The Feb. 21 issue of the Inquirer carried a front-page item: “Tingting: Binay’s group agrees to post-Aquino advisory body.” In it, President Aquino’s aunt, former Tarlac Gov. Tingting Cojuangco, was reported as saying her husband, former Tarlac Rep. Peping Cojuangco (Mr. Aquino’s uncle), was able to convince the Binay group not to grab power for Vice President Jejomar Binay once P-Noy steps down. This echoes what some Catholic bishops (who cannot forgive P-Noy for inflicting so much misery on their favorite president, Gloria M. Arroyo) have been advocating these days.
Allow us to quote from Solita Monsod’s column “Resignation at what cost?” (Opinion, 2/7/15): “Are you out of your minds?” Whatever family feud has been going on between the Aquinos and the Cojuangcos, it’s really none of our business. But when their bickering is brought out in the open and starts driving political agendas, it becomes cause for public concern, if not alarm.
The Conjuangcos must really be an obtuse lot to believe that Vice President Binay can be trusted on his word. He has been dreaming of Malacañang since he was installed as officer in charge of then municipality of Makati. We already saw how he has been scheming since Day 1 in public office to enrich himself in order to be able to fund such a humongous campaign. Do they really expect him to step aside from the line of succession just to give way to an “advisory council” of self-proclaimed messiahs to run the country in the meantime?
If President Aquino does “step down,” that will not ipso facto bring about a “revolutionary” situation which may justify a “junta-like” government as happened in the wake of Edsa 1, where an unelected housewife and her own brat pack ruled the roost after the Marcos family was banished from the country.
Coup d’etat being just wild talk, the kind of “stepping down” thought of by the Cojuangcos requires merely the resignation of Mr. Aquino. That, by itself, would trigger the process of succession which will hand over the presidency to the vice president on a silver platter—unless Binay himself resigns simultaneously!
And even if Binay also resigns, the only possibility for an “advisory council” to happen is when all those in the line of succession (Senate President Franklin Drilon, House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte and Chief Justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno) all resign simultaneously! The Constitution cannot be amended by the mere confabulation, not to say conspiracy, between the Cojuangcos and their ilk on the one hand and the Binay camp on the other! See how totally loony that idea is?
—GEORGE DEL MAR, gdmlaw111@gmail.com