LP man dares Binay: Quit Aquino Cabinet

MANILA, Philippines—Vice President Jejomar Binay should just quit the Aquino Cabinet so he could get more elbow room to take a swing at the administration.

“Definitely, he (Binay) must get out of the Cabinet first so he can say whatever he wants to his heart’s content,” said Caloocan City Rep. Edgar Erice, a Liberal Party member, echoing his privilege speech four months ago egging Binay to show his “true colors” and make up his mind whether he was for the administration or the opposition.

“But knowing his (Binay) lack of delicadeza, I am sure he will not. He will surely regret losing out on the freebies given to a member of the Cabinet,” said Erice.

Caloocan Rep. Edgar Erice. FILE PHOTO

In a speech Tuesday, Binay criticized President Benigno Aquino III’s harsh treatment of detained former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, his kid glove treatment of Philippine National Police Director General Alan Purisima, and his stubborn defense of the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP), which was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

Binay is a close family friend of the President and his family. Binay owed his appointment as Makati mayor to the late President Corazon Aquino, the mother of the current president, in the transitional period following the 1986 Edsa People Power Revolution. Under the second Aquino administration, the Vice President not only was given a cushy Cabinet post as housing czar (or interagency supervisor of all housing-related agencies and government corporations), his office’s budget was increased to the level that it now includes a P200-million pork barrel that senators used to get every year.

Erice said he was perplexed why President Aquino would harbor the Vice President even if Binay continued to be one of this administration’s biggest critics. “I am not sure (why Aquino wanted Binay in the Cabinet). Maybe he just doesn’t want ‘na nagpapaawa na tinanggal sa Gabinete’ (that Binay would eventually try to court public sympathy after being removed from the Cabinet),” said Erice.

In his four years in office, the President has not removed any Cabinet member close to him based on widespread public clamor for their removal due to incompetence or inefficiency. Former Interior and Local Government Undersecretary Rico Puno eventually resigned and former Land Transportation, Franchising and Regulatory Board chair Virginia Torres retired.

But Iloilo Rep. Jerry Trenas, an LP member, said it would not be up to President Aquino to decide if Binay should leave the Cabinet.

“That decision is for the Vice President to make and not for me to say. If he thinks he can still be effective in spite of the criticisms he has made against the President and his administration, then he should make his decision accordingly,” said Trenas. “The president will not ask him to resign. It is up to him.”

Erice stressed that the criticisms made by Binay against Aquino “were not new” as he has been declaring them in private conversations. “What is new is that the Vice President is now in panic mode.”

Navotas Rep. Tobias Tiangco, spokesperson of the United Nationalist Alliance (UNA), did not reply to the Philippine Daily Inquirer’s request for their comment.

Binay is being investigated by the Senate blue ribbon subcommittee for allegedly overpricing the contract for the Makati City Hall parking building when he was still the city mayor, for regularly rigging bidding procedures for favored contractors, for collecting kickbacks from city contracts and for not declaring huge assets such as a 350-hectare estate in Rosario, Batangas. Binay has denied all these allegations made by his former ally and former Makati vice mayor Ernesto Mercado. He has also refused to face the Senate blue ribbon hearings, saying the body has prejudged his guilt and has just been using the public hearings as a platform to destroy his 2016 presidential ambition.

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