Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV on Thursday expressed fear that Vice President Jejomar Binay, should he win in the upcoming national elections, would run the country the way former president and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo did.
Trillanes said Binay, once seated in Malacañang, would allow his cohorts to steal from public coffers.
“Nakikita ko na—kung ano ‘yung pagpapatakbo ni GMA noon na sindi-sindikato, ganun ang mangyayari sa Pilipinas,” Trillanes told reporters in a Senate forum. “‘Magnakaw kayo as much as you can basta magbigay kayo ng boundary.'”
(I can just see it–how GMA ran the country then, through syndicates, that could happen to the Philippines.)
Arroyo is in hospital arrest for plunder over the P366-million Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office (PCSO) intelligence funds anomaly from 2008 to 2010 for personal gain.
She won the presidency in 2004 amid allegations of massive poll fraud over the “Hello Garci” scandal.
READ: Courts, not President, to decide on Arroyo case, Duterte told
As to Binay’s promise to replicate what he did in Makati to the whole country, Trillanes said the public should not expect the opposition leader to lift thousands of Filipinos from poverty when he supposedly failed to improve the lives of his own local constituents.
“‘Yung mga informal settlers doon sa tabing bahay niya hindi nya nga ma-improve ‘yung pamumuhay. Bakit natin iniisip na maiaahon niya ang mahihirap eh di naman kumonti ang mahihirap sa Makati?” the senator said.
(He had not improved the lives of the informal settlers near his home. Why, then, would we think that he could save the poor, when the poor people in Makati have not decreased in number?)
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Trillanes said Binay, who is projecting himself as the hero of the masses, has the resources to improve the lives of Filipinos but chose to put it in his own pocket instead.
“Meron siyang pondo pero nilalagay niya sa bulsa at hindi binibigay sa kanila,” he said.
(He had the funds, but he pocketed it and did not give it to [the poor].)
It was Trillanes who initiated the months-long Senate probe on the corruption allegations against Binay, over the allegedly overpriced Makati City Hall parking building when he was still mayor. CDG
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