Incredible prevarication! VP BINAY PLAYS RICH VS. POOR CARD TO SAVE SAGGING PRESIDENTIAL BID

By Manny Pinol

Politicians are like movie stars who put their best foot forward and project their best image to impress and gain the sympathy of the voters.

Tall tales, outright lies, a sad face for the death of people they don’t even know, a kiss for a baby and an embrace of a disheveled elderly. These are all put on acts but they’re all par for the course in politics.

Faced with scandals which endangered the presidency she took over from Joseph Estrada in 2001, then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo publicly declared that she would no longer seek reelection in 2004.

She ran in 2004 just the same and, in spite of accusations that she cheated Fernando Poe Jr. in that election, remained President until 2010.

She said “I’m sorry!” when the Garci tapes scandal surfaced. People knew she wasn’t and that she lied but let it pass just the same.

But just how far could politicians lie?

Embattled Vice President Jejomar Binay was caught lying when he declared that he does not own the controversial Rosario, Batangas property.

The proofs? A 2010 tape recorded interview with South China Morning Post journalist Raissa Robles where Binay admitted that he bought the property for P30 per square meter and an abs-cbn interview of an old and sickly woman who said that her land was bought by Binay in 2004 and that the then Mayor of Makati visited her property twice after the purchase.

Binay declared that he would only appear in the Senate if the hearing were conducted by the Mother Committee of the Senate Blue Ribbon instead of the sub-committee chaired by Sen. Koko Pimentel with Antonio Trillanes and Alan Peter Cayetano as members.

When Guingona issued a statement that the Senate Blue Ribbon Mother Committee was granting Vice President Binay’s request and it was inviting him to a hearing, everything fell silent in the Binay camp.

Perhaps in a fit of irritation, Vice President Binay challenged Senator Antonio Trillanes, who he calls his main detractor, to a public debate “anytime, anywhere” but when Trillanes accepted the dare, no further statement was heard from the Binay camp.

Last week, following stinging criticisms of the Aquino administration, Vice President Binay met with the President and came out brimming with pride saying that his friendship with President Aquino was further strengthened.

The following day his spokespersons announced that President Aquino offered to help the embattled Vice President in his problems with the corruption issues.

A visibly irked President Aquino immediately issued a statement belying the Vice President claim and said that it was actually the Vice President who asked him if the Senate investigation on corruption charges and unexplained wealth could be stopped.

It was a public rebuke and any public figure who had a little amount of decency and delicadeza left would have immediately resigned from the Aquino cabinet.

Not Vice President Binay. He took the public spanking by the President in stride and went on provincial sorties where he brought his case to the poor and the unshod.

In an unbelievable effort to save a floundering Presidential bid, the Vice President pulled out the last card in his sleeves: the Rich versus Poor story.

In an interview with a local radio station, the Inquirer’s Julie Alipala reported that Binay claimed that the issues against him are part of a conspiracy among the rich to prevent a poor, dark skinned kid like him from serving the poor.

I have heard many political tall tales and lies in the past but the latest sympathy-getting line of Vice President Binay takes the cake. It simply beats all records in political lying.

Unfortunately for the embattled Vice President, if he believes that to be poor means to be naive, uneducated and ignorant, he is dead wrong.

Even with the help of corrupt members of the media who gloss over proofs of Vice President Binay’s lies and his political allies who say that he will “weather the storm,” the story of the Vice President’s wealth and his desperate attempts to prevaricate to survive has filtered down even to young school kids who talk about it openly.

The poor and the young could identify a lie when they hear one.