Jejomar Binay: 24-hour veteran of 60,000 wakes

MAIN OPPOSITION PARTY Presidential aspirant Jejomar Binay and running mate Gringo Honasan work the crowd during the launch in July 2015 of the United Nationalist Alliance for the 2016 elections. MARIANNE BERMUDEZ

EDITOR’S NOTE:

 We are running the profiles of the presidential and vice presidential candidates to offer voters insights into their character, hoping these will help the electorate make an informed choice on May 9.

VICE PRESIDENT Jejomar Binay clearly has a thing for visiting the dead, having gone to 60,000 wakes during the two decades that he was mayor of Makati City.

On average, he would go to eight to 20 wakes every night, Binay told Radyo Inquirer early this month.

“I would go home at 1 or 2 a.m. So I have gone to 60,000 wakes,” Binay said.

Now running for President, Binay still goes to wakes—even on the campaign trail.

In Laguna province last month, Binay and the other candidates of the opposition United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) took time off from the campaign to visit a wake  on a street where they had just staged a rally.

Binay’s communication director, Joey Salgado, who has been working for him since his days at Makati City Hall, said the Vice President “grew up with that tradition” of going to wakes.

“As a mayor, he (Binay) found out it also gave him an opportunity to get instant feedback about city government services,” Salgado told the Inquirer.

Acknowledging Binay’s penchant for going to wakes,  Navotas Rep. Toby Tiangco, the UNA president, explained that wakes were the places  mayors learned about the problems of the villages and they could act on them immediately.

Political points

Undoubtedly, however, mayors score political points with their constituents by going to wakes.

For Binay, it has been a good training in dealing with people from all walks of life, so that on the campaign trail he can boast that among the presidential aspirants, he is the one who has the most experience as an executive and administrator.

Binay first served as acting mayor of Makati in 1986, appointed to the post by then President Corazon Aquino right after the Edsa People Power Revolution.

He went on to win the mayoral elections in Makati in 1988, 1992 and 1995. After a brief layover, during which his wife was the mayor of the city, he came back in 2001 and served three terms.

That long experience in public administration has made Binay, 73, adept at dealing with people, including the graying ones who get front-row seats at his rallies.

“Have you eaten?” Binay would sometimes ask women who he would swore to their faces did not look their age.

Ordinary people, masses

Oftentimes in his speeches, too, he would talk about the benefits and privileges he had given to senior citizens in Makati and how he intended to replicate them throughout the country if he were elected President.

“He is very warm and maybe that is what endears him to the masses,” said Sen. Gregorio Honasan II, Binay’s vice presidential running mate.

After nearly three months on the campaign trail with the Vice President, Honasan observed that Binay could “identify with ordinary people” and “articulate issues that resonate in the hearts and minds of the people.”

“And the hearts and minds of the people are what leaders of the nation are always fighting for,” Honasan said.

Corruption charges

And it is on the campaign trail that Binay defends himself from allegations of corruption that have been hounding him since 2014, when the Senate launched an investigation into charges that he pocketed millions of pesos in kickbacks from overpriced infrastructure contracts when he was mayor of Makati.

He says the charges are the handiwork of his political opponents, and that only the courts should handle the accusations against him.

Clearly, however, the accusations have hurt his campaign for Malacañang. After holding a commanding lead for months, he is now running third in the voter preference polls, tied with the candidate whom he trounced at the ballot box in the 2010 vice presidential election, former Interior Secretary Mar Roxas.

Loss of lead

Binay does not seem to be fazed by his loss of the lead, as he claims a core support of 35 percent of the electorate. But that figure does not seem to be holding, based on the latest polls.

Lately, with less than two weeks before the vote, Binay has been appealing to crowds at his rallies not to vote for the new front-runner, Rodrigo Duterte, because of the Davao City mayor’s human rights violations record.

Staying power

Despite his age, Binay has not shown signs of losing steam, and Honasan credits the Vice President’s high “energy level” to “his constant interaction with people.”

“It’s as if it’s his lifeblood, politically, psychologically and physically,” Honasan said.

Binay has this “go, go attitude,” which has “contaminated” the party and the campaign organization, Honasan said.

Longtime aide Salgado said the Vice President is a “24-hour” person.

“It comes with being a mayor. As a local executive, you have to be ready to respond anytime to developments in your city. Fire, calamities, bomb threats, hostage-taking, etc,” he added.

Binay is usually up at 6 a.m. and “winds down past 11 p.m.,” he said.

Health rumors

Binay’s health has been a subject of rumors for many years. The Vice President’s daughter, Sen. Nancy Binay, once told reporters that the rumors spiked when her father was seen visiting Makati Medical Center for long hours a few years ago.

Senator Binay said her father was at the hospital often because her brother, dismissed Makati City Mayor Jejomar Erwin “Junjun” Binay, had invited their father to hear daily Masses with him there. Her brother was watching over his wife who was then confined at the hospital.

Honasan believes he knows the secret behind Binay’s staying power. Binay, he said, seems to have long set his sights on the presidency.

“I get the feeling he had this in mind. I think he dreamed of becoming President one day and prepared for it,” he said.