DAVAO CITY (MindaNews / 30 Nov) – Vice President Jejomar Binay has claimed that the next president does not have to come from Mindanao in order to understand the plight of the residents of the island group.
Binay, who is running in next year’s national elections as president, made the comment after being asked if there needed to be a change in the campaign in Mindanao, following Mayor Rodrigo R. Duterte’s entry into the presidential race.
Duterte last week formally filed his candidacy as a substitute candidate for Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption president Martin Dino, who ran under the PDP-Laban ticket during the deadline of filing for candidacy last month.
“Hindi naman kailangan taga-luzon ka para maging tama ang pamamahala mo sa buong bansa,” Binay said. “Ang pamamahala po ay para sa buong Pilipinas, sa buong sambayanang Pilipino.”
Binay said the emphasis for his administration if he wins the elections would be for the rise of the gross domestic product, along with the development of infrastructure.
“Yung mga infrastructure infrastructure ninyo sa Mindanao, haharapin natin,” he said. “Yung mga airports, yung mga kalye, mga bridges, at kung ano pa. Sa social services, ipapagpatuloy natin yun, dahil tulong sa mahihirap yun.”
Binay, despite formally resigning from the administration, said there were still projects of the Aquino government that still needed to continue, citing the conditional cash transfer and the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program of the Department of Social Welfare and Development as among the examples, as well as the Public-Private Partnership programs.
“Basta’t kung ano ang ginagawa sa isang lugar na para sa ikakabuti ng isang bansa, ay gagawin din po natin sa Mindanao,” Binay said.
In a speech delivered earlier that day, Binay criticized the same projects under the Aquino government, adding there needed to be “additional measures” to streamline the social service provisions under the DSWD and more lenient regulatory measures under the PPP.
Asked how many of his cabinet members would come from Mindanao, Binay appealed to the public not to treat governance as “a numbers game.”
He said, however, that he was pushing for cabinet secretaries who were already experienced members of the cabinet to reduce the need for a learning curve in managing the country.