Binay camp in headlong retreat

THE BINAY CAMP is in headlong retreat after launching an attack on the citizenship and residency of Sen. Grace Poe, the candidate that camp knows will beat Vice President Jejomar Binay in next year’s presidential election; hence the attempt to disqualify her. Poe’s citizenship and residency turned out to be all right (she is a natural-born Filipino and has resided in the Philippines for more than 10 years), and so s–t exploded on the faces of Binay and his lieutenants. Why are they ganging up on a poor foundling?

Rep. Toby Tiangco, Binay’s top attack dog, who had waved before television cameras Poe’s 2010 certificate of candidacy, apologized, not personally though but through a text message that he sent to media.

His apology is really to try to reduce the bad publicity in media and not to say sorry to Poe.

Poe said she is just a phone call away but Binay has not phoned her. Binay’s second attack dog, JV Bautista, who questioned Poe’s citizenship, has not apologized yet. Neither has Binay himself. His daughter, Rep. Abigail Binay, read a prepared statement before media asking for a stop to the quarrel between the Binay and Poe families, a quarrel that the Binays are clearly losing, hence the white flag. But from the Vice President himself, nothing but a press statement that he was also adopted, ha ha ha ha ha, gaya-gaya, puto maya (copycat).

They have come to realize that the attack on the foundling who was adopted bymovie couple Fernando Poe Jr. and Susan Roces was a terrible mistake and, now, in terror, they don’t know what to do.

Note that in the turmoil, Binay himself wants to appear clean. He said the boo-boos by Tiangco and Bautista were not with his blessings. But he has not reprimanded them and they still work for him. For such big boo-boos, they did not even get a slap on the wrist. Grace herself said she does not believe that such a vicious attack on her did not have Binay’s blessing.

But that is Binay’s style. He lets his attack dogs and family members defend him, but he does not have the courage to face the people and the media to defend himself, obviously so he would not be caught in contradictions by what he says. On the corruption allegations, he snubbed the invitations of the Senate blue ribbon committee for him to explain his side. Instead, it was his several spokesmen who did the talking—to the press, not to the Senate. And what they said were generic statements—“that’s only politics, they are all lies, it is only to pull down Binay’s rating in the surveys.” Nothing on the allegations themselves.

The surprising thing on the sudden attack on Grace Poe is that the senator has not even decided to run for president or vice president yet, although political parties have invited her to join their tickets. One of these parties was United Nationalist Alliance which Binay claims as his party. (UNA is not Binay’s party. His party was PDP-Laban from which he was kicked out. UNA is the coalition of parties organized by Mayor Joseph Estrada, former Senate president Juan Ponce Enrile and Binay, but it is 90 percent composed of Erap’s Pwersa ng Masang Pilipino. Binay and Enrile brought nothing but themselves and their families to the coalition.)

UNA asked Poe to be Binay’s running mate. But when she turned down the offer, Binay’s attack dogs suddenly found out that she was not qualified for president or vice president. Those are the kind of characters who make up the Binay camp.

Binay is having a difficult time finding a running mate. For who is the fool who would want to run with a candidate who is up to his neck in corruption charges? After Poe turned him down, Binay asked Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte to be his VP bet, but Duterte turned him down, too. How could he have done otherwise? He had said that if he became president, he would throw corrupt officials into Manila Bay to fatten the fish. Who do you think would be one of them?

Now Binay wants former president Joseph Estrada to be his running mate, but Erap said: Who, me, your vice president? Hindi ba VP lang kita noong 2010?

Some friends of Erap suspect that Binay double-crossed him by carrying a Noy-Bi (Noynoy-Binay) ticket. They said Erap lost in some areas in Makati, Binay’s bailiwick. That is not surprising since another Binay ally and vice mayor, Ernesto Mercado, claims Binay

also double-crossed him, which is why he is now spilling the beans on him. Grace Poe also claims that Binay invited her to join the UNA senatorial ticket in 2013, but she was laterremoved from its ticket. Nevertheless, she won with the highest number of votes among the senators.

Grace Poe should run for president or vice president. Hers is a very beautiful story—a foundling who becomes president of her country. She will make the Philippines the talk of the world again, the same way Cory Aquino did, a plain housewife who drove away a dictator and became president of her country.

The world loves underdogs and orphans. That was why “Oliver!” and “Annie” and “Trudis Liit” became box-office hits and launched the careers of Mark Lester, Lea Salonga and Vilma Santos, respectively. Now almost all Filipinos love Grace, the foundling, and will certainly make her their president.