Interior Secretary Mar Roxas should not bite the bait waiting for him at Makati City Hall in implementing an order from the Office of the Ombudsman preventively suspending Mayor Junjun Binay from holding office in connection with alleged irregularities in the construction of the City Hall Building II.
My sources at Makati City Hall say the camp of Vice President Jojo Binay, father of the current mayor and himself former mayor, has engaged some persons—including women and children—who would deliberately hurt themselves in the ensuing scuffle between the police and citizens barricading City Hall for control of the building.
The “hakot” (trucked and paid) crowd would provoke the police who have been tasked to implement the order into drawing them to a “war,” my sources said.
The police would be made to act in a violent manner against the “hapless” citizens, according to my sources.
Vice President Jojo reportedly learned the tactic as a street parliamentarian during the martial law Marcos era when some rally participants would engage the police in a fight for media mileage.
The Vice President has warned of a “misencounter” at the Makati City Hall should the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) carry out the suspension order.
The use of the word misencounter, in apparent reference to the gun battle between police commandos and Moro rebels in Mamasapano in Maguindanao on Jan. 25, is already a provocation in itself.
It’s defiance of lawful authority.
The Binays, who are holed up at the mayor’s office, in effect, are saying: “Come and get us.”
If Roxas insists in carrying out the Ombudsman’s suspension order, he will be pictured as an oppressor.
The Binays, on the other hand, will be shown as the oppressed. And it’s easy for the Binays to win public sympathy because they project a “kawawa” (pitiful) look.
To most of the “masa” (masses) who compose the majority of the citizenry, the Binays are being persecuted.
Jojo Binay would then gather political capital which he will easily use against potential rival Roxas in the 2016 presidential election if some in the hakot crowd would get hurt.
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The Binays have filed for a temporary restraining order (TRO) with the Court of Appeals against the suspension order.
Let’s monitor the justices in whose division the application for a TRO has been raffled off: Francisco Acosta, Eduardo Peralta and Jose Reyes.
There is a story going around that some money had changed hands in the past to prevent a suspension order on then Mayor Jojo for a graft case in connection with “ghost” employees at Makati City Hall.
The sources are persons who had allegedly talked to the appellate court justices on behalf of Binay.
The ghost employees case against Jojo Binay has been archived.
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The Binays are acting as if they own every nook and cranny of Makati City.
The Binays—Vice President Jojo, suspended Mayor Junjun, former Mayor Elenita, Senator Nancy and Congresswoman Abigail—have apparently acquired this entitlement mentality by lording it over the city one after the other for decades.
They don’t care whether people think they are shameless so long as they are in power.
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