Binay open to Roxas tie-up

By: Marlon Ramos, Niña P. Calleja - 10 years ago

Interior Secretary Mar Roxas and Vice President Jejomar Binay in a photo taken in July this year by Senator Loren Legarda at Army HQ on Bonifacio Global Center during the visit of US President Barack Obama. Roxas, Binay and Legarda were archrivals for the vice presidency in the 2010 elections. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

There was a lot of postelection skirmishing after their bitter vice-presidential fight in 2010.

But Vice President Jejomar Binay, basking in his current leading-presidential-candidate eminence, apparently has no problem with the possibility of Interior Secretary Mar Roxas materializing as his running mate in 2016.

“That is one of the things being considered,” Binay told reporters after the award ceremonies for exemplary cooperatives at Land Bank of the Philippines on Friday night.

However, he added, the same goes for Sen. Francis Escudero, another senator nursing hopes of running for president.

“Nothing is impossible in politics. Everything is possible,” Binay said of a possible merger or coalition between the ruling Liberal Party (LP) and his nominally oppositionist United Nationalist Alliance (UNA).

It is a theme on which the Vice President cannot seem to stop himself.

It was Binay who earlier this week announced that the LP—of which Roxas is the titular head and would-be presidential standard-bearer in 2016—was considering a political union with UNA, either by adopting him as its presidential candidate or going into a coalition in 2016.

He said he had heard talk of the President choosing him as his anointed in 2016.

The idea became a possibility when the sisters of President Benigno Aquino III publicly endorsed and expressed their support for Binay, who was profuse in his gratitude to them, never mind the chorus of denials from alarmed LP party leaders.

Senate President Franklin Drilon, the LP vice chair, denied that the administration party was just about ready to adopt Binay, insisting that Roxas, who lost the vice-presidential election to Binay in 2010, is still their man.

Binay nonetheless continues to wax positive about a political union with the ruling party.

“When you speak of a coalition, your chances of winning are high and you also develop unity among political parties,” he said on Saturday.

Any politicking and mudslinging would be somehow lessened with political parties merging, he said.

Not up to standards

He shrugged off a dig from Iloilo Rep. Jerry Treñas, the deputy chair of the LP Visayas parliamentary caucus, that there is no place for Binay in the ruling party and that Binay has to share the party’s straight-arrow ideals for the party to even consider adopting him.

“That is what they said. We just have to respect what they are saying,” Binay said.

Enlarging on Treñas’ theme, Caloocan City Rep. Edgar Erice on Saturday said Binay would not meet the standards set by the LP for its standard-bearer in 2016.

Erice, who has called for a term extension for Mr. Aquino, doubts that the President would endorse Binay.

“The President has said he will support somebody who will undoubtedly continue the reform programs he has started. In the case of Binay, it’s very doubtful that he will continue the President’s reforms,” Erice said in a phone interview.

“If the Vice President is really leading the surveys, then why is he desperately trying to get the support of the Liberal Party? Why is he desperately trying to get [Interior Secretary] Mar Roxas in the picture? Why is he desperately trying to get the President’s anointment?” he asked.

Corruption allegations

The congressman also pointed out that Binay did not support the major reform programs of the Aquino administration, including the passage of the reproductive health bill and the sin tax bill.

“It would also be awkward for the President to be endorsing somebody whose party mates and allies were indicted for plunder because of the pork barrel scam,” he said, referring to detained Senators Juan Ponce Enrile and Jinggoy Estrada.

He said Binay should also explain the truth behind the several allegations of corruption against him instead of dismissing them outright as political harassment.

Binay was recently charged with plunder at the Office of the Ombudsman for acts allegedly committed while he was still mayor of Makati City.