VP Binay to remain focused on his job despite challenges —spokesman

Vice President Jejomar Binay, faced with corruption allegation and decreasing popularity rating, will remain focused on his job despite the challenges he is currently facing, his spokesman said Friday.

“The Vice President will not back out of his commitment to the Filipino people,” Cavite Governor Jonvic Remulla, Binay’s spokesperson for political affairs, said in a text message to GMA News Online.

“His efforts for housing for the poor, the plight of the OFWS, and affordable healthcare for all will not be deterred by the potholes of politics,” he added, describing the accusations against Binay and his family as “false and political in nature.”

“They will be proven untrue over time,” Remulla said.

A number of witnesses have told the Senate blue ribbon subcommittee during hearings that Binay received kickbacks from every project the Makati City government entered into during his term as city mayor. He also allegedly used dummies for his corporations.

Binay, aside from being vice president, is also the presidential adviser on OFW concerns and chairman of the board of the Home Development Mutual Fund (HDMF) or Pag-IBIG Fund.

Heidi Mendoza

Meanwhile, the camp of former Makati mayor Dr. Elenita Binay, the Vice President’s wife, will be bringing the “irregular conduct” of Commission on Audit commissioner Heidi Mendoza during Thursday's hearing of the Senate blue ribbon subcommittee before the proper forum.

Juan Carlos Mendoza, Mrs. Binay’s lawyer, however, did not say what forum they intend to bring the case against Mendoza to.

On Thursday, Mendoza presented before the subcommittee the findings of the special audit she conducted in 2001 on the transactions entered into by the Makati government during the term of Mrs. Binay, or from 1998 to 2001.

She said COA has two reports, first, on hospital equipment purchased for Ospital ng Makati, and second, on office furniture. Cases have been filed against Mrs. Binay in connection with these allegedly anomalous purchases.

Lawyer Mendoza said the audit findings Ms. Mendoza presented during the Senate subcommittee hearing have already been dismissed by the Sandiganbayan in 2011.

He said the Sandiganbayan resolution was also affirmed by the Supreme Court in January 12, 2012.

'Fundamental issues of arbitrariness'

Lawyer Mendoza added that in a resolution dated April 7, 2011, the Second Division of the Sandiganbayan found that the audit procedures adopted by COA under Ms. Mendoza suffers from “fundamental issues of arbitrariness,” the reason the case against Mrs. Binay and the other members of the Bids and Awards Committee was dismissed.

However, Mrs. Binay is still facing a P13-million graft case for the purchase of office furniture before the Sandiganbayan Fourth Division.

On the Ospital ng Makati findings, the lawyer said these were already assessed by the Ombudsman during a preliminary investigation and Mrs. Binay was cleared of liability in 2011.

The case, however, was re-filed by the Ombudsman in 2014.

“The recent attempt to revive these cases is now subject of a Petition filed before the Supreme Court,” said Mr. Mendoza.

The lawyer said they wished Ms. Mendoza, as a high ranking public official, “would have been candid enough to admit to the Senate that the Audit Report she was testifying on yesterday was already discredited by the Sandiganbayan.”

Lawyer JV Bautista, interim secretary general of the United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) and spokesperson of Vice President Binay, said, "There was apparent malice on the part of Heidi Mendoza."

"She knew that the Sandiganbayan had already thrown out her supposed findings, yet she went ahead with her presentation,” he said. —Amita Legaspi/KBK, GMA News