Ronnie Zamora denies hand in anti-Binay smear campaign

Published June 11, 2014 2:31pm

House Minority Leader Ronaldo Zamora on Wednesday said he wasn't affected by Makati Rep. Abigail Binay's allegations that a group of brothers engaged in politics and mining were behind a demolition job against her family.

The Binays' patriarch, Vice President Jejomar Binay, is expected to fielded by the opposition as its standard bearer in 2016.

"No, I don't feel alluded to. I'm not in mining. I'm in politics. My two brothers are in mining, but in different companies," Zamora told reporters in a press briefing.

Zamora's brothers are Manuel Jr., and Salvador.

Manuel Zamora Jr. is the chairman of Nickel Asia, the country’s largest nickel miner. He ranked 34^th in Forbes magazine’s list of richest Filipinos for 2013, with a net worth of $240 million.
http://www.forbes.com/profile/manuel-zamora/

The congresswoman last week released a statement slamming those behind the release of the white paper linking her and other Binays to the pork barrel scam.

Without naming names, she claimed the group behind the release of the white paper was holding office in Bonifacio Global City and being funded by “brothers deeply entrenched in politics and mining.”

Fight within majority

Zamora said the word war between the Binays and the Liberal Party appears to be part of in-fighting among members of the majority coalition in the House of Representatives on who to support in the 2016 presidential elections.

“This is a fight among members in the majority whether one is for the Vice President or not, [and] whether the other group is [for] another candidate,” he said.

Representative Binay is a member of the majority bloc in the House despite being a member of the United Nationalist Alliance (UNA).

In a privilege speech Tuesday, Liberal Party (LP) stalwart Caloocan City Rep. Edgar Erice criticized Vice President Binay for saying he was a friend of President Benigno Aquino III while giving the go-signal for his family and UNA party-mates to criticize LP and the Aquino administration.

Erice dared the Vice President to resign from his Cabinet position as chairman of the Housing and Urban Development Council (HUDCC) so he may, as the leader of the opposition, continue criticizing the administration.

Although the House minority will continue to watch with interest the in-fighting among the members of the majority, Zamora said the group was unmindful of the ongoing word war among some of their colleagues.

“This is of no concern to us in the minority. We’ve been in the minority for so long. Unless we’re able to get our own candidate who will win the presidency, then it is really their business,” Zamora said. —Xianne Arcangel/NB, GMA News

Tags: politics