MANILA, Philippines - Vice President Jejomar Binay said yesterday the Aquino administration will be known as the period of missed opportunities and unfulfilled promises.
“The Aquino administration promised much, unfortunately it delivered very little,” Binay said in his speech at the 41st Philippine Business Conference and Expo at the Marriott Hotel in Pasay.
Binay, the presidential bet of the United Nationalist Alliance, said the Philippine economy under the Aquino government has been a paradox.
“We have posted a rather respectable GDP growth rate but our poverty rate has worsened rather than improved. We have experienced a property boom, but the housing backlog worsened. Some of our best companies generated good profit, but local business conditions did not lead to a healthy reinvested rate. To the contrary, our best companies decided to invest abroad,” he explained.
“The Aquino years may most accurately be described as a period of lost opportunities,” he added.
Binay noted that five years ago, President Aquino boasted that his administration would increase tourist arrivals to 10 million by the end of his term. But recently, Malacañang crowed about tourist arrivals reaching only four million.
He also pointed out that ports, airports, roads and other infrastructure that would allow the country to support 10 million arriving tourists were not built.
“Sadly, the Manila airport is the worst in the world. Tourists are regularly victims of the worsening peace and order situation that the last interior secretary failed so miserably to check,” Binay said, referring to Liberal Party standard bearer Manuel Roxas II.
Binay also recounted that five years ago, the Aquino administration unveiled a private-public partnership program as its centerpiece policy.
“This program has now become the epicenter of its failure,” he said, and that most of the infrastructure projects covered by this program remain on the drawing board.
“This administration will bow out of office with only one project completed: a four-kilometer link road it called expressway obviously built to serve the property developments of those who built it,” Binay added.
Aquino and Binay used to be allies, but their relationship turned sour after pro-administration senators started an inquiry into various corruption allegations against Binay.
Binay promised that should he be elected president in May 2016, his presidency will put prime to a massive infrastructure program. This will enable companies to operate more efficiently to compete in an open regional market.
“It will unlock the potential of our agricultural sector and help bring down our excessively high food price regime. That will create jobs and reduce poverty,” he said.
Binay also renewed his call for lower income tax rates. “The first task of the next government is to bring tax relief to our people by revising the tax rates to account for inflation. This will restore purchasing power to the working class and expand demand in the local economy.”