Mr. Flip-flop? Look who’s talking, Palace tells Binay

Presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda. FILE PHOTO

IT’S VICE President Jejomar Binay who should be called “Mr. Flip-flop,” not President Aquino, according to Malacañang.

Presidential spokesperson Edwin Lacierda yesterday reacted to reports Binay had accused Mr. Aquino of flip-flopping on the income tax rate issue.

“Of course, what do you expect Vice President Binay to say? He’s sour graping because he was not endorsed by the President,” Lacierda told reporters.

Binay, who has formally assumed the leadership of the opposition and is the presidential candidate of the United Nationalist Alliance (UNA), “has not even answered the allegations of corruption against him,” Lacierda said.

“Five years he was with us and five years he was praising the President. He was all praises for the President,” he said of Binay, who served in the Aquino Cabinet in various capacities until recently when he resigned after shedding any pretense at being pro-administration.

“Now that he was not endorsed by the President, what do you expect him to say?” Lacierda said.

“What’s flip-flopping, by the way?”

Binay is “Mr. Flip-flop because he was not endorsed by the President and he changed his tune all the way,” he said.

Lacierda said the administration recognized that “there is a need to reform the taxes.”

“But let’s find a comprehensive way of looking at it, right? And with the short period right now, and this is a law, it will have to pass Congress. Do we have enough time to deliberate on these measures?” he said.

President Aquino has said he is not in favor of lowering income tax rates.

Instead, he said he favored the status quo, meaning the government would not lower income tax rates but would not raise the 12-percent value-added tax either.

Binay has vowed to lower income tax rates if he becomes President. He criticized the administration for opposing income tax reform, saying the working class suffered the most under the current tax rates.