BY HERBERT VEGO
BORACAY – An Ilonggo politician on vacation here (name withheld upon request) believes that the plunder case against Vice President Jejomar Binay filed with the Office of the Ombudsman would abort his political advancement.
The nine-page complaint filed by lawyer Renato Bondal and Nicolas Enciso VI covers an allegedly overpriced New Makati City Parking building contract, accusing Binay of plunder.
The complaint filed on July 22 sought the preventive suspension of the Vice President and his son, Makati mayor Erwin “Jun-jun” Binay, alluding to the 11-floor edifice as “the most expensive parking building in the entire country, if not the entire world,” allegedly contracted at the price of P1.56 billion when it should have been P245.56 million only.
“If Bondal could produce evidence,” the Ilonggo politician told Panay News yesterday, “then that only means the Vice President had overpriced the project by more than P1.314 billion. Whether or not he personally gained from it, he could be charged with plunder before the Sandiganbayan and jailed until proven not guilty.”
He also said, “the Binays’ media defense referring to the complaint as ‘politically-motivated’ would not be convincing. They have to refute the allegation that as mayor in 2007, now Vice President Binay approved only an appropriation of P400 million, which was already overpriced by more than P154 million had it not been further bloated.”
The Ilonggo politician also expressed doubt whether the younger Mayor Binay as his father’s successor could justify his administration’s move enacting and facilitating the release of an additional P1.16 billion.
Shortly before the complaint was filed, all Manila dailies had heralded a Pulse Asia survey (allegedly done from June 24 to July 2) showing the Vice President as topnotcher for President, with 41 percent. A month earlier it was 40 percent.
Asked whether that survey could have motivated the complainants – assuming they belong to another political camp – to launch a smear campaign against the Binays, the Ilonggo politician shook his head.
“Surveys should be exposed for what they are,” he stressed. “They are no longer credible and are meant to mind-condition the public for the benefit of the paying politician.”
The Ilonggo politician looked back to the few months preceding the May 13, 2013 mid-term senatorial election when no less than Cong. Toby Tiangco, spokesperson of the United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) – Binay’s political party – revealed that the Social Weather Stations or SWS (the survey competitor of Pulse Asia) had demanded that UNA pay P1.9 million for each of its six surveys but settled for P1 million when his group would not agree to the higher amount.
“Somehow,” the interviewee said, “the surveys prepared the voting public for the eventual win of neophyte Nancy Binay.”
Nancy, the Vice President’s daughter, placed fifth in the “magic 12” to the surprise of former senator Richard Gordon who lost in the same election. Gordon claimed he had refused to subscribe to the SWS and Pulse Asia surveys.
“I am not prepared to accept the transformation of the Jojo Binay I used to know,” the Ilonggo politician decried.
Asked to elaborate, he recalled, “I have known him since the pre-martial law days when he was a ‘sidekick’ of the late senator (Benigno) Ninoy Aquino. He was a typical hard-working Ilocano. I remember him holding the attaché case of Ninoy whenever they travelled together. That early, I admired him for his down-to-earth attitude. He would often share to us his humble past. That was how I knew he used to work as caretaker of a hog farm so he could go to law school.”
He also said, “the former hog farmer was still relatively hard-up when appointed OIC mayor by President Cory (Aquino) in 1986. This means he has really enriched himself in office in the past 28 years.”
The Binays are among the most well-entrenched political dynasties in the Philippines. The Vice President’s wife, Elenita had been mayor of Makati, too./PN
