Mart Del Rosario’s commentary, “The unraveling of Jojo Binay” (Opinion, 10/27/14), was so biased against Vice President Jejomar Binay that one wonders whether he wants to unretire as a PR consultant to get a slice of the big war kitty obviously being enjoyed by Binay-bashers like Sen. Antonio Trillanes.
Del Rosario might have wanted to awe and dazzle Inquirer readers with the “tricks and gimmicks” that he said Binay’s “spin doctors” are using, without him realizing that what he enumerated holds true more for Binay’s detractors than for Binay.
Let’s look at the techniques cited by Del Rosario one by one.
Circumlocution. Former Makati vice mayor Ernesto Mercado and Senators Trillanes and Alan Peter Cayetano are the ones engaged in “verbal acrobatics” and big talk while failing to produce, thus far, evidence that would stand in court against Binay.
Argumentum ad hominem. Trillanes is most guilty of this sin of name-calling when he called businessman Antonio Tiu a “pathological liar” and Binay “corrupt.” Let’s not forget that former secretary Angie Reyes chose to kill himself rather than take more verbal abuse from an oaf like Trillanes.
Evasion. Evasion, through nonstop repetition of claims already proven to be lies, has been the hallmark of the anti-Binay forces. Just to cite a few:
Lie No. 1, calling Makati City Hall II a mere parking building when it’s a fully functioning office building; Lie No. 2, alleging the Rosario, Batangas, farm of Tiu to be 350 hectares when it is just 145 hectares; and Lie No. 3, that the piggery in the farm is air-conditioned when Trillanes himself has found, to his chagrin, that it is not.
Discombobulate. Nobody does this better than Cayetano with his long monologues and the citation of irrelevant materials like his alleged “construction bible,” which he used as basis in claiming Makati City Hall II, to be overpriced.
For all the self-proclaimed expertise of
Del Rosario, he himself is guilty of circumlocution, evasion, discombobulation and ad hominem attacks on Binay. Maybe he should stick to playing golf and staying retired.
—LEA RIZA C. ALLID,
lerizca@yahoo.com