Setting the record straight | Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando

This is part of the transcript from the interview of Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando on Reno Bugeja Jistaqsi.

Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando interviewed by Reno Bugeja on his newly-published autobiography

What possessed you to write your memoirs, at this stage in your career: a time when you are still very active in politics: still taking part in debates, and in other activities…?

Naturally, the question of how ‘active’ one is, in politics, is always going to be a subjective one. There may well be the impression, out ther, that I am still ‘active’ in politics – and I am certainly still interested: because, at the end of the day, I am a political animal. I don’t mind admitting that.

But as is widely known, the final curtain has long come down on my own political career. I have no intention of ever contesting elections again. I still give my input, to the party in which I now militate – the Labour Party – even at the level of electoral campaigns.  But today, I am more focused – apart from on my profession; on my family, and the people around me – on my administrative work as chairman of the Malta Council for Science and Technology. And through the years I have occupied that role, I have never mixed politics with my administrative work…

Before turning to the individual episodes highlighted by your book – many of which are indeed of public interest; and which you colour with your own point of view - was your intention to deliver any one ‘message’ in particular; and if so, what is that message?

It’s not so much a case of ‘sending a message’; more a case of ‘setting the record straight’. I wanted to give my own version of the events that – as you yourself suggest – were determining factors, in our country’s recent history. Naturally, everybody has their own interpretation of my actions, and why I did the things I did; some might think that I sometimes acted in a rather frivolous way…

To those people, I recommend that they read the book. Even if they don’t, however; I can assure them, from here, that some of the stands I took were far from ‘easy’: for me personally, and also for the people around me. In some cases, my family ended up suffering greatly, because of the positions I took...

In fact, in your memoirs you claim that your family and yourself were made to go through some kind of ‘passion’, or ‘martyrdom’. Yet you didn’t specify exactly how. What, exactly, were the incidents you are referring to?

I could mention quite a few episodes that worried me, at the time… and worried me a lot. Now: I’m not the type to over-dramatize things; but when you start receiving receive credible threats aimed at members of your family… my father, for instance... or my children…

To give just one example: my son – who, as you know, resembles me a lot – even got beaten up one time: simply because he is my son. Thankfully, I only found out about this much later. Not to mention the fact that – without wanting it – you end up having to have a police guard outside your door, with frequent patrols. […]

Another incident I could mention was when – a few days after I spoke out against the St John’s Co-cathedral project – someone tried to plant drugs on me. Naturally, I reported it to the Police Commissioner: John Rizzo, at the time…

So if some people out there think that everything I did was ‘just for kicks’… well, they are mistaken.

Out of curiosity: why did you choose to write the book in English?

Without meaning to give the impression that I’m ‘classist’ – because I’m not: as you can all hear, I’m speaking Maltese right now… and I love my country’s language […] – the fact is that, when it comes to writing, I find it a lot easier to express myself in English.

Apart from that, however: there were certain episodes where […] I felt the need to provide a more balanced, realistic version, than the one provided by Daphne Caruana Galizia.

I say this with full respect, and without meaning to detract from the merits of her journalistic work. Like many others, I was incensed when I realized that, at the end of the day, Daphne really was murdered because she was exposing corruption. For that, I salute her from here. It is utterly unacceptable, that a journalist – because in this case, she was acting as a journalist – should be killed for doing her job.

But, at the end of the day – and this is something that Daphne Caruana Galizia probably didn’t even realise herself - many people simply didn’t pay any attention to her writing, even on those occasions when she told the truth. Because many people relegated her to the category that they knew her as belonging to: that of a ‘gossip columnist’.

Even just the things she wrote about me, for instance: that I had ‘fictitious relations’ with this, that or the other person… it was basically all in the style of a gossip columnist. And it’s a pity, because she did have great qualities, as a journalist. She had the ability – and the courage: which very few other people have – to expose the truth, on those occasions when she wanted to […]

In a sense, then, Daphne Caruana Galizia suffered from ‘the boy who cried wolf’ syndrome. Eventually – after years of indulging in gossip - she started writing the truth; but when she started exposing real corruption, people simply didn’t believe her. To be perfectly honest - and I’m ashamed to say it, now – I didn’t believe her, either.

So when I finally realized that she had been right all along – and, even more poignantly, that she had been murdered precisely because of the corruption she exposed – I was genuinely sorry. And from that day on, I never even said half a word – or posted even a fraction of a post – about Daphne Caruana Galizia.

I also sincerely regret speaking out against her family, when they refused to hand over her laptop to the local forces of order. Today, I applaud them for that. They did the right thing. I can now understand why they had no confidence in the Maltese police; and why they would want to – among other things – protect Daphne’s sources. We now know, for instance, that the criminals who placed the bomb that killed her, were given advance notice that they were going to be raided. This is simply unacceptable…

Turning to the major themes of your book: as expected, the ‘Mistra scandal’ is given a lot of prominence. At moments, you seem to be trying very hard to persuade many people – Labour and Nationalist alike – that this was not, in fact, a ‘scandal’ at all…

[Shrugs] Since when is it a ‘scandal’ when someone buys a plot of land with his own money – money that I earned from my dentistry profession – only to get approached by someone else, who wanted to rent the land I bought, to create what was ultimately a very low-scale open-air entertainment establishment?

Besides: I was given assurances that, among other things, the sound system would be one which wouldn’t cause any disturbance to neighbouring residents: who, in any case, all lived very far away… […]

At the end of the day, however, you can judge me – or not judge me – as much as you like. I stand by everything that I’ve always said, about this case; and I stand by what I told Edgar Galea Curmi, Lawrence Gonzi’s chief of staff, the first time he phoned me to warn me that I was about to be attacked over the matter by Alfred Sant. (Because – oddly enough – they somehow got to know in advance that he was about to attack me…)

I told [Galea curmi], at the time, that there was absolutely nothing wrong with what I was doing. And I stand by that today. You can agree with me, or disagree with me; but that is what I sincerely feel…

The argument, however, was not just that you bought land, and tried to develop it; but that you also abused of your position to influence the regulatory authorities… for instance, the MPA, the Planning Authority…

With all due respect: what ‘influence’ are you even talking about? Not to diminish my own status, or anything… but I was only an MP, at the time. I wasn’t exactly ‘the Minister in charge of the Planning Authority’.  The PA did not fall under my ministerial portfolio. So like everyone else, I would go and join the queue in the waiting room of the PA’s ‘Customer Care’ department… which, after all, exists precisely so that citizens can enquire about issues they have with planning permits.

And Mistra wasn’t even the only thing I approached the Customer Care officer about. I also presented the concerns of my constituents…

The bottom line, however, is that the whole Mistra saga was nothing but a frame-up, in order to entrap Alfred Sant […] Not only did they [the PN] know about it beforehand; but they fed to it to the Labour Party themselves: which, in turn, made it into their ‘cavallo di battaglia’…

You call it a ‘frame-up’ in order to ‘entrap Alfred Sant’… and yet, at the time, both Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi and PN secretary Joe Saliba were convinced that the Mistra case was going to cost them the 2008 election. How do you account for that contradiction?

What I’m saying is what I know to be true. Up until five, six weeks before that election, the Nationalist Party knew perfectly well that it was going to lose by between four and six thousand votes.

So the ‘trick’ [hadma] was – and this is why I got so angry: I have many defects, but I’m not exactly an ignoramus – the trick was primarily to humiliate Alfred Sant, by a playing a ‘wild card’ that would win them the election… and it worked… but - just in case the wild card wasn’t enough, to win the poker game against Alfred Sant – the idea was to blame me afterwards. To make Jeffery Pullicino Orlando the scapegoat: so that the blame would not fall on Simon Busuttil - who led the campaign - or Richard Cachia Caruana, who directed everything behind the scenes…

All this was at a time when you still militated within the PN. But as you yourself said earlier: your party is now the Labour Party. What was the specific turning point, when you officially cut all your former ties with the PN?

I finally cut all ties with the PN – and declared myself an independent MP - when I could no longer stand the sight of that that party being dominated by people who, in my view, were not representative of my principles.

Here, I am specifically talking about people like Richard Cachia Caruana – and I even wrote this in my resignation letter – and Austin Gatt. Not to mention everything else I had already been made to go through: because of Mistra; but also, because of my stand on divorce… because I used to speak out about gay rights… because I advocated IVF legislation […]

But whenever I approached Lawrence Gonzi about any of these issues – and again, I say this with all due respect: I have a lot of admiration for Gonzi, on a personal basis, and even as prime minister. I certainly never tried to humiliate him, as others did…

All the same, however: on those occasions when I approached him, to discuss what I considered to be important matters… he would first tell me ‘how right I was’ about certain issues; but then, he would say that he ‘needed to consult Richard Cachia Caruana’.

It didn’t even bother him to say it, either. So there I was, thinking… after all that work, to make him leader of the Nationalist Party… he still needs to go and ask Richard Cachia Caruana for his blessing, every time…?

On top of all the personal attacks, coming from various directions… let’s just say it was frustrating, to say the least…