Poe signs draft report vs Binay; VP saddened
Senator Grace Poe Llamanzares yesterday confirmed she signed the draft Senate committee report recommending the filing of plunder charges against Vice President Jejomar Binay.
In a text message to reporters, Poe said she found the evidence produced against Binay and his son, Makati Mayor Jejomar Erwin “Junjun” Binay, substantive.
“I have read the subcommittee recommendation and found the same supported by documentary evidence as well as expert and personal testimonies that remain un-rebutted by competent evidence to the contrary,” Poe said.
“Vice President Binay is saddened that Sen. Grace Poe seems to be favor- ing the senators who persecuted him and his family and bullied innocent people,” Binay’s spokesman for political affairs, lawyer Rico Quicho, said in a statement.
Quicho said Poe should have at least read Binay’s affidavit which was submitted to the Senate, but was supposedly ignored by the subcommittee.
“In the affidavit, Vice President Binay clarified issues and explained why the allegations are baseless,” Quicho said.
“As we said before, accusations against government officials must be based on credible evidence and not from perjured and polluted sources,” he stressed.
Plunder, Quicho noted, “is a serious charge which must be fully established based on facts and prevailing jurisprudence before requiring an impeachable official like the Vice President to explain his innocence.”
“Otherwise, this one-sided inquisition does nothing but promote trial by publicity that directly undermines the constitutional rights to due process and brushed aside the presumption of innocence. It highlights the senators’ lack of respect for the rule of law,” he said.
Nonetheless, the Binay camp said “the Vice President remains focused on the task at hand.”
Poe said she supports the findings of the Senate sub-panel the same way she backed the findings of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee into the Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) or the so-called pork barrel fund scam.
The Senate report on the PDAF scam also recommended the filing of plunder and graft charges against Senators Juan Ponce Enrile, Jose “Jinggoy” Estrada and Ramon “Bong” Revilla, Jr.