President Benigno Aquino. AP FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines – Personal attacks. That’s what President Benigno Aquino III said of the protests held and impeachment complaints filed against him by his critics.
“Iyon talagang masyado nila akong pine-personal (They are just attacking my character),” Aquino said during an exclusive interview with Bombo Radyo.
The President mentioned how his critics would continue to rally in front of his house in Times Street in Quezon City although he seldom stayed there.
He also belittled the decision of a committee at the House of Representatives that found the three impeachment complaints filed against him “sufficient in form.”
“Mahirap naman yatang maging insufficient in form dahil form nga e, para bang fill in the blanks lang iyon,” he said.
(Perhaps it would be unlikely that it would become insufficient in form because it’s a form, you just fill in the blanks.)
Nevertheless, Aquino said he wanted justice to prevail.
“Naniniwala ako magkakaroon tayo ng katarungan diyan (I believe that there will be justice),” he said.
He added that there were now less people criticizing him.
“Kumukonti iyong bilang nila dahil marami ang nagtitiwala ulit sa gobyerno,” Aquino said.
(Their numbers are dwindling because more people now trust the government.)
Two of the three impeachment complaints filed accused Aquino of betrayal of public trust for realigning government savings to the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP), which was declared partly unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
The third one also tackled betrayal of public trust and culpable violation of the Constitution because of the Philippine government’s Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement with the United States.
But Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) secretary general Renato Reyes, one of the petitioners of the first complaint on DAP, said the President should read their impeachment complaint to see that it is not “just a personal attack on him by the Left.”
“The complaint was sign by a broad range of individuals, some of whom even supported him in the past. If he only takes time to actually read the complaint, he will see that there are serious allegations regarding culpable violations of the Constitution and betrayal of public trust that we did not conjure out of thin air but rather based on actual documents that he signed,” Reyes said.
He said Aquino should instead answer the allegations of their complaint.
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