AFTER saying three months ago that he favored Vice President Jejomar Binay over any other presidential candidate, Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte is now singing a different tune and predicted a bleak future for the country if Binay is elected president.
“It’s okay if I lose,” Duterte said. “But it’s important for you to know what is at stake in our country and who can solve it.”
“Who can solve it? Binay? I can only say that I noticed Binay has large arms. Why, it’s not easy to count money. Count one million alone can keep you up until the morning,” he said.
He scoffed at the failure of Binay to include corruption in his political agenda and said “he [Binay] cannot talk about corruption because he has baggage.”
Duterte has avoided mentioning Binay in his previous speeches but lately trained his guns at the former Makati mayor. “Corruption in the government has to end,” he said.
Binay, a former member of Duterte’s PDP-Laban party, is running under the United Nationalist Coalition formed by him and former President Joseph Estrada.
Only last December, Duterte said he will support the candidacy of Binay, instead of administration bet Manuel Roxas II, if he and Senator Grace Poe are disqualified to run by the Commission on Elections in the May 9 presidential elections.
“For me, it’d be okay if I am disqualified. I don’t care if I am disqualified but this much I can say: I do not have any respect for [Roxas]. If Grace is disqualified and I am disqualified, I will campaign for Binay,” Duterte said at that time.
But on Wednesday, Duterte said the misery of Filipinos is a consequence of having corrupt officials in the government and the Philippines is sinking in the pit of poverty and disorder because of corrupt government officials.
According to Duterte, the misery of the Filipino people will continue to haunt them and will only worsen if Binay will be the next president.
Meanwhile, Senator Alan Peter Cayetano said what the Philippines need at this time when there is a rising criminality, systemic corruption and persistent poverty is a strong leader like his running mate, Mayor Duterte.
“When we wake up in the morning all we hear are complaints over traffic, floods, tuition increases, and so on. If you get sick and you are poor, you worry if you will be admitted to a hospital,” Cayetano said.
“All these problems are linked to corruption. Public hospitals do not have modern facilities because of corruption. We have a shortage of classrooms and school facilities because of corruption. And even government-initiated livelihood projects have been tainted by corruption.”
