Stung by Aquino remarks, Binay camp says people’s will must be respected

Rico Quicho, spokesman for Vice President Binay. FILE PHOTO BY CATHY MIRANDA/INQUIRER.net

The will of the people must be respected.

The camp of Vice President Jejomar Binay made the statement in response to President Benigno Aquino III’s recent statement expressing regret that Binay, instead of Mar Roxas, had won the vice presidency in 2010.

Mr. Aquino and Binay—whose families share a long cordial history—parted ways in June last year, after the latter resigned from the Cabinet in the face of corruption allegations he charged were meant to derail his presidential bid.

Mr. Aquino is currently campaigning for Roxas, the Liberal Party standard-bearer.

“With all due respect, Mr. President, the results of the 2010 elections represented the will of the people,” Rico Quicho, Binay’s spokesperson for political concerns, said in a statement yesterday.

“The people elected you to be their president and Jejomar Binay their vice president. They saw in Vice President Binay the qualities of a servant leader who was ready and competent to perform the duties of a president. The will of the people is not something to regret, but to respect,” he said.

Quicho noted how even Mr. Aquino himself had given “unsolicited commendations” to Binay during his term as chief of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council and as the Presidential Adviser on Overseas Filipino Workers Affairs.

“He (Binay) was a team player despite being treated like a pariah by most members of the Cabinet who were also your party mates,” Quicho said.

“He chose to stay on and do his job until it was evident that the conspiracy to undermine him politically—hatched and implemented by the Liberal Party and its allies—would not stop, to the point of directly undermining the independence of government instrumentalities and independent institutions for your allies’ political interests and ambitions,” he said.

As the United Nationalist Alliance standard-bearer appeared to be edging Roxas out anew in preelection surveys, Quicho said the Vice President was offering to the electorate “his track record of performance and accomplishments as [Makati City mayor] and vice president.”

At a recent LP campaign rally in Cavite, Mr. Aquino said the administration could have accomplished more if Roxas had won the vice presidency. Aquino also made indirect reference to Binay’s criticism of the administration, saying he could not get this out of his mind.