Manila: President Benigno Aquino of the Philippines called for the resignation of Vice-President Jejomar Binay as head of government’s urban housing project and as an adviser on the welfare of overseas Filipino workers, as their rivalry has intensified.
“If he thinks we are on a wrong direction, he is free not to join us,” said Aquino in a strongly worded criticism against the leader of United Nationalist Alliance, also the opposition’s presidential candidate in 2016.
Despite allegations of corrupt activities, while he was mayor of Makati City, the financial district, and senate probes conducted by pro-Aquino allies, surveys said Binay has remained the most popular of all other possible presidential candidates in 2016.
Aquino’s remark was in reaction to Binay’s criticism of the Disbursement Acceleration Programme (DAP) that the president created in 2011. It allowed for the pooling of savings from line cabinets so that the president could distribute it to other agencies for economic developments.
DAP was the source of additional funding amounting to P50 million (Dh4.16 million) that the presidential palace extended to every senator and Congressman in late 2012, four months after the two Houses of Congress impeached former Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona in mid-2012 for nondisclosure of assets and liabilities.
At the time, Budget Secretary Florencio Abad admitted that the money came from DAP.
The Supreme Court ruled in 2014 that Aquino’s DAP was unconstitutional, specially the disbursement of executive funds to the legislative level (Congress).
“What is their defence [for DAP]? The end justifies the means? That DAP was used for various [good] things? I think it’s high time our lawyers come in where there is a violation of law,” Binay said at the national convention of public attorneys at the Manila Hotel.
Abad has refused to submit to the Senate and at the House of Representatives the list of recipients of DAP funds, said Binay,
The vice-president also criticised Justice Secretary Leila de Lima for saying the vice-president should be investigated when her office has not filed complaint of corrupt practices against Philippine National Police head Director General Alan Purisima, who, following a senate inquiry, allegedly amazed unexplained wealth.
The justice department’s kid glove treatment of Purisima was unfair in comparison to the harsh treatment being extended to former president Gloria Arroyo, who has remained under house arrest since 2012, Binay said.
He also criticised the justice department for not pursuing corruption charges against allies of Aquino at the Senate and the House of Representatives who allegedly misused their development funds to enrich themselves, as attested to by whistle blowers in senate inquiries.
Three opposition senators were imprisoned for allegedly approving the release of their development funds to nonexisting projects and through non-functioning nongovernment organisations.
“It is all part of the script of ‘Operation Anybody but Binay,” said the vice-president, who referred to a smear campaign against him to prevent him from winning in the 2016 presidential polls.
“The only reason I can be removed from office, among others, would be for the violation of the Constitution during my term as vice-president,” Binay said, adding that investigation at the senate of his alleged corrupt practices as a mayor would not impeach him.
When he won as vice-president in 2010, Aquino assigned Binay as head of the Housing on Urban Development and Coordinating Council (HUDCC) and as presidential adviser on OFWs.
Former president Corazon Aquino and Binay were allies in 1986, after she was propped up to power by a people-backed military mutiny that paved the way for the ouster of former president Ferdinand Marcos.
