Vice-President Jejomar “Jojo” Binay, until yesterday, was staying in limbo, not knowing where he stood with the president, the projects he could create, and where to get the money with which to get them going. As vice-president, his budget is only P187 million a year, which will get him almost nowhere. Today’s papers showed him grinning from ear to ear, incontrovertibly pleased about his decision to accept P-Noy’s request that he join his Cabinet by accepting the chairmanship of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC).
He would have been incontrovertibly happy had he been offered the Department of Local Interior and Government (DILG), which was his heart’s desire and which he had openly expressed he wanted when it was known he was elected vice-president. But somebody, not P-Noy, did not want him to head the department as that could give him contact with local governments and the grassroots, and the springboard to the presidency. But that’s all behind him now, and everyone, it seems to me, is convinced that he will help P-Noy give housing for the poor, of which the country has many.
At the Bulong-Pulungan session at the Sofitel Tuesday, he candidly spoke of the posts offered him – Agrarian Reform, the Metro Manila Development Authority, the Truth Commission, and housing. He nixed the offers. He was seated beside P-Noy, he said, and when the MMDA post was mentioned, he said, “Pare, nagbibiro ka seguro. MMDA? Vice-president na ako.”
He was quick to add, “Allow me to function as vice-president,” and that he would serve P-Noy the way he served his mother, the late President Corazon Aquino.
The vice-president, he said, should be “an assistant to the president, help support him, and follow his dictates.” To be sure, “I will toe the line.” I guess that means no credit grabbing, no attempts at making himself more loveable than his boss.
In fact, the former mayor of Makati City risked life and limb during the coup attempt against the Cory Aquino administration. When things were bleak, and shootings were taking place, he showed up in Malacanang in fatigues, and face blackened with soot, and said he was ready to fight for the president. Which was why he was given the monicker “Rambutito,” after the movie icon Rambo.
He said he was not bothered by the electoral protest filed by Sen. Mar Roxas, contesting his victory in the polls, that just hours after the precincts were closed, everybody knew he had won.
The reason he won, he said, was the different campaign thrusts made by the Roxas camp and his camp. The Roxas camp concentrated on knocking down Sen. Loren Legarda and former President Joseph Estrada, only to find out that he (Binay) had already climbed the poll ratings, and that it concentrated on big cities, while he (Binay) concentrated on small towns. “I campaigned as though I was running in a local election,” said the former human rights lawyer.
It also helped that his Alpha Phi Omega (APO) fraternity brods, with 120,000 members, campaigned for him, and that his “sister city” program had given him ample ammunition. “But don’t get me wrong,” he said. “When I started the program, I had no plans of running for vice-president.”
Why, he asked, were people poking fun at his insistence that he be given an office and residence? “Governors and vice-governors have mansions, but the vice-president has none.” He has had to start conducting his business at one of the Philippine National Bank offices on Macapagal Avenue, Pasay City. His chair was too huge, like it was made for a “higante.” His daughter, Anne, who acts as his appointments secretary, told me an ergosonic chair had been ordered for her dad.
Incontrovertible is Binay’s popularity as manager of the country’s richest city, his sharing of resources with other cities, providing free high school and college education, senior citizen benefits including free movies, and a P2,000 allowance and a cake on residents’ birthdays.
Now that fences have been made between the top two officials of the land, we can expect exciting, good, things to happen during the coming six years under the new administration.
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On another front the illustrious Teodosio Pimentel Creus of Cebu City turned 85 years old today. Until he reads today’s paper and this column, he does not know that a big surprise bash is being prepared by his children at one of the plush social halls in the city.
Tuding, as good friends call him, is an internationally acclaimed figure in the cement industry. He started the power plant at the Bacnotan Cement Company in La Union, and the Malangas Thermal Power Plant in Zamboanga del Sur. He was power engineer of Atlas Consolidated Mining and Development Corporation in Toledo City, was chief engineer at the Universal Cement Company in Danao City, project superintendent of Pacific Cement Company in Surigao City, and was the second highest officer of the Apo Cement Corporation in Naga, Cebu.
Tuding served as vice president for technical affairs of the Philippine Cement Manufacturers Corporation, which operate a number of cement plants, and as a consultant of various corporations. He has given lectures locally and abroad and received a number of awards for his accomplishments.
A book on the life and times of Tuding is being written by Atty. Coleta Aranas Campanale of Dumaguete City. It should trace Tuding’s humble beginnings and his philosophy in life, as a professional, thinker, wide reader, and as a romantic. The book will show how Tuding grew up as one of 12 children of a hard-working couple who made sure their children got a good college education. Tuding finished the chemical engineering course as an honor student at the Cebu Institute of Technology. He found a perfect match in the former Celsa Torrevillas, a nursing graduate of Silliman University College of Nursing, and together they also put education as a priority in their family values, and were quite frugal and firm in their rearing of their children. Their efforts were not wasted. Eldest daughter Christine became a medical doctor; son Steve became a pilot, and Romulo, a medical doctor, decided to become a priest. A daughter, Cora, a bank manager, passed away recently.
Tuding is still active, taking long walks up the hills everyday, but always, when he is at home, reading, especially spiritual materials. For a life well lived, and for a supportive and loving family, Tuding can sit back at the grand reception held tonight in his honor with a smile, and a grateful heart for the Lord’s gifts to him, including the friends and relatives who are coming to wish him the best and more years to come.
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