Cayetano chides Binay camp for engaging in squid tactics

MANILA, Philippines – The camp of Vice President Jejomar Binay is resorting to squid tactics to cover up his inability to dispute the allegations raised against him, Senate Majority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano said yesterday.

Cayetano said the Vice President and his spokespersons have made it a habit to go after the senators who have been speaking out against him, as well as the witnesses who have been testifying against him, whenever he is faced with issues that they could not answer.

“From the start, they have done nothing but to change the topic or what is called squid tactics. As a friend of mine once said, if you have lost a chess match against a grandmaster then just topple the chess board, ruin the match,” Cayetano said.

“Instead of facing us, instead of answering the questions, instead of airing their side, they are attacking us three senators and the process,” he added referring to himself and Senators Aquilino Pimentel III and Antonio Trillanes IV.

Pimentel is the chairman of the Senate Blue Ribbon sub-committee that is investigating the allegedly overpriced parking building constructed by the city government of Makati when Binay was mayor. Cayetano and Trillanes are members of the committee.

Cayetano noted that the stunt pulled by Navotas Rep. Toby Tiangco and lawyer JV Bautista, both spokespersons of the Vice President, during the Senate hearing held last Thursday was a demonstration of how the camp of Binay has been trying to veer the attention of the public away from the issues raised against their principal.

Tiangco and Bautista attempted to speak during the hearing even though they were neither invited as resource persons nor allowed to take part in the proceedings by the sub-committee members.

They were promptly thrown out of the session hall where the hearing was being held.

According to the two, they were there to ask the sub-committee to strike out from its records the testimony of former Makati City vice mayor Ernesto Mercado, which they claimed was full of lies.

They cited the challenge made by Mercado himself during an earlier hearing that if the camp of Binay can prove that he was hospitalized anywhere, he would have his testimony stricken off the record and acknowledge that he is a liar.

In a press briefing held by the two after they were thrown out of the session hall, they presented documents from the University of the East Ramon Magsaysay Memorial Medical Center (UERMMC) showing that a patient named Ernesto Mercado was there last Oct. 1 and 4 to undergo some tests.

Mercado has denied the claims of Tiangco and Bautista, saying that he has never been to the UERMMC and that the only hospital he goes to for check-ups is the Makati Medical Center.

He challenged the camp of Binay to prove that he was the Ernesto Mercado in those documents that they presented.

Mercado has been a key witness in the hearings of the Blue Ribbon sub-committee with his testimonies about the alleged overpricing of the infrastructure projects of Makati, the supposed kickbacks received by Binay and the reported ownership by the Vice President of various properties around the country, including a 150- to 350-hectare estate in Rosario, Batangas.

The Vice President has denied owning the Batangas estate and a Chinese-Filipino businessman named Antonio Tiu has come out claiming ownership of the property.

The Blue Ribbon sub-committee members remain unconvinced that Tiu is the actual owner of the estate because of his inability to show any compelling evidence to support his claims.

Last Friday, Mercado revealed that the Vice President also has a seven- to eight-hectare property in Matawi, Dingalan in Aurora province, which the two of them purchased sometime in 1998.

In an interview with dzMM, Mercado said that the seaside property was not that expensive and was originally intended only as breeding ground for chickens. They had to scrap the plan upon learning that chickens don’t thrive in seaside areas.

Mercado said the four titles to the property were under his care until they were taken from him by Binay’s daughter, Makati City Rep. Mar-len Abigail Binay, in 2010 after her father won the vice presidency.