MANILA -- Malacañang said “incompetence and trust issues” were prevalent among the top officials of the previous administration of former President Benigno Aquino III.
This after Senator Francis Pangilinan slammed President Rodrigo R. Duterte for accusing opposition senatorial candidate Manuel “Mar” Roxas II of "wasting" the lives of 44 Special Action Force (SAF) troopers who died in the 2015 Mamasapano clash and tagged this as a “diversionary tactic.”
Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo dismissed Pangilinan’s remark as “noxious nonsense”, stressing that the Aquino administration paled in comparison to the administration under Duterte.
“The achievements of the administration far exceed that of the administration of his idol, PNoy, where incompetence and trust issues among its top officials were prevalent, such as what were exhibited during the Mamasapano incident and the destructive storm Yolanda, an incontrovertible truth that is beyond forgetting,” Panelo said in a statement on Saturday night.
“Previous administrations likewise pale in comparison with PRRD's war on drugs, on criminality, on corruption, and on terrorism as well as his ‘Build, Build, Build” infrastructure program,” he added.
The Spokesperson said the Duterte administration achieved “many firsts” in its almost three years of governance owing to the political will of the first leader from Mindanao.
He cited a few of the President’s achievements including free tuition in state colleges and universities, free irrigation for farmers, universal health care for all Filipinos, free medicine for indigent Filipinos and institutionalized free school feeding program for public school children.
Also among his accomplishments are the collection of billions of taxes from errant billionaire businessmen, salary increases of police and military personnel and teachers, firing of an array of top government officials either allied to him or closely identified with him, the passage of ease in doing business law, the issuance of an executive order on freedom of information, the establishment of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Mindanao, the veto of the unconscionable PHP95.3 billion pork barrel, the crushing of the Marawi rebellion, among many other hitherto accomplishments.
“Res ipsa loquitur. The records speak for themselves,” Panelo said.
“The achievements of this administration are inescapable to the Filipino masses resulting in stratospheric public satisfaction, approval and trust in favor of President Duterte and his administration,” he added.
Panelo claimed that Pangilinan, just like other critics and detractors, is “deaf and blind to the unprecedented survey numbers of the President”.
He, meanwhile, urged Pangilinan, who is also president of the Liberal Party and other members of the opposition to “wake up” and take notice of the President’s achievements.
“It is about time he and others in the opposition wake up from their self-destructive illusion lest they are swept away to oblivion by the horses of change galloping in the country,” Panelo said.
In his speech during the PDP-Laban campaign rally in Cagayan on Tuesday (April 16), Duterte blamed Roxas, who was Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) Secretary at that time, for the death of the 44 SAF troopers in a deadly encounter on January 25, 2015.
“He (Roxas) wasted 44 lives for nothing. They could not even explain while -- why it was the police who went there who were totally ignorant of the topography and the physical arrangement sa bukid doon (in the farm there)?” Duterte said.
Pangilinan insisted to let the judicial processes proceed since the matter has been investigated by the Senate and that charges have been filed. (PNA)
