Amusing arguments and deeply flawed conclusion

I write in reference to Antonio J. Montalvan II’s opinion column “Coming Soon: Miriam vs. Benhur” (5/19/14), where he made particular mention of “a slip” I purportedly made when he and his group paid me a visit in Batanes, in which he recalls me saying, “That is why we want to remain in power.”

As ludicrous as his claim sounds, what I find more interesting is the unmistakable antagonism his piece showed toward me and my husband, Budget Secretary Florencio B. Abad, from start to finish. He began his column by implying that anyone visiting Batanes must pay me a courtesy call, but not until he first bemoaned the fact that Batanes had “succumbed” to the “congressional merry-go-round” that Secretary Abad’s representation and mine have somehow imposed on it.

I must confess my amusement, too, at Montalvan’s proclivity for non sequitur arguments. Initially, he strung together some picturesque descriptions of Fundacion Pacita and our house in Batanes, and later tagged these—and my family’s track record in government service—as proof of our corruption and our goal of “remaining in power.” He even went so far as to say that the ordinary citizen cannot but think that “the Abads have benefited from the alleged Napoles scam.”

What is not amusing, however, is his lopsided treatment of our family’s work as public servants, as well as its potential to guide readers toward a deeply flawed conclusion: that I and my family have taken advantage of our positions of leadership—positions we have hungrily clung to, if Montalvan is to be believed—to profit at the Filipino people’s great expense.

In reading his piece, some hard questions come to mind: If I were so consumed by the goal of “remaining in power” in Batanes, why did I not push for my congressional candidacy in the 2007 elections? One must note that during my first term as representative of Batanes in 2004-2007, Priority Development Assistance Fund releases for the district stopped coming in as early as 2005. All infrastructure projects for the province were also blocked from that year onward. It was clearly a consequence of my husband’s resignation from then President Gloria Arroyo’s Cabinet after allegations of widespread election fraud—supposedly at her behest—surfaced that year.

The possibility of my reelection in 2007 thus foreshadowed the cessation of PDAF and infrastructure service support to Batanes. I was loath to invite such a retaliatory move from the former president, lest the Ivatan be deprived once again of the public services they rightfully deserved. I did not run in that year’s elections. This seems to be poor evidence of my apparent desire to “remain in power.”

I am also questioning the uncanny timeliness of Montalvan’s column. Given that his supposed encounter with me in Sabtang took place early in 2013, why would he write about it only now, more than a year since he says it happened? And, excitingly enough, at a time of acute public interest in the PDAF scam, when suggesting guilt—as his latest column does with great aplomb—may be enough to establish the same?

I wish to reassure you that I hold the Inquirer in high regard. However, the portrayal of my family in Montalvan’s column does not seem to be in keeping with its standard for fair and objective journalism.

—HENEDINA R. ABAD, representative,

lone district of Batanes