3 nabbed for heckling Noy in NY university

NEW YORK – US Secret Service agents and members of the Presidential Security Group nabbed two young women and their male companion after they heckled President Aquino, who was delivering a speech at Columbia University here on Tuesday.

The militant members of the women’s group Gabriela carried folded streamers and were chanting “shame on you, shame on you” while Aquino was delivering his speech at the Green Room, Low Library of the university.

The three Filipino-Americans, who were not immediately identified, were accosted outside the rotunda where Aquino delivered a policy speech at the World Leaders Forum, where a question and answer portion was also held.

In a sit-down interview with Manila-based reporters, Aquino said he has been trying to understand as much as possible the students’ concerns, but what bothers him most was that the girl was rather young.

“I hope they really understand what they’re doing and what they’re talking about,” he said.

Likewise, a man from Virginia was also prevented by the US Secret Service and school policemen last Monday in Cambridge, Massachusetts when he tried to heckle Aquino during the question-and-answer portion of the JFK Forum in Harvard University in Boston.

The Filipino-American, identified only as Joseph, asked why the Philippines kept buying arms from abroad when the poor country does not even generate employment and boost the local economy.

“I just wanted to ask why are you purchasing arms from Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and the United States, knowing that in the United States and all these other countries, security and defense is an industry,” he said.

“Why would you buy arms knowing that it does not create jobs nor does it expand the economy of the Philippines?” he asked.

Aquino replied: “Are we buying a lot of arms or are most of it arms? Perhaps in absolute numbers, we’re buying rifles for our Armed Forces to the tune of about 50,000. We have a 250,000-strong security sector. We have weapons that are Vietnam era, vintage.

“And that’s not the tail end of the Vietnam war era – that’s the earlier part. We have ships, 132, most of them World War II, if not, all of them – no, I can’t say all of them – there are like five or so,” he explained further.

“We have a 36,000-kilometer coastline and you’re asking these 70-year-old, 80-year-old ships to do the protection. We need interconnectivity between our islands – 7,100 of them. We need the choppers and the aircraft to bring in the relief goods,” Aquino added, after which the heckler was stopped from asking questions.

“Please, just let the President answer… We’re not here to listen to you,” the moderator said.

“Well, again, you’re talking in generalities. Please look at the shopping list and tell us how much of the budget has gone into arms and how much of it is for equipment that we do need to service our people,” Aquino said.

Malacañang said the heckling incident in New York was expected.

“It’s not surprising. There is freedom of expression. It happened during the Q and A. It is something that has happened to him before,” presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda said.

“He attempted to explain but apparently, the person did not want to hear the explanation of the President, so what’s the point of explaining further if all a person wanted to voice out, is to listen to her voice, to listen to her arguments and not wanting a dialogue?” he added. – Delon Porcalla, Alexis Romero