Binay says he’ll talk to Aquino about Garcia

Vice President Jejomar Binay on Friday said he was planning to speak to President Benigno Aquino III to resolve the political tension in Cebu province following Malacañang’s suspension of Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia.

The political group he heads, though, the United Nationalist Alliance continued its tirade against the Liberal Party, saying LP’s political agenda is threatening the President’s reform program.

“What happened to Garcia hurts because it also happened to me,” said Binay. Binay defied an order to suspend him in 2006 by the then Arroyo administration.

Garcia, Binay said, “should remain governor because the process is not yet complete.”

His group, UNA, said the LP agenda and that of its presumed 2016 standard-bearer Interior Secretary Mar Roxas is eroding the people’s trust in the Aquino administration.

“The people have very high expectations of the present administration. They want jobs and a better life,” said UNA secretary general and Navotas City Rep. Tobias Tiangco in a statement.

The people, said the UNA official, “are fed up with the previous regime’s lust for power.”

“They want more governance and less politics,” said Tiangco.

He said the LP’s “power grab” in Cebu was “a return to the discredited mindset of politics at all costs.”

Tiangco also chided presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda for “arrogance and self-righteousness” when he said the difference between previous administrations and the current one is the latter’s “credibility.”

“What he is saying is that because the present administration is more popular and credible than the Arroyo regime, it can get away with political harassment,” said Tiangco.

“He is saying that the administration party can use the power of government and misuse the laws to go after political opponents,” he said.

Tiangco also took issue with the Palace spokesperson’s statement that Binay, who is the chair of UNA, should have convinced Garcia to comply with the suspension order and leave the capitol.

Tiangco said the Vice President, being a former human rights lawyer and a victim of political repression during the previous administration, “cannot countenance and endorse what he considers a violation of due process and the rule of law.”