Vice presidential candidate and Senator Alan Peter Cayetano listens to indigent patients at the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center. (CDN PHOTO/JULIT JAINAR)
Sen. Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. should not only return the money that his family had allegedly stolen during their 20-year rule, but he should also apologize for his role in hiding their ill-gotten wealth.
This was the challenge posed by the senator’s rival in the vice presidential race, Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano, on Friday.
Cayetano said Marcos should not apologize for what his father and namesake, the late President Ferdinand Marcos, did during the latter’s iron-fist rule for two decades.
The senator, he added, should apologize for his role in hiding the family’s alleged billions of dollars in ill-gotten wealth.
“I stated that ang kasalanan ng ama ay hindi kasalanan ng anak. Kung may ginawang kasalanan ang ama, hindi dapat pagbintangan ang anak (I stated that the sin of the father is not the sin of the son. If the father has done something wrong, the son should not be blamed for it),” Cayetano said.
“Pero kung kasama ang anak kasi may lumabas na sa Operation Big Bird na siya (Senator Marcos) ang nag-aayos ng pera para maitago yung bilyon-bilyong dolyar na hindi maisuli sa gobyerno, ibang usapan na yon (But if the son was involved because in the Operation Big Bird, it showed that he made arrangements to ensure that the billions of dollars would not be returned to the government, that is a different story),” he added.
Operation Big Bird was a failed attempt of the government under then-President Cory Aquino to recover $7.5 billion in assets and accounts allegedly kept hidden by the Marcos family in Swiss banks.
“Minana nila ang pera so sa akin mas importante hindi sorry, important yung isauli nila ang pera na allegedly ninakaw (They inherited the money so for me, the most important is not the sorry but to return the money they had allegedly stolen),” Cayetano said.
He also said that if the Marcoses would claim that they own the money, then they should explain where it came from.
Both Cayetano and Marcos belong to the Nacionalista Party. Another NP member, Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV, is also running for vice president.
But Cayetano said he had no plans of withdrawing his bid even if he ranked fourth in the surveys, lagging behind Sen. Francis Escudero, Marcos and Rep. Leni Robredo.
“We run because we believe we are the better choice,” he said.
“So if you believe that you are the better candidate, then with all due respect, ang paniniwala mo iba dapat ang mag-step aside (you believe that other candidates should step aside),” he added.
Having several candidates for the electorate to choose from was not only good for the party but also for the country.
Cayetano was in Cebu on Friday to hold a dialogue with patients of government-run Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center.
It was part of the “Ronda-Serye” listening of the group of Cayetano and his tandem, presidential candidate and Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte.
Cayetano said that the lack of proper health care system in the provinces only added to the suffering of the poor.
He said that if elected, he and Duterte planned to put up a heart center, kidney center, lung center, orthopedic center, children’s hospital and a cancer research and treatment center in the Visayas and Mindanao.