Binay trapped in pincers

CANBERRA—Malacañang has rebuffed overtures by Vice President Jejomar Binay seeking President Benigno Aquino’s intervention to stop the Senate inquiry into alleged corruption during Binay’s tenure as mayor of Makati City. The rebuff signaled the escalation of the budding rift between the two highest officials of the land into an apparent all-out effort to “crush” Binay.

Speaking at a forum sponsored by the Foreign Correspondents Association of the Philippines on Wednesday, the President went out of his way to refute claims by Binay’s camp that it was he who had first offered help to the Vice President. He said Binay’s version was “in reverse” of their meeting last week in Malacañang.

“He stated that Dr. [Elenita] Binay was hurting from all this,” the President said of Binay. “I didn’t ask about the family. He volunteered the information. The person, I guess, with all due respect to that person, I think, had it in reverse.”

The President claimed that it was Binay who sought the meeting and sought advice on how to face the corruption charges. He quoted Binay as saying, “I accept that we differ in our political beliefs, but we are friends.” Cavite Gov. Jonvic Remulla, Binay’s spokesman for political concerns, claimed that it was Mr. Aquino who had asked about Binay’s family. The President said he told Binay that at the end of the day, “truth will come out.”

The meeting was claimed by Binay’s side to be “jovial,” but according to Inquirer columnist

Ramon Tulfo, citing anonymous Palace sources, the meeting was cordial but not jovial. The President was reported to be in a serious mood. According to Tulfo, Binay sought the meeting apparently to appease the President after he accused the administration of “mistreating” former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, who is facing plunder cases, and of looking the other way on the issue of the unexplained wealth of Philippine National Police Director General Alan Purisima.

Binay was reported to have requested the President to stop the Senate blue ribbon subcommittee’s inquiry into the alleged overprice in the construction of Makati City Hall Building II and his unexplained wealth. To this request, the President was reported to have replied that he could not stop the investigation because the Senate is an independent branch of the government and Binay was facing a whole lot of problems. On going easy on Arroyo, Mr. Aquino was reported to have given Binay a “wry smile.” After Binay had left, the President reportedly told his staff, “If there are more cases to be filed against GMA (Arroyo), let’s file them.”

In the aftermath of the meeting, Binay turned truculent and said he would explain his side directly to the people. He faces formidable odds. He brushed aside the results of the latest Social Weather Stations survey showing that 79 percent of Filipinos want him to show up at the Senate subcommittee’s hearings and address the issues raised against him.

But Remulla reiterated that Binay would not attend the “farcical proceedings” of the subcommittee. He claimed that Binay had been prejudged by the subcommittee, and that Senators Alan Peter Cayetano and Antonio Trillanes had been unfairly conducting the inquiry. He pointed out that the two senators had accepted the “unfounded claims” of former Makati vice mayor Ernesto Mercado.

How Binay will conduct his information campaign to counter the avalanche of evidence presented at the Senate hearings, including aerial photos of the “hacienda” that he allegedly owns, remains a big puzzle, considering that government resources have been deployed to bring up criminal cases of corruption, and even possible impeachment action, against him.

The Senate hearings, together with media reports based on documentary evidence, appear to have wrought havoc at least on Binay’s ratings in the opinion surveys. Binay’s net satisfaction rating fell by 15 points from 67 percent in June to 52 percent last month, based on the SWS survey conducted on Sept. 26-29. Whether Binay’s refusal to appear at the Senate hearings and decision to ignore the surveys will halt the drop in his ratings and help in shoring up his position against an impeachment action remain doubtful.

What’s clear is that the administration is on a punitive mode. The trigger-happy Justice Secretary Leila de Lima, smelling blood, has insisted on the Department of Justice’s right to investigate impeachable officials, including the vice president (but not the president), saying that the results of the DOJ probe could later be used to initiate an impeachment case.

De Lima said she was considering whether to order the National Bureau of Investigation to look into the corruption allegations against Binay. Asked by reporters if Binay, after the investigation, could be charged in a regular court and then jailed during his term as vice president, she replied: “I won’t go that far. It’s a gray area. It really depends on how the criminal court will interpret the provisions of impeachability vis-à-vis impeachable officials who are not immune from suit.” The NBI probe, should she order it, would be “fact-finding in nature, more specifically, to validate/verify the veracity of or truthfulness” of the allegations of former vice mayor Mercado and other whistle-blowers.

Where does Binay have to go to escape these pincers?