Tacloban City Mayor Alfred Romualdez on Sunday said he did not mean to point fingers at Interior Secretary Mar Roxas at a recent Senate hearing but was merely explaining the situation in the wake of Typhoon Yolanda.
At a Senate hearing to evaluate disaster response on Dec. 9, Romualdez said Roxas brought up his surname instead of immediately sending help to Tacloban.
A video of the meeting between him and Roxas went viral on social networking sites last week, where the Interior Secretary said “You have to understand, we are talking very straight here. You are a Romualdez and the President is an Aquino."
"With regard to the tape, I think it speaks for itself. The whole issue is whether, really, a letter was needed or not. I just gave my account of what happened. The last thing we want is to point fingers or to have a word war with anyone," said Romualdez in a "24 Oras" report aired Sunday evening.
President Benigno Aquino III came to his ally's defense and told the media during a briefing in Tokyo, Japan over the weekend that Roxas was just clarifying the roles of national and local governments in disaster situations.
He said he was also dismayed that the Tacloban government did not take responsibility for roles it committed to fulfill. — Rie Takumi/JDS, GMA News
Source: GMA