Binay flies to Cebu as Blue Ribbon panel reconvenes
Rehabilitation czar Panfilo Lacson and Vice President Jejomar Binay huddles before the start of the special cabinet meeting on the typhoon Yolanda at the Aguinaldo state dining room in Malacanan on Wednesday. (INQUIRER)
Vice-President Jejomar Binay will be flying to Cebu today just as the Senate Blue Ribbon sub-committee investigating the alleged anomalous transactions in putting up a government parking building when he was mayor of Makati City continues with its probe today.
Binay was supposed to arrive in Cebu yesterday afternoon and hold a news conference at the Mactan Cebu International Airport.
The Senate Blue Ribbon committee has invited Binay to attend today’s hearing and answer allegations raised against him, primarily by his former political ally, Nestor Mercado. Binay and his spokesmen have repeatedly said he will not show up in the hearing which he calls a “sham”.
An aide said the vice president had to reschedule his trip to Cebu yesterday as he attended a special Cabinet meeting on Yolanda rehabilitation in Malacañang. Binay, while the leader of the opposition, is a member of the Cabinet holding the housing portfolio.
President Aquino earlier this week designated Binay’s housing cluster to spearhead the construction of houses for survivors of supertyphoon Yolanda under the Comprehensive Recovery and Reconstruction Plan.
Coordinators of Binay’s Cebu visit said the vice-president will attend to various commitments today. Samuel Porcalla, a close-in aide, informed Cebu Daily News that Binay is going to Toledo City.
On Friday, Binay will have breakfast with the city’s urban poor and vendors.
“His schedule may still change” because of political developments in Manila, said former Cebu City councilor Jose Daluz III, one of the United Nationalists Alliance (UNA) founding members in Cebu. Binay was originally scheduled to arrive in Cebu last night.
A press conference was even scheduled upon his arrival at the Most Important Persons (MIP) lounge of the Mactan Cebu International Airport.
After several changes in the schedule of his supposed press conference, it was eventually cancelled.
Daluz said he also received word from Binay’s staff that the vice president would no longer be coming to Cebu Wednesday night.
“He was supposed to be in Cebu from Nov. 5 to 7 but he had to be at a cabinet meeting called by the president. Nagka-gubot man kuno (There was tension) because some cabinet members are urging him to resign,” he told Cebu Daily News.
The latest information he got from the Office of the Vice President is that Binay is expected to arrive in Cebu at 10 a.m. today.
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