Trillanes: Binay’s sins caused ‘crucifixion’
Vice President Jejomar Binay: Crucifying himself? INQUIRER FILE PHOTO / NIÑO JESUS ORBETA
MANILA, Philippines–It’s his own sins against the people that crucified Vice President Jejomar Binay, Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV said on Wednesday.
Trillanes said that if Binay was suffering from the allegations, it was of his own doing.
“I think he is being crucified by his own sins against the country. The lashes he feels are representative of every crime he has committed against the people,” he said.
On Tuesday, Binay, president of the Boy Scouts of the Philippines, told delegates to a jamboree in Marikina City that Boy Scouts should treat him as an ordinary citizen and not as the Vice President who was being crucified on the cross by his political enemies.
Trillanes is one of the three lawmakers actively involved in the subcommittee investigation of the alleged overpricing of the Makati City Hall Building II. The probe has expanded to alleged kickbacks and the use of dummies to hide Binay’s assets, including a 350-hectare estate in Batangas province.
The allegations on the kickbacks and dummies came from Binay’s erstwhile ally, former Makati Vice Mayor Ernesto Mercado.
Binay and his spokespersons have criticized the hearings as a farcical exercise and have contended that these are meant to derail his plans to run for President in 2016.
Due process
At Clark Freeport, Levi Baligod, former counsel of the main witness in the pork barrel scandal, said Binay had the right to due process.
Baligod, a lawyer and private complainant in the plunder cases against Senators Juan Ponce Enrile, Bong Revilla and Jinggoy Estrada, said Senators Aquilino Pimentel III, Alan Peter Cayetano and Trillanes “could not be prosecutor, judge and accuser at the same time.”
The investigation, Baligod said, should be returned to the Senate blue ribbon committee from its subcommittee to give Binay due respect.
“The process needs to be insulated from partisan politics,” said Baligod, former lawyer of pork barrel scam whistle-blower Benhur Luy, during a forum at the Widus Hotel on Wednesday.
Baligod said he had been going around the country because nongovernment organizations have been inviting him to speak on the pork barrel scam.–With a report from Tonette Orejas, Inquirer Central Luzon
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