House secgen accused of railroading solon’s oath

The Secretary-General of the House of Representatives is in hot water for allegedly railroading the entry of former Agrarian Reform Secretary Nasser Pangandaman into the House membership roll despite protests against his eligibility.

Salic Dumarpa, former commissioner of the National Labor Relations Commission, said that Marilyn Yap should not have administered the oath on Nasser to replace his brother, Solaiman Pangandaman, as representative of the party-list group AA Kasosyo, because Nasser was not among the five nominees qualified to take the vacant seat.

Yap, who was appointed to her current post two years before former President Macapagal-Arroyo stepped down from office, apparently rushed the oath-taking of Pangandaman to include his name in the House membership roll and facilitate his oath-taking during the opening of the second regular session of the 15th Congress on Monday.

Yap did not reply to the Inquirer’s phone queries.

In a letter to Speaker Feliciano Belmonte, Dumarpa pointed out that Pangandaman was not qualified as a nominee of AA Kasosyo since he resigned as DAR chief only a month after the May polls.

“Accepting Pangandaman as a party-list congressman in replacement of his brother, Rep. Solaiman Pangandaman, is a mockery of the law. He must be stopped from circumventing the law for his own selfish interest,” said Dumarpa.

Nasser is taking over the seat of Solaiman who will be migrating to the US to focus on his businesses.

Pangandaman claimed that the Comelec had given the go-signal to replace his brother even though he was not listed among the nominees of the party-list group.

But Dumarpa cited a Supreme Court ruling upholding Comelec Resolution No. 8678 which considers all government officials automatically resigned if he or she becomes a party-list nominee.

Pangandaman was DAR secretary until he was replaced by President Aquino in July last year. Dumarpa said Belmonte should stop this “glaring travesty.”

The rush to affirm Pangandaman as a full-fledged lawmaker came after suspended Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao Governor Zaldy Ampatuan accused the former DAR Secretary of acting a bagman of Arroyo who allegedly got P200 million in kickbacks from farm-to-market road projects in 2008 and 2009 in Mindanao.

Ampatuan claimed that Pangandaman had demanded a 30 percent kickback for Arroyo from the road projects.