Binay to deliver own Sona ‘in due time’

Vice President Jejomar Binay. FILE PHOTO

Vice President Jejomar Binay on Tuesday said he would deliver “in due time” his version of the state of the nation, which he said will be his reaction to President Benigno Aquino III’s final State of the Nation Address (Sona) the other day.

“Let’s just wait for my delivery of the true state of the nation,” Binay told reporters asking him for his comments on Mr. Aquino’s Sona.

READ: Binay declines to give Sona reaction

Binay studiously avoided any political issues in the two speeches he delivered on Tuesday at the Boy Scouts’ Memorial Day observance at the Manila North Cemetery and a security congress at the Sofitel Hotel in Pasay City.

In his Sona, President Aquino bragged about the health insurance given to Filipinos by his administration which, he said, some people had called bumbling and insensitive, an apparent dig at Binay who used those words to describe the Aquino administration after he resigned last month from the Cabinet.

Mr. Aquino also ridiculed Binay’s campaign slogan of “Gaganda ang buhay” (life will be better) under a Binay presidency.

“E, di wow!” (ok, so wow), the President said, using the sarcastic slang expression of today’s young Filipinos.

Those saying that people’s lives will be better under their rule have not given any concrete plans on how they will do this, he said.

Binay on Tuesday said he did not think the President was referring to him.

Binay’s daughter, Sen. Nancy Binay, said she did not think the President was referring to her father because she said her father always clearly stated his platform of government in his speaking engagements.

The senator said the Binay family expected those comments against her father from the President and they would just have to respect the President’s views. She also said it was the prerogative of Mr. Aquino not to acknowledge the contributions of her father when he was in the Cabinet.

It remained for Binay’s senator daughter and his spokespersons to comment on the President’s Sona.

Nancy Binay criticized the President’s alleged failure to acknowledge in his Sona some of the country’s problems like the woes of the Metro Railway Transit (MRT).

“Blaming the previous administration will not solve the problem at [the] MRT,” she said, adding that Mr. Aquino should also have at least given Transportation Secretary Joseph Emilio Abaya a deadline to solve the problem.

“But how can you solve the problem when you don’t acknowledge it?” she said.

“E, di wow din, Mr. President,” was the response of spokesperson Mon Ilagan of Binay’s United Nationalist Alliance party.

Ilagan said Mr. Aquino must be hurting because what Binay had said about his administration was all true.

Binay’s political spokesperson, Rico Quicho, said the President’s verbal attack was a “small price to pay for showing the people the bumbling and insensitive governance” of the Aquino administration.

Quicho said Mr. Aquino had glossed over the issues that his government failed to address which he said were: justice for the Special Action Force commandoes killed in Mamasapano; the distribution of Hacienda Luisita to farmer beneficiaries; corruption in the Department of Transportation and Communication, Department of Agriculture and other agencies; illegal use of the Disbursement Acceleration Program funds; corruption and ineptitude at the Bureau of Customs, among others.

“In his ‘true Sona,’ Vice President Binay will remove the gloss and tell the plain truth as experienced every day by ordinary Filipinos,” Quicho said in a statement.

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