Vice President Jejomar Binay (CDN FILE PHOTO)
“I was also adopted,” said Vice President Jejomar Binay as he washed off his hands on the foundling issue raised by his own ally against Senator Grace Poe.
In fact, Binay said Poe was fortunate to have a better life with her adoptive parents—Susan Roces and the later Fernando Poe Jr.— compared to his own experience.
“Alam mo na, may bahagi ata ng pananalita ni Mareng Grace tungkol sa pagkakaampon n’ya. Ako, si Jojo Binay, kukutsain ko ‘yong mga ganyan? Hindi si Jojo Binay ‘yan,” the Vice President said in an interview in Biliran Thursday, a copy of the transcript was furnished to reporters by his office this Friday.
(Grace made a statement about being adopted. Would I, Jojo Binay, mock that? No, that’s not me.)
“E kasi ako, inampon din lang ako ng tiyo ko. Mabuti pa nga si Mareng Grace, gumanda ang buhay n’ya [sa pagkakaampon n’ya]. ‘Yong pagkakaampon sa’kin e ako ang namamalengke, kumukuha ng kaning baboy. [Kaya] hindi si Jojo Binay ang nangdudusta sa mga nang-aapi,” he said.
(I was also adopted by my uncle. Grace had it better when she got adopted. Unlike me, I was the one going to the market or collecting hog swill. So I am not the one to degrade those who are oppressed.)
Asked if he would raise the issue against Poe should she decide to run for president in 2016, Binay said: “Nandiyan na po ‘yan e. Tingnan na lang [paano mangyayari].”
(The issue’s been already raised. We’ll just see.)
It was lawyer JV Bautista, interim secretary-general of Binay’s United Nationalist Alliance (UNA), who raised the questions on Poe’s citizenship, saying a foundling’s citizenship is hard to determine.
“A foundling by definition is stateless,” Bautista was reportedly quoted as saying.
Before this, UNA’s interim president and Navotas Representative Toby Tiangco said Poe was not qualified to run for a higher post in 2016 because she did not meet the 10-year residency requirement of the law.
But Poe, who has yet to decide whether or not to run for a higher post next year, immediately denied Tiangco’s allegation, saying she has been residing in the Philippines since 2005 or for 10 years by now.
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