Arroyo son mad at wannabes’ role playing

Philippine Daily Inquirer
Leila Salaverria

MANILA, Philippines—The President’s eldest son has some advice for the media: Don’t believe everything you hear when opposition politicians who want to be President start hitting his mom. Some of them are just play-acting.

“You know, these ‘presidentiables’ should be more honest with everybody because they keep on hitting their President, yet they’re trying to back-channel to get whatever support or whatever concession (through) her allies,” Pampanga Rep. Juan Miguel “Mikey” Arroyo told House reporters.

“How fair can that be?”

Arroyo refused to identify the presidential aspirants he was alluding to but said they had been talking to administration people whom they know would be able to relay their message to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

“They’re saying, ‘This is only role playing, this is only for media consumption’ but actually, they don’t mean what they say.”

Keeping mum

Pressed on the identity or identities of the aspirants, Arroyo said he would not want to say anything more. Asked why he did not want to name them, he replied: “That’s not (in) my character.”

He said that even if they continued with their criticism of his mother, he would keep his peace because he did not want to stoop to the level of those people.

But he added: “Siguro kung sino puputak diyan, siya siguro yun (Maybe the one who would protest the most is it).”

Chiz: Not true

Shortly before Arroyo talked to House reporters, ABS-CBN’s Teleradyo ran a crawler which reported Mikey Arroyo as saying that opposition Sen. Francis “Chiz” Escudero had made a “hirit” (request) for Ms Arroyo’s support in the 2010 elections.

Asked for comment, Escudero told the Inquirer: “It is obviously not true. I am not asking and will not ask for her endorsement. If I run, I will always run as opposition.”

Mikey Arroyo said he was making his statements against those presidential aspirants because he felt bad about the criticisms against his mother, especially their refusal to believe that she would step down in 2010.

“It all started with the SONA (State of the Nation Address),” said the President’s eldest son.

“First, everything GMA (Ms Arroyo) does not do or does, for them it’s taken in a negative way. They don’t want to give her the courtesy of fairness. They’re saying that she must categorically say that she is stepping down, but she is stepping down,” he said.

‘They’re ignoring the truth’

Arroyo wondered how many times his mother would have to repeat her statements so that her critics would believe her.

In her SONA, Ms Arroyo made no clear declaration that she would hand over the reins of government to a successor on the expiration of her term on June 30, 2010.

Mikey Arroyo also said that people who accuse his mother of planning to extend her term were misleading the public and that maybe they chose to ignore the truth for their own convenience.

Appeal for respect

Arroyo said he was not asking the critics to side with the administration.

“We’re only appealing to them to just show a little respect. She’s a woman and they’re disrespecting her. Yet this was the first time she stood up and answered them,” he said.

Speaker Prospero Nograles said Ms Arroyo’s fighting words in her SONA on Monday only showed that she was human.

“The President is just like all of us. She also feels the pain and the frustration with the relentless effort to malign her and belittle the hard work that she had done for our nation,” Nograles said in a statement. With a report from Christine O. Avendaño

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