TWO days after resigning from the Cabinet, Vice President Jejomar Binay on Wednesday declared himself as head of the opposition in the 2016 national and local elections.
“I’m Jojo Binay, your vice president, [and] I’m proud to be a real Filipino in heart and mind. I will be with you for better or for worse, and now will lead the opposition,” Binay said in a televised press briefing at the Coconut Palace in Pasay City.
a speech a day after resigning from the Cabinet.
Ey Acasio
In his speech, Binay vowed to offer the Filipino people a compassionate and effective government.
”It is my dream to have an effective government so that more, and not few, will benefit from the economic growth that we will achieve,” Binay said.
”We should have a government which listens and have real concerns especially to the poor,” he added.
The Vice President said he is fighting for a government that would let justice and peace reign, and one that would strive to create more jobs to help the needy.
Binay denounced the selective justice of the Aquino administration, criticizing the apparent disparity between the treatment of the opposition versus those allied with the ruling party.
Morever, the Vice President said while he and his family were being vilified, those allied with the ruling party that are embroiled in controversies have gone unpunished.
He said the government has allowed to go unpunished those officials allied with the present administration who were involved in the illegal use of funds through the Disbursement Acceleration Program and the Priority Development Assistance Fund, as well as the mismanagement of the Mamasapano operation in which 44 police commandos were killed.
“This is not justice for the majority, particularly the poor,” Binay said.
He said this “injustice” would motivate him further in pursing the presidency.
The Vice President said he accepted the offer to join the Cabinet in 2010 before because he wanted to repay with genuine service the trust of the public that elected him.
Binay dared his critics to face him in a clean and honest election in 2016 as he thanked the people for their continued trust in him despite incessant attacks against him.
The Vice President declared he would not back out as presidential candidate.
“I’m not withdrawing to any fight,” he said.
show their support for the embattled Vice President Jejomar
Binay a day after he resigned from the Cabinet. Ey Acasio
In a press conference at his office in the Coconut Palace, Binay decried as foul the charges hurled against him by those who were driven by personal ambition rather than the search for truth, and said his accusers had presented no evidence to prove he had benefited from the alleged overpricing of several Makati buildings.
Binay, who resigned from the Cabinet on Monday, described the government as callous and incompetent as a result of poor leadership.
Binay said he quit his Cabinet posts after serving for five years as chairman of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council and presidential assistant on overseas workers’ concerns, because he was unwilling to let his successful pro-poor programs that he carried out when he was still mayor of Makati be disparaged and vilified.
Officially declaring his intention to run for the presidency in 2016, Binay said no one–not even political propaganda–would stop him from seeking the country’s highest position.
A Palace spokesman on Wednesday declined to say if Binay’s break from the government would strain relations between his family and that of President Benigno Aquino III.
“I do not wish to speculate on a matter that is personal between the two families,” said deputy presidential spokesman Abigail Valte, in text message.
In a radio interview, Makati Rep. Abigail Binay said her father’s resignation letter to President Benigno Aquino III was one sentence long indicating his “irrevocable resignation” with no reason or personal affection.
“He resigned on his own, he was not pressured. I don’t think there was anybody who could change my father’s mind,” she said.
Asked if there was a falling out between Binay and the President, she said: “I am not in the right position [to answer that] but he seems to be very tired; and in his view, this is the only way he can be liberated.”
She said her father had been “holding back” from all the attacks he had been getting from administration allies, including a long-running Senate investigation into allegations of corruption when he was still mayor of Makati.
The congresswoman said her father was fed up with the “fakery and pretension” in trying to fit in the Cabinet.
She added that he was absent from last week’s Cabinet meeting, but this did not mean he was not invited.
