Former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo
VIENTIANE, Laos—President Benigno Aquino III isn’t easing up attacks on former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in his meetings with overseas Filipinos.
As in Auckland, New Zealand, Mr. Aquino made several references to Arroyo, now a Pampanga representative under hospital arrest for plunder.
This time, Mr. Aquino joked that he had heard other people say the previous administration seemed to have used a different kind of calculator when estimating costs of public works and rice imports, and seemed to have had a faulty addition and subtraction button.
He made the quip as he lauded the P260 million purportedly saved when his administration constructed the newly opened Araneta-Quezon Avenue underpass in Quezon City. The previous administration had estimated the project to cost P694 million, he noted.
“As other people say, maybe they used a different kind of calculator and the addition button is automatic and frequently pushed,” he said.
He also said the calculator seemed to have had a subtraction problem since the previous administration imported 2.5 million metric tons of rice for a 1.3 million shortage. The excess rice is now rotting in warehouses, he added.
He also recycled his “bulalo” joke about corruption, which he first mentioned in his speech in New Zealand late last month.
He said that the previous administration had made the public works department a milking cow that it was as if they were trying to suck the marrow out of it.
Recently, ousted Chief Justice Renato Corona was not spared either, with Mr. Aquino hitting the former top magistrate for his excuses about failing to officially declare 98 percent of his wealth, walking out of his trial and feeling that he was exempted from the law because he headed the judiciary.
But the President steered clear of jokes about the health of the former President, who is presently detained for plunder at Veterans Memorial Medical Center because of her illnesses.
Arroyo’s allies have hit Mr. Aquino for joking about Arroyo’s use of a wheelchair, saying it was ungentlemanly and that the former President’s ill health was no laughing matter.
Critics said it was a “sick joke” and was “unpresidential.”
Mr. Aquino told close to 300 Filipinos who met him in Vientiane that the Philippines was now making strides, a task that he felt was “mission impossible” when he first assumed the presidency because of problems he inherited from the previous administration.
“Who would have known that I would have a solution?” he said.
“They were so thick-faced and so lacking in conscience that we can only say, ‘hay naku (oh well)’ to their anomalies left and right,” he said.
As an example, the President said billions were set aside to buy prefabricated bridges from foreign companies but the Arroyo administration did not know where to put these. The headache was passed on to his administration, he said.
The last contract was signed on June 28, 2010, two days before the Arroyo administration ended. “One day before they left, they really milked it,” he said.