Gordon: Past controversies will 'hound' Noynoy, Villar

Bagumbayan Party’s presidential bet Richard Gordon on Friday predicted that the presidency of either of his rivals Sen. Benigno "Noynoy" Aquino III and Sen. Manuel Villar Jr. will not come easy should they win the May 10 elections. In a press conference held in Intramuros, Manila, Gordon said controversies that have bugged the two candidates will continue to "hound" them. "Pag nanalo si Villar, sigurado ako, i-bu-bully siya ng lahat sapagkat siya ay tatanungin, ‘Ano ang ginawa mo sa C-5?’" (If Villar wins, I’m sure, everyone will bully him because he’ll be asked, ‘What did you with the C-5?’) He will be hounded by all kinds of investigations [about] his past," said Gordon. “In the same way, Noynoy Aquino will be hounded on why [his family] cannot declare land reform in their [lands] in Tarlac. He will be hounded why he cannot give justice to the farmers in that massacre in Tarlac," he added. The Liberal Party (LP) and Nacionalista Party (NP) camps dismissed the issues raised by Gordon. Aquino’s spokesman Edwin Lacierda said the LP bet has already been cleared by the Ombudsman in connection with the Hacienda Luisita massacre. Aquino has also vowed to distribute the Hacienda Luisita lands if he wins as president. For his part, NP spokesman and senatorial candidate Gilbert Remulla said their party welcomes Gordon’s statements and assured that Villar will “fully cooperate" in any investigation that will come up during his term. The C-5 controversy refers to a Metro Manila circumferential road extension project funded by the government that allegedly benefited Villar's real estate properties, which the NP standard bearer denied. Aquino, meanwhile, has been subjected to criticism over his family’s failure to properly distribute the Hacienda Luisita lands to the farmers under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) that was enacted during the presidency of his mother, the late Corazon Cojuangco Aquino. The LP presidential bet has likewise been criticized for his perceived lukewarm attitude to the cry for justice to the victims of the Hacienda Luisita massacre, mostly farmers who were killed by gunfire in 2004 when their protest action revolving around land and labor issues was dispersed by military and police units. In this light, Gordon called on the public to vote for whom they think is a "principled candidate." "It doesn’t have to be me as long as it is a principled choice," the senator said. Aquino and Villar are consistent frontrunners in preferential surveys conducted by Pulse Asia and Social Weather Stations, while Gordon ranks a distant fifth. The Bagumbayan standard-bearer has persistently expressed his doubts about the credibility of such surveys.—JV, GMANews.TV