Binay tells Trillanes: Go back to military if you can’t stick to lawmaking

Senator Antonio Trillanes IV and Vice President Jejomar Binay. INQUIRER FILE PHOTOS

MANILA, Philippines — The camp of Vice President Jejomar Binay said on Sunday that Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV should go back to his job as a senator after saying he had moved on from his role in the 2007 Peninsula Manila Hotel siege, where he led mutinous soldiers in attempting to oust then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

“The senator should concentrate on nation-building. He was elected as a senator to enact laws and serve the people,” Binay’s political spokesperson, Cavite Gov. Jonvic Remulla, said in a text message.

“If he wants to continue leading the investigation, he should reenlist back in the service and join the military intelligence unit,” Remulla said.

Remulla was reacting to Trillanes’ statement on Saturday that the senator, who had initiated a Senate inquiry into allegations of corruption and ill-gotten wealth against the Vice President, had no intention to submit an affidavit to back his claim that Binay was part of the 2007 conspiracy to oust Arroyo.

Trillanes, who was then a lieutenant junior grade officer in the Philippine Navy and a leader of the rebel group Magdalo that occupied the Peninsula Manila Hotel and called on Arroyo to step down, claimed that Binay, then mayor of Makati City, conspired with them to oust the President.

But Binay, he said, failed to keep his promise to deliver a crowd of supporters to back the soldiers who had walked out of a court hearing on the rebellion charges against him.

The soldiers were forced to hole up in the hotel before the military compelled them to surrender.

Binay’s camp dismissed Trillanes’ claim, accusing the senator of trying to rewrite history with a revisionist version of the siege.

Asked what the Vice President had to say about Trillanes’ accusations against him on the Peninsula Manila siege, Remulla said he had yet to speak to Binay about it.

He said Binay was in Davao province on Sunday and was headed next to Cebu province.

Remulla said Binay’s weekend trip to the two provinces had nothing to do with the Vice President’s bid late last week to go around to feel the “pulse of the people” on the corruption allegations against him.

“[The Vice President is] attending to some housing concerns the President has tasked him to do,” Remulla said.

Binay’s approval ratings have fallen since the start of the Senate inquiry into allegations of overpricing in the construction of the P1.2-billion Makati City Hall Building II, which was built when the Vice President was mayor of Makati.

The Senate blue ribbon subcommittee conducting the inquiry is also looking into allegations that Binay secretly owns an 8,877-square-meter real estate property in Barangay (village) Comembo in Makati and a 350-hectare agricultural farm in Rosario town, Batangas province, derisively called “Hacienda Binay.”

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