Noynoy to retain GMA's bad policies if he wins - NP

MANILA, Philippines - Liberal Party (LP) standard-bearer Sen. Benigno Aquino III would retain the Arroyo administration’s failed policies if he wins the presidency on May 10, since many LP members and supporters had come from President Arroyo’s Cabinet, the Nacionalista Party (NP) said yesterday.

Speaking to reporters in Pasay City, NP spokesman Adel Tamano said former members of the Arroyo Cabinet would re-emerge in an Aquino Cabinet.

“You are also voting for people forming part of the administration,” he said.

“The head may be Noynoy but the body is Arroyo. If you have the same Cabinet as GMA had, you will have the same failed policies.”

Tamano, also an NP senatorial candidate, said that it does not suffice to make decisions based on the merits of an individual alone.

Aquino might run the country in the same way Mrs. Arroyo is doing because the same people would be around him, he added.

Poverty was at its highest under the Arroyo administration and education failed to improve during the past nine years, Tamano said.

Gilbert Remulla, the other NP spokesman, said the architects of suffering and poverty are still around and they are with Aquino.

“The biggest sanctuary of hardcore Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo allies-turned-critics and former Cabinet apologists-turned-traitors,” he said.

“Today, the Liberals are nothing more than a reunion of the failed GMA-Liberal Party regime of 2001-2005, minus GMA.”

Remulla said voters should expect Aquino’s relatives to continue their presence in government just like what is happening right now, if he becomes president.

The “dreaded” Kamaganak Inc. or Relatives Inc. would re-emerge under an Aquino administration, he added.

Remulla said Aquino was involved in the establishment of a private security agency during the term of his mother, the late President Corazon Aquino.

He presented the articles of incorporation of Best Security Agency, dated November 1986, which showed Aquino as one of its incorporators.

Remulla said that the agency clearly had among its goals securing government contracts and training government security personnel.

The document showed Aquino as one of the directors of the corporation which include his uncle Antolin Oreta Jr., Cipriano Lacson, George Gaddi, Bienvenido Reyes, Jacob Acuña and Alexander Lopez.

Remulla said that there was a clear conflict of interest in Aquino’s involvement in the security agency when his mother was president.

“The agency was incorporated nine months after his mother became president,” he said.

Remulla said Aquino did not tell the whole truth when he said that he had already divested his shares in the company by the time his mother became president.

It was only when the articles of incorporation were updated in 2002 that Aquino’s name disappeared from the list of directors, he added.

Remulla noted that Aquino was the third biggest shareholder of the corporation and had listed address as 1670 Arlegui Street., San Miguel, Manila, which is within the Malacañang compound.

“There is a huge tendency to have a Kamaganak Inc. again,” he said.

The NP said Aquino’s two aunts are in the Arroyo administration: Tessie Aquino-Oreta, chair of the Early Child Care and Development Council, and Lupita Aquino-Kashiwahara who serves as the image consultant of Mrs. Arroyo.

The NP said the presence of Aquino’s relatives in the Arroyo administration is a clear sign of the links between the two families, the NP added.

The NP has repeatedly hit the LP for having the most number of for-mer Arroyo Cabinet members under its wing, starting with the so-called Hyatt 10.

The LP also has a more recent Cabinet member, former socioeconomic planning secretary Ralph Recto, and Mrs. Arroyo’s economic adviser Albay Gov. Joey Salceda, the NP said.