Claire Castro tells Edgar Erice: It’s your peers who rejected you
MANILA, Philippines — Palace press officer Claire Castro on Monday denied Malacañang’s involvement in the replacement of Caloocan Rep. Edgar Erice as House senior deputy minority leader, saying the lawmaker should simply accept that his peers rejected him from the post.
This came after the lawmaker claimed that his “legitimate criticism” of Marcos was the reason for his sudden replacement. He also alleged that the President’s son, Ilocos Norte Rep. Sandro Marcos, had been seeking his removal from the position “for quite some time.”
READ: Erice says he lost House post after ‘legit criticism’ of Marcos
“Congressman Erice didn’t blame anyone else—he blamed everyone except himself. It was his own group that rejected him,” Castro told reporters in a media interview in New York City.
It was ML party-list Rep. Leila de Lima who replaced Erice in the position after House Minority Leader Marcelino Libanan moved to kick him out as senior deputy minority leader during Tuesday’s plenary session.
“This is his group. Let’s say they go by another name here—the Minority bloc. Congressman Tinio is there, Congressman Co is there, and also Congresswoman De Lima and Congressman Chel Diokno. Can this really be dictated by someone? This cannot be dictated by the President, and it cannot be dictated by Congressman Marcos. So he should just accept that he was rejected,” said Castro in Filipino.
The Palace official further said, “Perhaps it has something to do with his beliefs or his advocacies, but this means only one thing: his own group rejected him, and he was replaced in the position that he had probably long aspired to—one that he did obtain, but which was later taken away from him”
Castro stressed, “Are those critics still the ones who will dictate to President Marcos Jr.? So it’s definitely his fault if he was removed from his position?”
Erice’s removal from the post came a day after he vented his frustration over what he described as unfulfilled pledges made by Marcos, particularly on jailing big-time culprits in the flood control corruption scandal and creating a more powerful independent probe body for anomalous public works projects.
In a message to the Inquirer on Thursday, Erice said Rep. Marcos had been asking for his removal “for quite some time.”
“He cannot stand my legitimate criticism of the Marcos administration, particularly on the possible involvement of his father in the infrastructure corruption,” Erice said.
Rep. Marcos or his staff had yet to reply to the Inquirer’s request for comment as of press time. /mr
