VP Binay files libel raps vs. Trillanes, Mercado

(Updated 4:19 p.m.) Vice President Jejomar Binay has filed separate libel cases against Senator Antonio Trillanes IV and former Makati Vice Mayor Ernesto Mercado in connection with the supposedly false, malicious and defamatory accusations made against him.

Vice President Binay personally filed the complaints on Thursday before the Makati Regional Trial Court.

“The Vice President believes in our criminal justice system and is abiding by the rule of law in order to prove that his accusers are liars and political opportunists,” Joey Salgado, Binay’s media affairs head, said in a statement.

In his complaint against Trillanes, Binay dismissed the senator’s accusations that he perpetrated a P100-million-a-year “racket” year in Makati City as “utterly false and baseless.” The scheme supposedly involved projects for senior citizens.

Trillanes is one of the three senators leading the Senate Blue Ribbon subcommittee investigation on alleged corrupt acts committed by Binay during his tenure as Makati city mayor.

In his filing, Binay argued that senior citizens personally apply and submit documents before they are enrolled into the program. He said benefits are also received personally, as he denied the existence of “ghost” beneficiaries.

“Being the consistent front-runner in the presidential elections in Mary 2016, unscrupulous individuals, including respondent Trillanes, have conspired to politically assassinate me by blatantly and publicly maligning my good name and reputation with lies and defamatory statements,” Binay said.


Binay is set to run for president in the 2016 national elections under the opposition party United Nationalist Alliance (UNA). He was previously the frontrunner in presidential surveys until Senator Grace Poe overtook Binay.

Boy Scouts-Alphaland land deal

The libel suit filed against Mercado, meanwhile ,pertains to the land deal between the Boy Scouts of the Philippines and property developer Alphaland Corp.  

In a newspaper report, Mercado claimed that Binay got P200 million from the allegedly anomalous land deal.

“The damaging and ruinous claims spewed out by respondent Mercado are mere concoctions and fabrications with no other purpose than to malign, discredit, ruin my reputation and besmirch my good name as well as that of my family,” Binay said.

In the Blue Ribbon subcommittee hearing, however, Mercado said Binay received up to P651 million.

Binay also claimed that he “incurred the ire” of Mercado when the latter failed to get Binay’s endorsement for his 2010 mayoral run.

Trillanes and Mercado were also named among the list of respondents in a separate P200-million damage suit filed by Binay last July against his supposed political detractors. — with Amita Legaspi/NB/RSJ/JST, GMA News