I don’t believe “Binay will back out from the presidential race,” Sen. Antonio Trillanes says—nay, assures the public (Inquirer.net, 05/14/15).
Truth to tell, Vice President Jejomar Binay’s chances of winning the presidency in 2016 have been rendered very slim by the AMLC (Anti-Money Laundering Council) report which supposedly indicated that a total of P11 billion has been recorded in the accounts of Binay, his son Mayor Junjun Binay of Makati City and his alleged dummies. Add to that the emergence of Sen. Grace Poe as possible presidential candidate of the administration; ergo, Binay’s bid for president is indeed in big trouble! But losing and withdrawing are a whale of a difference!
My plain common sense—I am beginning to doubt if the good senator has or uses his—tells me these negative developments are simply not enough to make Binay, or anybody else in his predicament, for that matter, to summarily withdraw from a clearly consuming obsession he has had for many years. Maybe Trillanes thinks that because of the AMLC report and the concomitant freeze order issued by the Court of Appeals on the related bank accounts, Binay may now be indicted by the Ombudsman and eventually charged in court. And so, “tapos na ang boksing!”
Wrong! He forgets, or simply conveniently ignores the fact that, as vice president, Binay, as an impeachable official, may be immune from suit. I mean—well, again thinking commonsensically—if Trillanes himself did not back out from running in his original bid for senator even if he was then already behind bars, why would Binay withdraw from his bid for president simply because of the AMLC scandal?
Without either defending the vice president or criticizing the senator, methinks no rational reader would outright swallow one other of Trillanes’ “shocking myths” hook, line and sinker.
—RUDY L. CORONEL, rudycoronel 2004@gmail.com