ampeso in 1996, one year after Luli’s mother, former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, was reelected as senator.

The case was one of the headline stories when Cebu-based Sun Star Daily was launched in Iloilo City that year.

Then-senator Arroyo, always loquacious in the company of media people and a regular visitor in Iloilo City, wouldn’t comment each time we asked about her daughter’s case.

Luli, then 16 and single, and Ampeso, then 46, met when the Philippines hosted the 1996 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in Subic, where she served as volunteer.

She alleged that Ampeso, a married man, was under the influence of alcohol and made “inappropriate” remarks towards her.

Luli slapped Ampeso with an administrative case with the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA). It was dismissed two years later after the diplomat reportedly wrote a letter of apology in the presence of Mrs. Arroyo and her husband future First Gentleman Jose Miguel “Mike” Arroyo.

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We met Ampeso in Vancouver, Canada in 2011 several months after he assumed as consul general in the Philippine Consulate General, or three years before his scheduled retirement in 2014.

We had regular associations with Consul General Ampeso as active members of the Filipino community. When then Quezon City mayor Herbert Bautista visited Canada for the first time, it was Ampeso who introduced me to the popular former showbiz child star-turned-politician in a dinner party.

To make the long story short, I had the opportunity and “privilege” to ask Ampeso in private about his alleged wickedness against Luli.

Literally under the spirit of Chivas Regal, Ampeso denied the allegations. He requested to “change the topic.”

We remember Luli’s predicament with Ampeso after the now ambassador to Austria and Slovakia was on the news again lately where she was criticized by Malacañang for posing with fugitive Harry Roque when the latter visited the Philippine Embassy in Vienna recently.

Roque, according to the Palace, had no right to be officially posing with the Philippine ambassador in the embassy because his passport had been canceled and he was now a fugitive facing a case for human trafficking.

Now 46, Luli who took the test to be a career diplomat where there were over 3,000 examinees in 2001 and was one of three who passed the test, was handpicked by President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. to be Philippine ambassador to Austria and Slovakia.

She holds a master’s degree in international relations from Georgetown University.

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We were part of a small group of Filipino journalists invited to one of the most important events in the history of Philippine banking overseas on January 10, 2012, or 14 years ago.

It involved a corporate bank from the Philippines that “expanded” in the British Columbia in Canada to serve Filipino clients.

In that conference held at the River Rock Hotel in the City of Richmond, executives of the UnionBank of the Philippines led by then President and Chief Operating Officer Victor B. Valdepenas and Executive Vice President Genaro V. Lapez introduced their policies and mission before leaders of the Filipino-Canadian community and reiterated the bank’s corporate vision and achievements in information technology.

As “enabler of the customers investment needs in the Philippines,” the bank was prepared to assist on entrepreneurship opportunities, financial advice, and safe and reliable payments for beneficiaries or Philippine companies and organizations, according to Lapez.

Then the seventh largest private domestic universal bank in the Philippines, UnionBank had assets of P253 billion, deposits of P192 billion, and capital of P36 billion.

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The bank provided for their Canada-based Filipino clients a wide range of commercial, retail, and corporate banking products and services, including loan and deposit products, cash management services, credit and debit cards, treasury activities, and electronic banking.

According to Valdepenas, seated on our right side together with then Philippine Consul General in Vancouver Jose Ampeso, Aboitiz Equity Ventures or Aboitiz was the major shareholders among owner stakeholders with 43.3 percent shareholdings as of September 2011.

Aboitiz was one of the largest conglomerates with interests in power generation and distribution, banking and finance, transportation and food followed by the Social Security System (SSS) with 21.5 percent shareholdings as of September 2011.

The state agency managed the pension/social security fund of workers in private sector, wage earners as well as the self-employed.

Insular Life Assurance Company was third largest shareholder with 16.1 percent shareholdings as of September 2011.

It was reportedly the Philippines’ leading and largest Filipino life insurance company with asset base of P72 billion as of 2010.

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MIDLIFE SUICIDE MORE COMMON. Rates are increasing among men and women ages 40 to 64. The current economic malaise could be a contributing factor. Warning signs: Acting highly pessimistic, hopeless or angry, increasing alcohol or drug use, making impulsive, out-of-character decisions, getting rid of previously prized possessions, talking about wanting to die, withdrawing from friends, family and society, mood changes.

BREAST-FEEDING LOWERS BREAST CANCER RISK before menopause for women with a family history of the disease. The duration of breast-feeding does not seem to matter. The lower risk applies only to breast cancer before menopause and only to women with a first-degree relative with breast cancer, says Dr. Alison M. Stuebe of the University of North Carolina.

SEX PICTURE. A group of students were shown picture of couples having sex. At the same time scientists recorded what part of the pictures the test subjects looked at first. The men more often looked at the women’s faces, while the women tended to focus their attention on the genitals. Only women who were on the pill focused on the way the room was decorated. (Kinsey Institute)

A SINGLE STOOL TEST CAN DETECT CANCERS of the digestive tract. Currently, routine screening is done only on the colon–which means that many pancreatic, stomach, gallbladder and other gastrointestinal (GI) cancers are discovered only at an advanced stage.

HOT FLASHY REMEDY. When 454 postmenopausal women who suffered from moderate to severe hot flashes used estradiol (Evamist)–a spray-on product containing estrogen–or a placebo spray for 12 weeks, the estradiol group had an average of eight fewer hot flashes per day, compared with an average of four fewer hot flashes daily for the placebo group.

(The author, now based in New York City, used to be the editor-in-chief of two leading daily newspapers in Iloilo, Philippines.—Ed)