THE camp of Vice President Jejomar Binay on Wednesday took a swipe at the manner President Benigno Aquino delivered his last State-of-the- Nation Address, saying the President should not be using “gutter language” during a solemn occasion.
UNA Secretary-General JV Bautista said Aquino should consider “apologizing for the kind of language that he used during the SONA.”
“[The President] should not engage in petty bantering or using gutter language. Where is this guy bringing our country? What he is teaching our children?” Bautista said.
“I think it is the duty of the President to preserve a high level of discussion. It has to be with dignity and this must be done in the most dignified language.”
Bautista made his statement even as the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan said Aquino’s final SONA left out the unresolved crisis issues that had defined his presidency in a bid to whitewash and erase them from the collective memory.
Bayan secretary general Renato Reyes Jr. said those crisis points were the devastating Yolanda typhoon, the Mamasapano massacre, the pork barrel, Mary Jane Veloso, the power rates and human rights violations that rocked the Aquino administration.
“The omission was so glaring that the unresolved crisis points became even more obvious to the listeners of his speech,” Reyes said.
“Aquino simply wanted these issues erased from our collective memory, like they never happened.”
Also on Wednesday, a Catholic priest urged Aquino to stop blaming others and start owning up to the shortcomings of his administration.
With less than a year to go before Aquino steps down, Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo said it was no longer right for Aquino to keep blaming former President and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo for the country’s problems, particularly corruption in the government
“It’s been a long time. He has been there for more than five years already, but he did nothing and he keeps blaming others instead,” Pabillo said.
Bautista said Aquino’s actions on Monday “disrespects the Office of the President in his official performance of his function or duty.”
“I believe that the President may have read the contents of his speech before delivering it in Congress. Otherwise, I recommend if he better fire his speechwriters if he haven’t read that,” Bautista said.
“Maybe he can do that kind of bickering when campaigning to project himself to the populace as cute. But when you’re standing before the entire nation delivering the State of the Nation Address as required by the Constitution, you have to look after the dignity of your office and you have to avoid very personalistic attacks which he did.”
Bautista also said Aquino’s “very personalistic expressions of gratitude” were “out of place.”
“I mean, who cares if you have gratitude to your yaya? Or you have gratitude to your hairdresser di ba? Who cares? Everybody has a gratitude to somebody, but you spent precious time of the state of the nation address doing that. But what about his cabinet secretaries? These are his alter egos. If he praises them, he will praise himself, right?” Bautista said.