Corruption will be biggest issue in 2016 polls

How would President Aquino feel if the senators tell him how to do his job? The senators feel the same way.

What if former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo were to ask the senators to tell P-Noy (President Aquino) to stop his “persecution” of her and then they say in a press conference that the graft case against her is being done in “dribs and drabs” and that the executive branch should wind it up so that he, the President, can attend to other matters?

The President telling the Senate what to do regarding its investigation of Vice President Jejomar Binay is in bad taste, especially because Binay had asked him to stop the inquiry and he called Senate President Franklin Drilon to relay Binay’s plea. Drilon wisely answered that the Senate is composed of “24 independent republics” and no one, not even the President or himself, can tell them what to do. The Senate is not like the House of Representatives, many of whose members are like a herd of goats. Thank God for the Senate; if not for it, the biggest corruption scandal to hit the nation will go on undetected and unpunished.

P-Noy was elected on an anticorruption campaign, and his battle cry is “daang matuwid” (straight path). That is the reason GMA and three senators are now detained on corruption charges, and scores of other public officials will soon be detained, too, for their involvement in the pork barrel scam. That is why the chief justice was impeached. What’s so special with Binay? Because he is a friend of the Aquino family?

I think appointing Binay as officer in charge of Makati in 1986 was the biggest mistake of then President Corazon Aquino. Look what has happened to him and what he and his family have done.

I think corruption is the biggest problem of the Philippines. Massive amounts of money that should be used for the welfare of the people have been and are being stolen by public officials, elected and appointed. I think corruption will be the biggest issue in the 2016 presidential election. The people are tired of corruption. Binay is running for president in that election and the people should know his moral qualifications, or lack of them. The people should remember the Marcos-Imelda partnership.

As the three blue ribbon subcommittee senators said, the investigation is being delayed by Binay’s refusal to give his side in the corruption allegations of witnesses and by efforts to block the presentation of evidence. And that P-Noy has no business meddling in the affairs of the Senate.

I think this investigation of the alleged corruption committed by the second highest official of the land who wants to be No. 1 is more important than the administration bills pending in the Senate. There may be many laws passed, but if public officials are corrupt, the laws would be useless.

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Fear and guilt were all over the facial expression and body language of Binay when he was announcing that he was backing out of the debate with Sen. Antonio Trillanes that he had proposed. It was he who had challenged Trillanes to the debate: “Kung gusto niya, debate kami, anytime, anywhere.” But when Trillanes accepted the challenge, he began to look for excuses to back out. (Note that he did not challenge Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano, who is a lawyer like himself. He probably thought that Trillanes, who is not a lawyer but a soldier, would be a pushover.)

When rumors circulated that he was going to back out of the debate, Binay said: “Hindi tayo aatras. Hindi yata ako umaatras.” (We will not retreat. I do not retreat.)

So why did Binay back out on the very flimsy excuse that Trillanes had said he would be at a disadvantage because he is not a lawyer? So what if he said that? The debate itself would have shown the people who is lying and who is not. It seems Binay is just a bluffer.

Why is Binay so scared to face Trillanes to the point that he has lost not only face but also credibility? It turns out that Trillanes knew a big secret that, if known by the public, would reveal Binay’s character. According to Trillanes, Binay egged his group to attempt a coup against GMA, promising to mobilize Makati government employees and urban poor groups to back it.

When the day came, Binay did not back it but backed off, and the attempted coup led to the siege at the Manila Peninsula. When Trillanes et al. were already in jail, Binay showed up to apologize, the senator said. He claimed that he got “wrong information.” Huh? He was among the plotters and he had wrong information? He could not even concoct a credible excuse.

“Binay cannot be trusted,” said Trillanes. So should we trust him with the fate of the nation and elect him (please don’t!) president? Trustworthiness is the first qualification of a boy scout. Why is Binay still the president (20 years already) of the Boy Scouts of the Philippines? I am a boy scout myself, and I am ashamed to say that he is our president.