Face Off
One of the Philippines’ top opposition politicians, Makati City Mayor Jejomar Binay, barricaded himself in his office on Tuesday hours after the government issued an order suspending him and his entire city administration from office.
As supporters of the mayor gathered outside his headquarters, police in Metro Manila were placed on alert in anticipation of possible violence. The entire affair is being shown live on television.
“This is pure harassment,” the fiery Binay told radio stations in successive interviews as the crisis began and police ringed the city hall of the country’s wealthiest enclave. The Department of the Interior and Local Government accuses Binay and other local officials of keeping so-called “ghost employees” on the municipal payroll in order to pocket their salaries. Binay, a one-time human rights lawyer, denies the charge.
Makati City, which is adjacent to Manila, is home to most of the country’s wealthiest businesses and many of its most prominent families. Binay, however, also has a powerful base of support among thousands of impoverished local residents in older areas of the city. He and his family have held power here almost continuously since the overthrow of Ferdinand Marcos in 1986.
Early last week, Binay asked the Philippines Court of Appeals to stop his impending suspension, arguing that the charges were trumped up. He said Tuesday he is confident of winning a reprieve from the court. “I will not back down,” he said.
Binay’s real crime may be his outspoken leadership of opposition figures wanting to out the scandal-wracked government of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo from office.
Below is a profile of Binay from the current edition of Manila’s NEWSBREAK magazine arguing that that the Presidential Palace is behind the campaign to oust Binay.
Purge in the City
Jo Jo Binay is the Mayor Philippines President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo Loves to Hate
Reprinted by permission from NewsbreakMagazine, (October 23, 2006)
By Miriam Grace A. Go
EVEN BEFORE Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay warned about it, there already loomed an apparent pattern of opposition mayors, at least in Metro Manila, being stripped of certain powers by Malacañang. In March, there was Pasig City’s Vicente Eusebio; in August, Pasay City’s Wenceslao “Peewee” Trinidad. So when Binay cried political persecution over a series of administrative and graft complaints being prepared against him in September, it made people think.
Binay is the only one raising hell. Eusebio stayed abroad when he was embroiled in a controversy; Trinidad quietly asked the Court of Appeals to stop his suspension. Binay called for a press conference as soon as Malacañang asked him to respond to an administrative complaint, saying this was part of a plan to weaken the opposition. At the time, he didn’t know that a case over other allegations would soon be filed against him before the Sandiganbayan.
The truth is, the Palace is after Binay, just Binay.
Based on interviews with several sources in other local government units (LGUs) in the capital, NEWSBREAK didn’t see the administration systematically undermining the political strength of other mayors. But in Makati, there’s convincing information that the Palace is putting to motion a calculated campaign to remove the mayor from City Hall. Sources privy to certain aspects of the game plan say that a Cabinet official, known to do sensitive backroom work for the First Couple, is the Palace’s point man for the Makati project.
The problem of these opposition mayors is that the wrongdoings for which they are being questioned are backed by documents, regardless of the identity or political motivation of the complainants.
PRO-FPJ
On the surface, Binay’s allegation that opposition mayors are being singled out seems plausible.
In March this year, Pasig’s Eusebio became the first local chief executive in the national capital region (NCR) to be divested of supervision over his local police. In August, the Ombudsman placed Pasay’s Trinidad and practically his entire council on a six-month preventive suspension. Exactly a month later, the anti-graft body filed charges against Binay, his wife (who used to be mayor), and his entire council, while the Palace was studying a separate administrative complaint against him.
The three mayors supported Ms. Arroyo’s strongest rival in the 2004 presidential election, the late Fernando Poe Jr.
And being local executives, whatever suspension from office or reduction of powers are meted out to them have to be served by the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG), which is headed by the President’s known trouble-shooter, Ronaldo Puno.
(There are three ways a local official can be removed from office, either permanently or temporarily: as ordered by a criminal court, for crimes committed; by the Ombudsman or Sandiganbayan, for graft; by the Office of the President or a higher local government unit, for administrative offenses. The National Police Commission can take back its deputization of a mayor when there’s a breakdown in peace and order.)
Palace operatives offered a spin on the assassination of former Pasig congressman Henry Lanot. At the time of his death, Lanot was protesting his loss to re-electionist Eusebio in the mayoral polls. They said Lanot was killed because the ballots that he had asked to be reviewed would show that it was Poe who cheated Arroyo in the presidential election. They didn’t show proof nor name the alleged mastermind of the murder.
In Pasay, a councilor says the case against Mayor Trinidad, Vice Mayor Antonio Calixto, and 10 of the 12 councilors is a result of the rift between Trinidad and lone Pasay Rep. Connie Dy. But the fact is: the congresswoman is a member of the Kabalikat ng Malayang Pilipino or KAMPI, the original party of the President which is now headed by Puno.
On the other hand, the administrative and graft cases against Binay came after he gave Sigaw ng Bayan a hard time soliciting signatures in the city for the Palace-backed people’s initiative to amend the Constitution. Binay is also president of the national United Opposition or UNO, and has been making the premier financial district available to anti-Arroyo rallies that are banned elsewhere in Metro Manila. In 2001, he was suspected of bussing in people for the May 1 demonstrations that threatened the then four-month-old Arroyo administration. An administration senator, Manuel “Lito” Lapid, also announced that he had been asked by the Arroyos to challenge Binay in the 2007 polls.
TOO FAST
The observation of Sen. Aquilino Pimentel Jr., Binay’s party mate in PDP-Laban, makes sense: if Binay and Trinidad will be placed under a six-month suspension now, they won’t be in offi ce by the time the campaign period starts in March 2007. They won’t have the so-called incumbent’s edge when they seek reelection.
The haste in the orders is questionable, too. When the Ombudsman is investigating an official, he is placed under preventive suspension, which normally lasts six months. This type of suspension doesn’t mean the official is guilty. He is temporarily removed from offi ce so he can’t hide or destroy evidence or intimidate his co-workers from testifying against him.
When a preventive suspension order is issued, the offi cial can go to the Court of Appeals (CA) for a temporary restraining order (TRO). Only after the CA has denied the petition for a TRO will the Ombudsman be able to implement the suspension order through the DILG.
In Trinidad’s case, his fellow Metro Manila mayors noted in a statement, the DILG immediately suspended the mayor and his council and swore in the acting mayor and vice mayor while the CA was still hearing Trinidad’s petition for a TRO.
In Binay’s case, the Ombudsman didn’t place him under preventive suspension. Instead, it filed on September 28 a case against him before the Sandiganbayan. This could mean Binay can be forced out of office immediately by the anti-graft court.
MORE THAN VOTES
Their cases, however, could not be considered political persecution on the basis of Poe’s victory in their areas because, if that were the case, Malacañang would have to cause the suspension of all mayors, except one, in Metro Manila. In the NCR, based on the certifi cates of canvass, President Arroyo won only in Las Piñas.
Even based on the margin that Poe had over her in Metro Manila’s LGUs, President Arroyo’s operators would not have pounced first on Eusebio, Trinidad, and Binay. Poe’s biggest leads over her were in Manila, the territory of her staunchest supporter Lito Atienza (82,410), in Kalookan City (65,265), and in Malabon/Navotas (62,967). President Arroyo’s smallest shares of votes, on the other hand, were in Malabon/Navotas (20.68 percent), Valenzuela (23.31 percent), and Kalookan (23.10 percent).
There’s no telling either if those being investigated are all anti-Arroyo politicians. Binay’s challenge for the national government to release a list of the LGU executives under investigation has been ignored. NEWSBREAK requested the same lists from Malacañang and the DILG, but was denied. The Ombudsman agreed to release its list, but we didn’t receive it before we went to press.
Based on newspaper reports (NEWSBREAK monitored 11 cases involving incumbents), political affiliation didn’t seem a factor.
For instance, Naga’s Jesse Robredo, known for his transparent governance and simple lifestyle, was ordered to be placed under a two-month preventive suspension in July over supposed graft—for failing to declare in his statement of assets company shares which he had divested more than a decade ago.
In Baguio City, where President Arroyo won with a big margin over Poe, first-term Mayor Braulio Yaranon was ordered suspended for one year by the DILG starting August. He committed “grave abuse of authority” when he prevented motorists from paying parking fees to a private company that had proper permits.
REASONABLE GROUNDS
But the grounds against the three opposition mayors in Metro Manila seem reasonable.
The NAPOLCOM removed police control from Eusebio in Pasig after national cops found an entire street where illegal drugs were openly peddled and pot sessions were conducted. It had been going on for three years, 100 meters away from City Hall, and the mayor took no action. After the raid that wasn’t coordinated with his office, Eusebio dismantled the shabu shanties that the national police was preserving as evidence in the court case.
The Pasay officials headed by Trinidad extended several times the garbage collection contracts of five companies without public bidding, and sometimes without supporting resolution from the city council. The contracts involved a total of P464 million.
Binay, his wife Elenita, and his councilors have been charged before the Sandiganbayan for awarding several contracts to office fixture suppliers that they apparently knew belonged to the same persons, allowing the monopoly of contracts; and for overpricing the said furniture pieces meant for the newly built city hall from 1999 to 2001. The alleged anomalies involve a combined amount of P232 million and the overpricing to P53 million. The contracts were awarded during the term of Elenita, and they were honored during Binay’s time. The complaint, filed by Binay’s nemesis Roberto Brillante (who had run for mayor but lost), was based on reports by the Commission on Audit.
Meanwhile, the administrative complaint, filed also by Brillante, involves Binay’s alleged retention of ghost employees who received P113 million in salaries from the city government.
BIG THREAT
The Arroyo administration sees Binay as a threat. At the height of street protests and coup plots that threatened to oust Ms. Arroyo last year, close allies of the President started gathering evidence for possible graft charges against Binay. They believed he was funding the rallies and helping rebel soldiers.
If Binay is feeling the heat—his critics cite as proof the tarpaulins suddenly flying all over Makati heralding his accomplishments—it didn’t help that his closest aide and friend Pablo “Lito” Glean was gunned down in mid-September. Although there are other angles that the police is pursuing, Binay insists that Glean was killed after the latter gathered sensitive information that the administration was out to liquidate the mayor.
Binay declined NEWSBREAK’s request for an interview.
The Palace strategy may succeed in pinning down Binay legally, but it could gain him voters’ sympathy. The Arroyo administration could learn from the experience of former President Fidel Ramos.
Ramos issued a suspension order against the reelectionist mayor before the 1995 polls. Instead of asking for a TRO, Binay, in Boy Scout uniform, allowed himself to be arrested and jailed. He was photographed from his cell shaking the hands of his supporters from the poor communities of Makati, and got out only after they passed the hat and raised bail money for him.
The underdog play apparently worked, and the ruling Lakas party failed to wangle Makati out of Binay’s hold. In 1998, as his last term ended, he got his wife Elenita to succeed him, while he delivered the vote to the opposition’s presidential candidate, Joseph Estrada.
The next thing his political enemies knew, Binay had become a heavyweight they now find difficult to topple.
Tags: aquilino pimentel jr, arroyo, Bayan, fernando poe jr, graft case, Jejomar Binay, joseph estrada, philippines, ronaldo puno, sandiganbayan, scandal, united opposition
