Binay: I have made Makati rich

Vice President Jejomar Binay with his wife Elenita Binay and Rep. Abby Binay. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO/ MARIANNE BERMUDEZ

SULTAN KUDARAT, Maguindanao, Philippines — Vice President Jejomar Binay said on Tuesday he made Makati City into what it has become, the country’s richest city.

Binay said that when he assumed office as appointed mayor on February 28, 1986, Makati barely had P243 million in its coffer.

He said for example, Barangay Bel-Air now has about P50 million in annual share of the city’s income – which it has been spending for local programs that help better the lives of its residents.

“I have made Makati rich,” he told a crowd of about 2,000 at the crowded municipal gymnasium here, where he swore-in local members of the United Nationalists Alliance (UNA), his political vehicle to the presidency.

Local UNA party members were led by former Maguindanao vice governor Midpantao Midtimbang and his brother and former Talayan town mayor Hadji Ali Midtimbang; Mohammad Paglas, the mayor of Datu Paglas town; and Cotabato City Mayor Japal Guiani Jr., who was represented by his sister, lawyer Cynthia Guiani Sayadi.

Binay said Makati City’s income had ballooned to nearly 50 times its 1986 income, or about P11 billion, by the time he ran for vice president in 2010. He served Makati as the undefeated mayor for 21 years, he added.

Binay, who was accompanied by presumptive UNA senatorial candidates, Leyte Representative Martin Romualdez, the incumbent president of the Philippine Constitutional Association; actress Alma Moreno; and Princess Jacel Kiram of Sulu, said other presidential aspirants were still making promises about things he had already done as mayor of the country’s business hub.

“Theirs are but plans and promises about things that we have already done in Makati,” he said in obvious reference to the aim for progress through reforms that Interior Secretary Mar Roxas has been mentioning in his speeches.

In an apparent swipe at Senator Grace Poe, whom critics said lacked experience to become president, Binay said school principals have spent many years being teachers and a company president could not attain that position without gaining experience as an employee. (Nash B. Maulana, Inquirer Mindanao)