Will Binay's evasive tactics work?
WHEN it rains, it really pours. With Vice President Jejomar Binay refusing to grace the Senate blue ribbon subcommittee hearing on the supposed overpricing of the Makati City parking building, the probe has become like a dark cloud raining allegations of corrupt acts on him. I wasn't surprised, therefore, when yesterday's hearing featured Binay's lawyers attempting to stop the proceedings.
Binay filed a motion questioning the subcommittee's jurisdiction over the matter but the subcommittee members swiftly denied it. The jurisdictional challenge was eventually brought to the Supreme Court. In the meantime, the Binays will have to continue to pretend to look away and act like, as Tagalogs would say, "wala lang."
But they just couldn't ignore everything that the subcommittee is doing. In the hearing the other day, the gains that the VP acquired from the recent press con wherein he showed his statement of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALN) vanished with the presentation by the subcommittee of additional witnesses. Now, Binay's statement that he is willing to undergo a lifestyle check will be put to a test.
Binay had claimed in his SALN a net worth of P60 million. But the subcommittee's hearing seemed to have proven that he was not actually truthful in that claim. The allegation was that the VP has dummies run realty and security firms that are actually his. The insinuation was that he is far richer than what he is actually claiming.
But as Sens. Alan Peter Cayetano and Antonio Trillanes IV grilled new witnesses against the VP during the Senate hearing, Binay proceeded with the next phase of his counter-propaganda effort (the SALN presentation was but the most recent phase). He went to Balut, Tondo to turn over housing units to former residents of the famous garbage dump, Smoky Mountain.
“You can see me working. That's why I'm here,” he told reporters. “Prioritizing work over politics” was the spin of Binay's spokesperson, Cavite Gov. Jonvic Remulla.
It's actually called squid tactics. You know those squids? When a predator approaches, they release a cloud of inklike material. While the predator's view is momentarily obstructed, they make a hasty escape. Squid tactics is therefore an evasive maneuver.
This has been successfully done by Binay before. During a recent “speech,” he labeled the charges raised in the Senate against him as “lies, hearsay, rehashed.” He put it this way: “Their accusations against me are old hat. Every time there are elections in Makati my political enemies peddle and revive all these lies.”
Binay's message was that if he was successful in parrying the allegations against him before, then there is no reason he can't be successful in this regard now. He need not answer the allegations point by point. He just has to issue a denial and then concoct activities that would make him look good to the public.
But will he be successful this time? I am not sure of that.
On this, I would use again the Manuel Villar experience because he, too, was the initial frontrunner in the presidential race of 2010. And Like Binay, Villar also used his humble origins to gain voters' sympathy. But it took only the surfacing of stories of him supposedly using his clout as Senate president so a major road project would meander near his subdivision projects. He stumbled.
Corruption has always been an important issue in presidential elections in the Philippines, more so than using the poverty card. That is the issue that Binay must deal with head on. If he cannot answer the allegations well, then he will fall.