Aquino throws jabs at Binay
‘Put your house in order’
In a statement, Justice Secretary Leila de Lima said the Aquino administration was determined to press charges against all those suspected of corruption and it just happened that Binay and his family were among the “big fishes” being targeted.
“Apparently the Vice President has not heard of the saying that people who live in glass houses should not throw stones. He should first put his own affairs in order, especially the corruption cases against him and members of his family, before he even starts talking of so-called selective justice,” De Lima said.
“There is no selective justice. Just because high officials and big fish like him are feeling the long arm of the law does not mean there is selective justice. Just because we are yet to file cases against other corrupt government officials and catch others does not mean we should stop prosecuting those already on the chopping block,” she added.
“No administration is perfect. However, it is a fact that world perception of the Philippines has never been better in the past five years because of the President’s anticorruption campaign and reforms in the bureaucracy,” she said.
Interior Secretary Mar Roxas on Thursday defended the Aquino administration from Binay’s criticism.
Addressing various government frontline agencies in Indang, Cavite province, Roxas maintained that Mr. Aquino and the rest of his Cabinet had been delivering services to the people and that they had been consistent in carrying out their specific task.
“We’re not saying that what we have is perfect. We cannot say that the country is ‘super developed.’ But we have gone far. We have done many things and we’re better than where we were before,” said the potential administration standard-bearer in next year’s presidential election.
Why did it take 5 years?
Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. expressed doubts about the sincerity of Binay’s motivations for quitting his Cabinet posts and criticizing the Aquino government. “He certainly enjoyed being a Cabinet member. It took him five years to quit,” he said in a text message.
Vice President Binay just made a “powerful’’ enemy out of President Aquino with the way he had raged against the Aquino administration and thus, he could expect his supporters who are loyalists of the Chief Executive to eventually disappear, Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV said on Thursday.
“Objectively speaking, I don’t see the benefit he will get out of what he did. What he did is just to create an enemy and his enemy is the most powerful man in the country. That’s not necessarily a good thing,’’ Trillanes told reporters.
And while Trillanes agreed there were “some instances’’ that Binay’s claim against the administration as being insensitive and bumbling such as the Mamasapano incident, he said the latter was “not the perfect spokesman for that.’’
“He should be the last one (to say that). He countenanced it for five years,’’ Trillanes said of Binay at the Kapihan sa Senado forum on Thursday.
He noted for instance that no one heard anything from Binay during the height of the killings of 44 Special Action Force commandos in Mamasapano which the latter had raised against the administration.
“Where was he? He was holding boodle fights in public markets and now he is saying he was concerned about it?’’ he said. With reports from DJ Yap, Jerome Aning, Marlon Ramos, Gil C. Cabacungan and Christine O. Avendaño
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