Malacañan on Saturday, February 25, said it agrees with critics in urging people to remember and relive the spirit of nation-building that brought about the EDSA People Power Revolution 31 years ago but cautioned against political opportunists.

In an interview with Radyo ng Bayan, Presidential spokesperson Ernesto Abella said President Rodrigo Duterte remains focused on improving the lot of the Filipino through increasing infrastructure spending and convincing investors to do business in the country.

“We would wish that people were cooperative instead of focusing on you know, being adversarial. Well, criticism is always ano, is welcome. Iba rin po ‘yung being adversarial,” Abella said.

He said what the country needs now are “people who are truly and sincerely nation patriot, nation builder,” and not people “who take advantage of political position for their own advancement.”

The Palace official also assured that there is no suppression of dissent, noting that the Duterte administration has allowed protesters to rally on the streets as long as they do not break law and order and interfere with traffic.

Meanwhile, Abella also commented on the statements that the arrest of Senator Leila de Lima is a political harassment.

Abella explained that De Lima’s arrest is based on probable cause.

“Linawin po natin na ‘yung kanya pong kaso ay kriminal. Hindi po ito pulitikal na bagay,” he said.

“As you can very well see, the way it’s all played out, is everything was played also in the open in media, wala naman pong naitago and you know, for all intents and purposes, everything was objective… everything was done objectively and with fair play,” he added.

In the same radio interview, Abella noted that the Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey conducted in December 2016 on the optimism of job availability showed a record high of +37, the highest net optimism since 1998.

Abella said the Duterte administration is focused in creating 1.2 million jobs annually.

“It will be addressed by attracting more foreign investments, increasing infrastructure spending, the ease of doing business, improving the ease of doing business in the Philippines tsaka ‘yung pagdedevelop po ng ating human resources,” he said.###PND