Hit for Yolanda, Roxas asks critics: What’s your track record?

Bea Cupin

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Hit for Yolanda, Roxas asks critics: What’s your track record?
The administration candidate campaigns in General Santos City

GENERAL SANTOS, Philippines – Rivals call him incompetent, and continue to hit him for his role before, during and after Super Typhoon Yolanda. 

But as he campaigned here among workers of a cocowater factory on Friday, April 1, administration standard-bearer Manuel Roxas II seemed unperturbed, hitting his rivals for their own track record.

Yung ating mga katunggali gagawin nila Ang lahat, magbabato sila ng kahit anong putik, totoo man o hindi para lang mapaangat nila sarili nila. Ano ba track record nila? Ano ba ang nagawa nila?” Liberal Party (LP) standard-bearer Manuel Roxas II told reporters in a chance interview. Roxas was accompanied here by former General Santos City Mayor Darlene Antonino Custodio, among others.

(My rivals will do everything they can, say anything they can abot me, whether it’s true or not, just to boost their own candidacies. But what’s their track record? What have they done?) 

Roxas was asked if he thought it was fair for his rivals to continuously hit him for his performance as interior secretary when Super Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan) devastated parts of the Visayas. 

His role once again made headlines when his supporters produced a comic book that supposedly told the “real story” of Yolanda and Roxas. Critics have hit Roxas for the “untruthful” comic. (READ: Comic book will not make us vote for Roxas)

Vice President Jejomar Binay, standard-bearer of the opposition United Nationalist Alliance (UNA), hit Roxas and the comic book during a recent trip to Tacloban City, ground zero of the typhoon. 

Asked to react, Roxas scoffed at the vice president.  “Well, eksperto kasi siya sa karanasan niya sa pagnanakaw. Ipaliwanag nalang niya kasi kung bakit yung dalawang daang milyong pisong gusali ay bigla nalang naging dalawang bilyon under his watch at sa kanyang pamilya sa Makati,” he said. 

(He’s an expert because of his experience in stealing. He should explain why a P2-million building suddenly cost P2 billion under his and his family’s watch.)

Critics have pointed to Roxas’ supposed lackluster performance in Aquino’s Cabinet – as transport chief and later, as interior chief – as among the reasons his numbers are not improving. 

The latest survey commissioned by ABS-CBN and published on Friday showed him trailing Grace Poe, Rodrigo Duterte and Jejomar Binay.

Does he regret getting into these posts? “Why would you regret helping our countrymen,” he asked in Filipino. “The people who have done a lot, they get the most criticism because they’re able to do something.” – Rappler.com

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Bea Cupin

Bea is a senior multimedia reporter who covers national politics. She's been a journalist since 2011 and has written about Congress, the national police, and the Liberal Party for Rappler.