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Philippine VP counters Aquino's "accomplishments" by delivering his SONA

Xinhua, August 3, 2015 Adjust font size:

Philippine Vice President Jejomar Binay delivered Monday his version of State of the Nation Address (SONA), citing the "painful truth" that only a few, which includes rich Filipinos and those close to President Benigno S. Aquino III, have benefited from the much-vaunted economic growth, while majority of Filipinos are still poor, hungry, and unemployed.

The vice president, who delivered the speech in a university in northern province of Cavite, said that after five years of the Aquino administration, the economic growth it flaunted failed to benefit millions of workers, farmers and the urban poor.

Instead, the rewards of the said growth remained "exclusive" to those already rich and those close to the president like his friends, classmates and members of his political party, the Liberal Party.

Binay cited four places in the country which he said emphasized the administration's insensitivity and one of them was Luneta, a national park in Manila and a site of the bloody hostage-taking incident in 2010 that left eight Hong Kong tourists dead.

The vice president, who expressed his intention to run for president in the 2016 elections, urged the Filipinos not to extend their suffering for another six years.

In effect, he was asking the Filipinos not to support the candidacy of his rival, Department of Interior and Local Government Secretary Manuel a Roxas II, who was recently endorsed by Aquino as the administration bet for 2016 polls.

Aquino, during his endorsement of Roxas last Friday, said that if the Filipinos want the reforms undertaken by his administration to continue, they have to support Roxas.

Binay made his SONA in response to Aquino's final SONA last Monday. The vice president, after quitting from Aquino's cabinet in June, has started attacking the current administration. Endi