Senate Majority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines – Senate Majority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano is puzzled why Vice President Jejomar Binay is considering a running mate in 2016 who is being implicated in the “pork barrel” scam.
Cayetano was referring to Senator Jose “Jinggoy” Estrada, who has been named by Binay as one of those he is considering to be his running mate in 2016.
This question, he said, was just one of the many issues that Binay was afraid to answer. Both Binay and Cayetano have openly declared their intentions to run for president in 2016.
“Sa sinabi ni Vice President na hindi sya takot or he is not fazed by me, unang-una hindi ko sya tinatakot. Pangalawa hindi ko naman ini-expect na takot sya pero 100 percent takot sya sa mga tanong ko. At yung mga tanong ko hindi tanong ni Alan Cayetano, tanong ni Juan dela Cruz,” the senator said at a press conference on Thursday.
(About the Vice President’s statement that he is not afraid of me or he is not fazed by me, first and foremost, I’m not scaring him. Second, I don’t expect him to be afraid of me but 100 percent, he’s afraid of my questions. And the questions are not the questions of Alan Cayetano but the questions of Juan dela Cruz)
“Masama ba na tanungin ng isang tao, Mr. Vice President, ’pag naging President ka, ipapakulong mo rin ba ang mga kasama mo? Mr. Vice President, ano yung sinasabi mong pinagdadasal mo si Senator Jinggoy, Senator Enrile at Senator Revilla na sana the truth will come out? Meron ka bang alam na truth na hindi namin alam?” asked Cayetano.
(Is it bad that a person asks: Mr. President if you become President, will you send your allies in jail? Mr. Vice President, what are you saying that you’re praying for Senator Jinggoy, Senator Enrile, and Senator Revilla that the truth will come out? Do you know some truth that we don’t know?)
Cayetano was referring to Senators Jose “Jinggoy” Estrada, Juan Ponce-Enrile and Ramon “Bong” Revilla Jr. who were all charged at the Office of the Ombudsman in connection with the P10-billion “pork barrel” scam.
“Bakit hinihimok nyo pa si Senator Jinggoy na mag-Vice President? Ikaw ba kung ‘presidentiable’ ka, hihimukin mo ang isang mag Vice President na sa tingin mo guilty sa pork barrel scam? Yun ang gusto kong itanong kay VP Binay,” he said.
(Why are you encouraging Senator Jinggoy to run for Vice President? If you were running for president would you encourage to run for Vice President someone who you think is guilty in the pork scam.)
“Ang tingin mo ba guilty si Jinggoy o hindi? At kung guilty sya, bakit sinasama mo sya sa VP at kung hindi sya guilty, ano ang alam mo na hindi namin alam?”
(Do you think Jinggoy is guilty or not? If he is guilty, why do you consider him for Vice President and if he’s not guilty, what do you know that we don’t know?)
Cayetano said the questions that he was asking Binay was not only about 2016 but also about “public policy.”
“It’s about the whistleblowers, it’s about what kind of government we want…” he further said.
Cayetano, who traded barbs with Estrada Wednesday night over the conduct of the scam probe in the Senate, noted that the latter had not specifically addressed all the allegations being hurled at him.
“Ang problema natin sa denial nila (Our problem with their denial), it’s always a general denial,” he said.
Estrada for instance, he said, has never answered how much of his pork barrel funds went to non-government organizations or whether or not the projects funded by their pork had been delivered at all.
Asked if he was not convinced that Estrada was not involved in the scam, Cayetano said, “I’m irrelevant. The people are not convinced that they ‘re telling truth, that they are being forthright.”
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