READER’S VIEWS: Sen. Cayetano bullying to sell own presidential bid
To gain more media exposure and prop up his own presidential ambition, Sen. Alan Cayetano is intentionally picking a fight with the perceived frontrunner in the 2016 race -- Vice President Jejomar Binay, and his family.
By bullying the vice president and his family, Senator Cayetano hopes to attract a lot of attention and generate loads of free publicity for himself. This is why he is targeting us.
Senator Cayetano has been telling his staff that he wants to quadruple his voter support, and get at least 15 percent of the votes by around this time next year. Otherwise, he will supposedly drop out of the presidential race.
The senator knows that he will get scarce media hype if he quarrels with other potential targets. So he is now on hard sell mode -- forcefully trying to promote himself at the expense of the vice president and his family, which is downright uncalled-for.
Cayetano has been discreetly meeting with selected House members, including those representing non-aligned party-list groups, and aggressively courting them to support his presidential bid this early.
We wish the senator could just promote himself through positive public relations -- by conveying to everybody all his accomplishments for the country. To be able to climb up, people do not have to put other people down.
The latest Pulse Asia Inc. survey showed that if the presidential elections were held today, the vice president would be the runaway winner with 40 percent selecting him as their first choice.
Ranked second to sixth in the choices for president and their corresponding voter support are Sen. Grace Poe (15 percent); Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago (10 percent); Sen. Francis "Chiz" Escudero (9 percent); Interior and Local Government Secretary Mar Roxas (6 percent); and Sen. Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. (5 percent).
Cayetano and presidential sister Kris Aquino (tied at 4 percent) occupied the seventh and eight slots.
Completing the top 10 preferences for president are Sen. Ramon "Bong" Revilla Jr. (3 percent) and Presidential Assistant for Rehabilitation and Recovery Panfilo "Ping" Lacson (2 percent).
Last week, Cayetano badgered Mayor Jejomar Erwin "Junjun" Binay Jr., the vice president's son and the congresswoman's younger brother, during a controversial Senate hearing on the alleged overpriced Makati City Hall car park building.
Shortly after the hearing, Cayetano boldly challenged the vice president himself to face the Senate inquiry.
Rep. Mar-Len Abigail Binay
Open letter to Annie
Dear Annie Fe Perez,
I really appreciate your commitment and courageous occurrence for the rights of Pinoy people against authorities. So I hope you also will have the courage to discuss publicly in THE FREEMAN that Human Rights apply to all. It is not acceptable when VECO "clients" get pilloried and publicly humiliated in a (forced?) "advertisement." THE FREEMAN should have the courage to refuse such advertisement that is a serious infringement of the human rights of these poor Pinoys. I am a visitor from Germany and I assure this behavior and procedure of VECO would be illegal in Germany and the rest of Europe. It is a shame that VECO is doing this and THE FREEMAN is assisting to it. It is a shame that the money for a whole page of advertisement stands about the respect of Human Rights---even of the poor---even of the criminals......
Best regards
Peter Laux
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