{"id":28627,"date":"2014-10-11T19:01:23","date_gmt":"2014-10-11T11:01:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=28627"},"modified":"2014-10-28T20:58:35","modified_gmt":"2014-10-28T12:58:35","slug":"binay-camp-says-mercado-is-deceiving-the-public-de-lima-is-biased","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2014\/10\/11\/binay-camp-says-mercado-is-deceiving-the-public-de-lima-is-biased\/","title":{"rendered":"Binay camp says: \u2018Mercado is deceiving the public, De Lima is biased\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Vice<\/a>
Vice President Jejomar Binay (Photo from Binay’s official Facebook page)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA, Philippines\u2014Rocked by successive waves of scandal and controversy, Vice President Jejomar Binay\u2019s camp has spoken out against the latest issue, concerning his alleged property holdings in Batangas and Tagaytay.<\/p>\n

The vice president stated that he sold the 5,000-square-meter Tagaytay property in 2012, contrary to the claims of former Makati Vice Mayor Ernesto Mercado.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Tagaytay property was sold in December 2012 to Constant Builders. The change in the title ownership is being processed by (the Bureau of Internal Revenue). The property is listed in his (statement of assets, liabilities and net worth),\u201d Martin Subido, Binay\u2019s lawyer, said in a statement issued on Friday.<\/p>\n

Subido explained that Binay \u2013 who has been accused by former political ally Mercado of taking government kickbacks \u2013 is no longer the owner of the Tagaytay property in question, as Mercado claimed by Mercado at Wednesday\u2019s Senate inquisition.<\/p>\n

The former ally likewise alleged before the Senate blue ribbon subcommittee that the Binay family also owns a 350-hectare property in Rosario, Batangas province.<\/p>\n

The Binay camp\u2019s version of the story is that the property in the township of Rosario is not owned by the Vice President, as claimed by Mercado, but that he merely rented 9-hectares of the said parcel of land for his piggery and for the flower farm of his wife, ex-Makati Mayor Elenita Binay. Furthermore, Subido said that the 3-hectare portion allocated for the piggery was sold to Agrifortuna Inc. in 2010, and is now being leased Sunchamp Real Estate Development Corporation.<\/p>\n

In reaction to Mercado\u2019s claims, lawyer JV Bautista, interim secretary of Binay\u2019s party, the United Nationalist Alliance, said: \u201cThis is proof that Mercado is deceiving the public because he made it appear that (the Tagaytay property) still belongs to the Vice President when it was already sold long ago. Just like his deception on the Rosario, Batangas, property that was never a property of the VP at all.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bautista proceeded to decry Department of Justice (DOJ) Secretary Leila de Lima as \u201cbiased\u201d against Binay, because the former said that Mercado was a \u201ccredible\u201d witness.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy claiming that Mercado is a credible witness, she (De Lima) betrays her own bias and prejudice against VP Binay,\u201d Bautista said.<\/p>\n

\u201cA true professional appraisal of the \u2018testimonies\u2019 of Mercado will show that they are speculative, self-serving and coming from (a) polluted source\u2014a witness who has an ax to grind against VP Binay,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Three witnesses have come forward against Binay: Mercado, Renato Bondal and Nicolas Enciso, They are all currently under the DOJ\u2019s Witness Protection Program.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA, Philippines\u2014Rocked by successive waves of scandal and controversy, Vice President Jejomar Binay\u2019s camp has spoken out against the latest …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":22741,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1482,1145,95],"tags":[8159,3673,8195,8194,7559,8104,8196],"class_list":["post-28627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking","category-headline","category-news-ph","tag-batangas-property","tag-corruption","tag-inquisition","tag-jejomar-bninay","tag-mercado","tag-senate-bliue-ribbon","tag-tagaytay-property","mauthors-angie-duarte","mauthors-philippine-canadian-inquirer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28627"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28627\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}