VICE President Jejomar Binay is on the warpath against the Aquino administration although he has been careful not to directly attack the President. But who is he fooling?
Certainly not Aquino. After Binay accused his administration of incompetence and selective justice, PNoy sarcastically replied, thank you but were you not part of my administration for five years during which you could have shared your misgivings with me?
Certainly not the people either. Most of them are saying that he is a hypocrite and an ingrate.
But Binay asserts that he in fact took up his concerns with Aquino including those on the controversial Development Assistance Program (DAP) and the Zamboanga siege by Nur Misuari’s Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF). Why, he declares, didn’t he even try to broker a ceasefire agreement between the MNLF and government forces?
The trouble with his claim, however, is that it cannot be independently confirmed. It is therefore his word against Mr. Aquino’s. Who should we believe?
The answer is obvious. Until his latest revelation, we have not heard Binay speak about the DAP, whether for or against it. And assuming that he did talk to Aquino and try to intervene in the Zamboanga problem, wasn’t he in truth more interested in gaining political mileage than in solving the standoff?
What is abundantly clear if you examine Binay’s record during the last five years is that this declared presidential aspirant has been barnstorming the country, pressing flesh, carrying and kissing babies, taking part in boodle fights and otherwise doing everything possible under the sun to further his ambition, most of the time using government resources.
All this time, he was an ally of the administration. Since his resignation, he has morphed into a critic, lambasting the very same policies and practices that he, at the very least, tolerated for most of his term as vice president.
Incidentally, now that he is officially in the opposition, will Binay have the courage to tell the people where he stands on the plunder cases filed against Sens. Juan Ponce Enrile, Jinggoy Estrada and Bong Revilla?
Oh yes, he did say that they are victims of the administration’s selective justice but he stopped short of saying that he believes that they are innocent and that he will do everything within his power to help secure their acquittal.
Enrile and Estrada are not ordinary allies and while Revilla belongs to another political party, it is likely that his Lakas-NUCD will support Binay. Enrile was a co-head with Binay and Jinggoy’s father, former President Erap, of the United Opposition (UNO). In fact, Binay has been heard saying that Jinggoy could be his running mate.
But that was before Benhur Luy emerged from his shadowy past and provided damning evidence on the pork barrel misuse by some legislators with the indispensable cooperation of Janet Napoles. After that, Binay’s lips were zipped.
How does he propose to explain his deafening silence? Will he again blame the Aquino administration, claiming that he was prevented from saying his piece by the President, that otherwise he would have declared that he strongly believed that Pogi, Sexy and Tanda were being persecuted? Will he promise that if and when (he prefers when) he becomes President, he will have them pardoned or at least released from detention immediately?
I doubt that he would. He knows that taking a stand on the plunder cases against his friends could damage his presidential ambitions. And right now the quest for the presidency is all that matters to him. So he will hem and haw and make motherhood statements about the rule of law and presumption of innocence. Vintage Binay.
(fmmalilong@gmail.com)