What made houseboy, drivers ‘experts’?
Vice President Jejomar C. Binay’s camp yesterday mockingly challenged Senator Antonio Trillanes IV to explain the “expertise” of three people – a houseboy and two drivers – among his fleet of consultants.
“Sagutin lang ang simpleng tanong na ito at tapos ang kuwento (Answer this simple question and the discussion is over),” said lawyer Rico Quicho, Binay’s spokesman for political affairs.
Reports have identified these three consultants as houseboy Eddie Ybañez, who Trillanes pays 3,500 a month and family drivers Bernard Allen Marzan and Jay-Ar Caro, who gets paid 11,500 and 8,100 a month, respectively.
“Instead of answering the issue of hiring two drivers and a houseboy as his consultants, Senator Trillanes angrily faced media. Instead of explaining, he blamed the Office of the Vice President,” Quicho said.
Trillanes, a vocal critic of Binay, reportedly spends a whopping 1.63-million monthly on the payroll of his 63 consultants – something that has raised eyebrows in some quarters.
The administration lawmaker’s excuse that some of the consultants were hired to conduct “auxiliary support services” was hit by Quicho, noting that it’s against existing rules.
“The senator’s so-called official reply raises more questions. The parameters of consultancy services are very clear. Consultants are experts, not support service suppliers,” said Quicho, a former counsel of ex-Supreme Court (SC) Chief Justice Renato Corona.
He added that the term “auxiliary support services” is too vague and general that it could refer to anything from being a driver to performing janitorial and maintenance work.
Quicho also castigated Trillanes, a former rebel soldier, for evading the issue on his questionable hiring of consultants by hurling the blame on Binay.
“First, the papers being referred to and quoted are COA (Commission on Audit) and Senate documents so to point finger at the camp of the Vice President is clearly evading the issue.
“He is the one being questioned by the COA – not the Vice President – and therefore all he has to do is explain the nature and work of some of his consultants,” Quicho further said of Trillanes.