86-year-old mom cries over attacks on Villar

by Fel V. Maragay





Original Story: http://www.manilastandardtoday.com/insideNews.htm?f=2010/april/27/news2.isx&d=2010/april/27


THE 86-year-old mother of presidential candidate Manuel Villar Jr. on Monday pleaded with his political enemies and critics to be fair and to stop attacking her son.

Curita Villar said she was deeply hurt by the attacks—especially allegations that their family did not have humble beginnings as portrayed by Villar’s advertisements.

“It pains and it almost kills me,” Mrs. Villar said in Tagalog during an emotional press conference at her home in Las Piñas City.

“They’re ganging up on my son.”

Mrs. Villar said her son was not exaggerating when he talked about helping her sell fish and shrimp in the market in his youth, and challenged reporters to visit their old stall at the Divisoria market.

The wheelchair-bound mother broke into tears as she talked about the difficulties she and her son, who was then 9, had gone through.

She said Villar’s brothers and sisters were also deeply hurt by the daily attacks on him on television and in the newspapers.

Villar’s sisters, Divina Gracia and Gloria Benedicto, came to his defense in the same conference, and lashed out at the media for being biased against him.

“Before you throw mud at us, why don’t you first look at the mud on your faces? ’’ Benedicto said.

“We are just simple people. As much as possible, we don’t want to come out, but we have to respond to these attacks.”

Benedicto became emotional when a reporter asked about the possibility that Villar would be criticized for using his mother in the campaign.

“Who was the first to use that gimmick?” she said.

“In all his [Senator Benigno Aquino III’s] posters, his mother and his father are there.”

Mrs. Villar appealed to her son’s political enemies and critics, and to the public, to be considerate and to stop peddling lies about her son.

“Please believe in him. His desire to help comes from the heart. Have pity on him,” she said.

At one point, Mrs. Villar sang Stardust, a song that she said she used to sing with her son, and then broke into tears again.


Original Story: http://www.manilastandardtoday.com/insideNews.htm?f=2010/april/27/news2.isx&d=2010/april/27