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Jose “Peping” Cojuangco, the uncle of President Benigno Aquino III, on Thu, Aug 6, welcomed opposition leader Vice President Jejomar Binay in Tarlac.
In Gerona town, Jose noted his long-standing ties with the vice-president.
“Alam mo si Binay hindi na pulitika ang samahan namin eh. 1978 pa lumalakad na kami para sa bayan eh. Mahirap pa kaming maghihiwalay (You know, with Binay, the bond between us isn’t just through politics. Since 1978, we have been doing things for the country. It’s hard to be apart),” he said.
Cojuangco, a former congressman and brother of the President’s late mother Cory, earlier said he regrets supporting the presidential campaign of his nephew in 2010 and has decided to back Binay’s presidential bid.
He earlier said Aquino’s relatives in the Cojuangco clan are out of the loop in the current administration. He also blamed Aquino’s advisers for their situation.
Cojuangco and his wife, former Tarlac governor Margarita ”Tingting” Cojuangco, had earlier called on President Aquino to resign.
In an earlier ANC interview, Margarita said the first time that she supposedly had an “inkling that something was not going well” in the Aquino administration was when the Manila hostage crisis happened in 2010.
Her discontent with the administration grew following the reported anomalies involving the lawmakers’ Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) and also the government’s Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP).
The Cojuangco couple also said the President should be held accountable for the bloodbath, which ended in the deaths of 44 commandos of the police Special Action Force (SAF) as well as 18 fighters of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). —from a report by Aldrin Soriano, ABS-CBN News North Central Luzon
Photo: Aldrin Soriano, ABS-CBN News North Central Luzon
This article has been re-published with permission from ABS-CBNnews.com.
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