THE GLOVES ARE OFF They may be smiling for the cameras, but read their lips. The top four presidential contenders—Grace Poe, Rodrigo Duterte, Jejomar Binay and Mar Roxas— have come out swinging at each other, with their protracted word war bound to get fiercer as the campaign season reaches feverish pitch.
The gloves are off and the candidates are starting to fight in a more determined, not always pleasant way.
The four major presidential aspirants on Friday figured in a media free-for-all, hitting out at each other, though taking care not to look one another in the eye.
Vice President Jejomar Binay and former Interior Secretary Mar Roxas pointedly avoided each other during a public forum on Friday at Ateneo de Manila University, but traded potshots in separate interviews.
The two have engaged in a protracted word war this week, with the Liberal Party (LP) candidate calling Binay an “expert” in corruption, and the Vice President accusing Roxas of a smear job.
READ: Mar Roxas behind graft raps, Binay says / Binay says Roxas behind ‘demolition by perception’ plot against him
For good measure, Roxas came out swinging at Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte at the same forum, describing Duterte’s image as a crime buster and his city’s reputation as the country’s safest as a “myth.”
READ: Duterte’s Davao City PH’s safest? It’s just a myth, says Roxas
Duterte, now perceived to be the front-runner in the latest survey, is facing off with Sen. Grace Poe, who has slid down to second place and is fighting multiple disqualification suits besides.
Though she did not mention Duterte by name, it was clear that Poe was referring to the mayor when she said on Thursday that a human-rights violator had no right to lead the country.
READ: Poe hits Duterte rights record
This drew a stinging retort on Friday from Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano, Duterte’s vice presidential running mate who acts as his spokesperson.
“Why did you ask for Duterte’s endorsement if you believe he’s not fit to lead? And why did Senator Poe ask if she could be Mayor Duterte’s Vice President earlier this year?” Cayetano said.
“If Senators Poe and Escudero [Poe’s running mate] think that Mayor Duterte is not fit to lead the country then why did they ask for his endorsement in the 2013 senatorial election?” added the senator.
Duterte has claimed that Poe had asked him to be his Vice President just before she made the decision to run for President. Alberto Romulo, the former foreign affairs secretary, reportedly arranged the meeting between Duterte and Poe.
READ: He said, she said: Poe denies asking Duterte to be his VP
Poe, who earlier vehemently denied that she had asked Duterte to be her vice presidential running mate, on Friday admitted that a meeting did take place between herself and the Davao City mayor at her Corinthian Gardens home in Quezon City.
Cayetano said Poe risked being accused of dishonesty and hypocrisy just to pander to Duterte’s critics in a desperate move to boost her electoral campaign.
Asked by reporters to respond to Roxas’ comments, Binay said Roxas should look at his own shortcomings “instead of diverting the people’s attention to these accusations.”
“This really shows that Mar Roxas is part of the conspiracy of demolition by perception, that I am embroiled in graft and corruption,” he said.
But Roxas said Binay should simply answer the allegations against him.
“He had the opportunity in the Senate and in other forums. So instead of pointing fingers or blaming anyone, why won’t he just answer: Is it true that this building is overpriced? Is it true that these kits are overpriced? It’s all up to him,” he said.
Sharp contrast
Only Binay and Roxas attended the Ateneo event called “Conversations with the Presidentiables on Countryside Development,” which was organized by Galing Pook Foundation.
Binay was scheduled to speak at 10 a.m. and Roxas at 11 a.m. Although Binay was still around when Roxas arrived, the LP candidate opted to stay in a holding room instead of greeting his rival, who left as soon as he finished speaking. They never came face-to-face with each other.
The event showcased the sharp contrast between the two leaders, one of them focusing on the empowerment of the poorest local government units, and the other emphasizing equitable distribution of government resources.
Binay spoke about the need to strengthen the capacities of local government units, especially in rural areas. In particular, he proposed increasing the Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA) of poorer municipalities and provinces so the local government could do more.
“I have long championed and joined the clamor of mayors and governors on [the] IRA,” he said.
Binay said it was a shame that bigger local government units would get a bigger IRA share, including Quezon City and his own Makati, even though neither city actually needed that much IRA.
On the other hand, Roxas espoused what he called the “Walang Iwanan Fund (no one left behind)” or “Karapatan Fund (rights fund),” which would distribute P100 billion to all towns and cities over his six-year administration, if he should win.
Under this setup, an amount of money is to be set aside, dedicated and implemented at the local level, similar to the “bottom-up budgeting” participatory budgeting scheme initiated by the Department of Budget and Management and implemented by the Department of the Interior and Local Government.
Roxas said local executives would not need to knock on the doors of national officials to get some attention and much-needed funds.
He said the LGUs benefiting from the fund would have the chance to show their creativity and dynamism in figuring out how best to spend the money that would be allocated to them.
“We have BUB, and now we’re giving it steroids it, enlarging it, to make sure all towns can put their destiny under their own control,” he said.
During the open forum, Binay criticized the Aquino administration, citing such problems as underspending by government agencies and the failure to truly devolve government transactions to local offices.
Roxas, on the other hand, said the country’s economy never had it so good, adding that he intended to be as “reformist, activist, change-oriented” as the incumbent government.
Social media activist Juana Change, who watched the forum, said neither Binay nor Roxas had “wowed” her. She said the words of the two leaders did not honestly reflect their records in their decades of public service.
First principles
Roxas drew the loudest applause at the forum when he prefaced his comments on Duterte’s crime-buster image with a statement on his “basic principles”.
“I don’t believe that might is right,” he said.
“I do not believe that the gun trumps all others. I do not believe in summary justice. That’s the basic principles I believe in,” Roxas said.
He took Duterte to task for his tough talk that seemed to betray a lack of respect for human rights.
Roxas said Davao City was not as free of crime as the mayor’s supporters would have people believe.
“Just for the record, Davao has the [fourth] highest crime rate. So it’s just a myth, a figment of the imagination that Davao City is safe. I’m not putting him down, I am just giving the statistics,” Roxas said.
This was the same statistics provided by LP spokesperson, Caloocan Rep. Edgar Erice, earlier this week. Erice said Davao City ranked just behind Quezon City, Zamboanga and Manila in crime incidence in 2014, but he did not provide other details.
Speaking to reporters after the forum, Roxas wondered why Duterte’s crime-fighting image “has not been questioned, or just accepted as fact.”
In fact, he said he had raised the matter of Duterte’s alleged links to the vigilante Davao Death Squad in a conversation with the mayor.
“We talked about that. I asked him about accusations and statements that he killed people for discipline. His answer to me was ‘nothing,’ he killed no one. I don’t know where these reports are coming from. So it’s better that he just tell the truth—has he killed people or not?” said Roxas.
“I am for the law. I do not believe in shortcuts. I believe in human rights. I believe everyone is equal in the eyes of the law. Whoever you are, whether you are President or not, you have no right to kill anyone,” he said.
Peace and order platform
During the forum, Roxas was sked to lay out his platform to improve peace and order.
“Like in all things in life, there’s no magic wand, no abracadabra, no ‘let’s change Constitution,’ solution. All the things that are important, we need to work on, we need to make sacrifices for, we need to focus on,” he said.
Roxas cited his experience and accomplishments at the Department of the Interior and Local Government.
“In Metro Manila, when (I) became DILG [secretary], the statistics (were) 918 incidents of crime every week,” he said. “For the skeptical among you, this is blotter-based, not just a creation of the chief of police.”
“We implemented Lambat Sibat, which was a protocol of what policemen are supposed to do every day… To make a long story short, after a year of steady decline, we are now at 300 incidents [of crime every week]. That is real. That is fact,” Roxas said.
“That was actually accomplished, not by some magic wand, not by some miracle, in fact it was accomplished by changing the mindset of the Philippine National Police,” he said.
Before, he said the police force’s mindset was “the DILG secretary is coming, let’s capture some criminals.”
“I had to change that. That was the attitude. Frankly, I applied modern management, ‘if you cannot count it, you cannot manage it.’ So I ordered an audit of the blotters,” he said.
Now, “each policeman has to know what he has to do every day, which street he has to cover, which patrol he has to take,” Roxas said.
Crimes are being geo-tagged so people will know “where, what time and what hour the crimes occur.”
“These are very, very basic things. They are not glamorous. They do not make headlines, but roughly every week, there are 600 people we save from crime,” Roxas said.
“Unfortunately, people don’t go and say ‘I came home safe, thanks to Mar Roxas.’ But those are the facts and crime has been reduced,” he said.
‘Moralizing politician’
Cayetano urged Duterte’s critics to visit Davao City and see for themselves the achievements of the mayor there.
“While Sen. Poe’s insincerity is exposed, Mayor Duterte continues to represent authentic, honest and no-nonesense politics,” he said.
“If moralizing politicians like Senator Poe can stop murderers, robbers, rapists and corrupt public officials, then we don’t need Mayor Duterte. But we know that is not the case,” he said.
Cayetano said Poe should focus on finding solutions, especially since she is the chair of the Senate committee on public order and dangerous drugs.
Turning to the Liberal Party, Cayetano said the LP should focus on platforms instead of simply channeling its energy into attacking the mayor. With a report from Leila Salaverria
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