Binay feeling heat of anti-graft drive—De Lima

Justice Secretary Leila de Lima. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

Reacting to claims of Vice President Jejomar Binay that the Aquino administration was engaged in selective justice, Justice Secretary Leila de Lima said Thursday that he and others like were were just “feeling the long arm of the law.”

“There is no selective justice,” De Lima said in a text message to reporters Thursday.

“Apparently the VP has not heard of the saying that people who live in glass houses should not throw stones. He should first put his own affairs in order, especially the corruption cases against him and members of his family,” she said.

On Tuesday, Binay decried in a speech the “selective justice” under the administration which he accused of “conniving to discredit, belittle, pressure, remove him as vice president and jail” him, while not going after Aquino allies involved in “widespread anomalies.”

The Vice President, his son, Makati Mayor Jejomar Erwin “Junjun” Binay and several other Makati City officials are facing charges on the alleged overpricing in the construction of the Makati City Parking Building II which was started when the elder Binay was still mayor of the city.

Early this week, the Ombudsman’s fact-finding team recommended the preventive suspension of Mayor Binay and the filing of graft charges against him, his father and other Makati officials over the alleged rigging of the bidding for the construction of the 10-story Makati Science High School building.

Binay’s wife, Elenita, is also facing graft charges before the Sandiganbayan for the allegedly overpriced purchase of hospital equipment and furniture during her term as city mayor.

The Vice President has resigned from the Aquino Cabinet, where he served as housing czar and presidential adviser for overseas Filipino workers.

De Lima said, “Just because high officials and big fish like him are feeling the long arm of the law does not mean there is selective justice.”

In his speech, Binay said the administration was turning a blind eye to friends and allies implicated in the pork barrel scam, the Metro Rail Transit project and the Mamasapano tragedy.

De Lima was earlier criticized for the delay in the filing of cases related to the pork barrel scam whose respondents include dministration allies Joel Villanueva and Rufus Rodriguez.

Villanueva is director general of the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority, while Rodriguez is Cagayan de Oro’s representative in Congress.

“Just because we are yet to file cases against other corrupt government officials and catch others does not mean we should stop prosecuting those already on the chopping block,” De Lima said.

“It is a fact that world perception of the Philippines has never been better in the past 5 years because of the President’s anti-corruption campaign and reforms in the bureaucracy.

She then scored Binay for calling the administration “insensitive” although she admitted that “no administration is perfect.”

De Lima said that “even assuming that this admin failed to deliver to the people, which is simply not true, does this automatically make VP Binay the nation’s savior?”

“Does the salvation of the Filipino race now rest upon him,” she added.