Lacierda: Binay would go to great lengths to fool Filipinos

Presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda. FILE PHOTO

“It is bewildering how the camp of [Vice President Jejomar] Binay would go to great lengths to fool the people.”

This was the statement of presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda upon learning that students of Cavite State University were required by school officials to attend Binay’s so-called “true” State of the Nation Address (Sona) held at the university gymnasium on Monday.

Reacting to Binay’s counter-Sona, Lacierda said the Vice President’s 30-minute speech in Indang, Cavite, was “clearly politics at its ebb.”

“First, it took them a week to fabricate a speech which could have otherwise been delivered a day after the Sona. It was all a rehash of what could easily be found in the broadsheets,” Lacierda said in a Facebook post on Tuesday.

Lacierda also slammed Binay’s chosen venue for his counter-Sona, saying that the Vice President could not even show up at the Senate to answer the corruption allegations hurled against him.

“Second, did he have to go to Cavite State University where it is several miles away from Coconut Palace to read a bereft speech when he could have shown up at the Senate where it is a hop, skip and a jump from his official residence to answer all allegations of corruption?” he said.

Reiterating his previous statements, Lacierda noted that Binay kept mum “where he could have been part of the solution” and even praised Aquino “in many instances” during his five-year stint in the Cabinet.

“And having failed to secure the endorsement of the President and perhaps like a woman scorned, begun flailing and railing and ranting against the administration he once praised to high heavens,” he said.

Alluding to the relationship between the Aquinos and the Binays, Lacierda said the Vice President would “burn the friendship that lasted two generations to pursue his presidential ambitions.”

In his counter-Sona, Binay on Monday hit the Aquino administration anew for its supposedly bumbling and insensitive handling of issues such as the 2010 Quirino hostage-taking crisis, the aftermath of Supertyphoon “Yolanda,” the botched Mamasapano operation, the Disbursement Acceleration Program, the Bangsamoro Basic Law, and the sorry state of the Metro Rail Transit, among others.

READ: Binay bewails Aquino’s ‘palpak,’ ‘manhid’ leadership in counter-Sona | VP Binay mum on corruption allegations in counter-Sona

“Which finally brings us back to the oft unanswered question: Mr. Vice President, were you lying then, are you lying now and will you continue to lie in the future, just to become the next president? Mr. Vice President, ayan ka na naman!” Lacierda said.

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