Palace to Binay: Go ahead with your counter-SONA

MANILA, Philippines - Go ahead, this is a free country. With this pronouncement, Malacañang welcomed yesterday Vice President Jejomar Binay’s declaration to hold a “true” state of the nation address that he said would be bereft of lies and embellishment.

“If the Vice President wants to deliver a speech, he can always do so in our democracy,” Presidential Communications Operations Office Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. said in Filipino in a news conference at Malacañang.

Binay, who heads the opposition United Nationalist Alliance, vowed to report the true state of affairs in the country in an alternative SONA that he intends to deliver in the coming days.

President Aquino delivered his last SONA on Monday. Critics said Aquino had not been truthful in his SONA, which lasted for more than two hours – his longest. They said the President glossed over many of his administration’s blunders and again blamed many more on his predecessor.

“It’s the people who can ultimately judge if a SONA is true or not. In the end it’s the people who can decide on that,” Coloma said.

Delivering the SONA is one of the functions of a sitting President, Coloma pointed out, adding that since assuming the presidency in 2010, Aquino has always been truthful in all of his speeches to his “bosses – the Filipino people.”

Coloma declined to comment on the President’s apparent taking potshots at Binay during his SONA, saying he has not asked the Chief Executive about it.