Binay dares Trillanes to charge CA justices

MEN IN BARONG Vice President Jejomar Binay and his son Makati Mayor Junjun Binay arrive with their bodyguards at the SMX Convention Center on Wednesday in Pasay City. JOAN BONDOC

Vice President Jejomar Binay on Wednesday warned Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV that he could be cited in contempt by the Court of Appeals for alleging that the Binay family had paid the court in exchange for stopping the Ombudsman’s preventive suspension of Makati Mayor Jejomar Erwin “Junjun” Binay Jr.

Binay instead challenged Trillanes to file graft and corruption charges against the appellate court justices whom the senator had allegedly said were fixed.

But Trillanes was unperturbed by Binay’s warning, saying that he intended to ask the Senate to investigate his new allegations against the Vice President.

“We will get to that,” the senator said in a text message in reply to the query whether he would heed Binay’s challenge for him to file cases against those in the appellate court.

He said he would file a resolution in the Senate “calling for an investigation about this.”

“Eventually, the Vice President and the justices in his pocket will go down,” said Trillanes, who initiated the ongoing Senate inquiry into the alleged overpriced Makati City Hall Building II that was built when the Vice President was mayor and was completed under his son’s term.

The senator said the other day that he received information that the Binays had spent “big money” to get the appellate court injunction favoring the younger Binay.

“One of these days, we will expose them: “Who had fronted for them, who they had talked to, how much they paid. Eventually, we will bring that all out,” Trillanes said on Tuesday.

The appellate court’s Sixth Division enjoined on April 6 the Office of the Ombudsman and the Department of the Interior and Local Government from enforcing the Ombudsman’s March 10 order preventively suspending Mayor Binay for six months.

The court earlier issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) on the mayor’s suspension, a move that the Ombudsman claimed was moot as the suspension order had been served and Vice Mayor Romulo “Kid” Peña Jr. had been sworn in as acting mayor on March 16.

Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales went to the Supreme Court on March 25 to assail the appellate court’s TRO.