Joel E. Zurbano,  April 10, 2016

THE camp of presidential candidate and Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte chided the Aquino administration for allowing incompetent officials run the government “to the shame and detriment of the Filipino people and the country.”

Duterte’s spokesperson Peter Laviña, who is also the head of Duterte’s media team, said Aquino’s decision to keep Secretary Joseph Emilio Aguinaldo Abaya despite the major blunders that he committed as head of the Department of Transportation and Communications “speaks volumes of the government’s own incompetence and failure.”

“How unfortunate for the Filipinos to be represented by someone like Abaya whose inefficiency has brought shame to the country,” said Laviña.

“What is even more unfortunate is that Abaya, no matter how he screwed up his job, no matter how he screwed up the Filipinos, continues to enjoy the trust and confidence of Aquino,” he added.

Laviña said the five-hour power outage at Terminal 3 of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport last week would not have happened if Abaya was simply doing his job as DoTC secretary.

Another prominent figure in the Aquino circle who Laviña said is the embodiment of failure is administration bet Mar Roxas.

“The similarity between Abaya and Roxas is not a matter of coincidence with DoTC as their common denominator,” said Laviña. “They are the poster boys of the Aquino government’s failure and ineptness.”

Roxas has been blamed for the Metro Rail Transit 3 maintenance contract mess when he was still the head of DoTC. The former general manager of MRT 3, Al Vitangcol III, accused Roxas of neglecting the procurement requests for the maintenance of MRT 3.

Vitangcol is facing criminal charges over the MRT 3 maintenance deal—which happened during the time of Roxas.

During the second leg of the presidential debates in Cebu in March, Duterte called Roxas a “fraud” and a “pretentious leader.”

Duterte has also said that the leadership of Roxas will always be haunted by the Typhoon ‘‘Yolanda’’ tragedy and questioned Roxas on how the government spent Yolanda funds.

Laviña said despite the government claims of rehabilitation of Yolanda-affected communities, traces of the tragedy remain visible across Eastern Visayas.