Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman. INQUIRER.net FILE PHOTO/RYAN LEAGOGO
Former minority leader and comebacking Albay Representative Edcel Lagman cautioned his colleagues in the House of Representatives about a “co-opted” minority that would serve as a “rubber stamp” of the Duterte administration.
In a statement on Monday, Lagman, who gained prominence for authoring the Reproductive Health law, warned against a move by the majority allies of President Rodrigo Duterte to infiltrate the minority to make it a “co-opted” bloc in Congress.
“More than the ascendancy of a supermajority in the House of Representatives, what is seriously alarming is a possible emergence of a co-opted minority, a ‘company union’ established and supported by the majority,” Lagman said.
Lagman said his worry was that the parties in the “super majority” would lend their members to the minority bloc led by one representative coddling the Duterte administration in his bid to become minority leader.
He was referring to reelected Quezon Representative Danilo Suarez, who expressed his bid to lead the minority in the 17th Congress.
Suarez in an Inquirer report was quoted as saying that he would lead a “constructive and cooperative” opposition in Congress.
READ: Tiangco, Suarez vie for House minority leader
“The apprehension is that parties in the majority coalition would clandestinely ‘lend’ some of its members to a small group led by a representative who previously encamped in Davao city to secure the anointment of the new administration for his bid to become minority leader,” Lagman said.
Lagman and Suarez had been at odds in the 15th Congress when Lagman accused former President and now Pampanga Representative Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo of being behind an ouster move against him to install Suarez as minority leader.
Lagman and Suarez were on a term-sharing agreement in leading the minority before the start of the 15th Congress.
Amid the scuffle for minority leadership with Suarez, Lagman in 2012 resigned as minority leader and chairman of Arroyo’s Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrat. He jumped to the Liberal Party.
READ: Lagman quits minority, Arroyo
Lagman urged his colleagues in the 17th Congress “not to allow themselves to be pawns in a sinister plot to create a rubberstamp Congress.”
He also urged the dwindling members of the Liberal Party to forge a minority coalition with party-list members and other representatives “to become the reasonable, credible and vigilant counterpoise to the new administration.”
“The constitutional precept of ‘checks and balances’ must not be sacrificed at the unholy altar of partisanship and expediency,” Lagman said.
With parties aligning themselves with Duterte, the President’s Partido Demokratikong Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan is emerging as the next ruling party, with its member Davao Del Norte Rep. Pantaleon “Bebot” Alvarez set to clinch the Speaker post.
READ: Alvarez a cinch for speakership as Belmonte sees possible loss
Duterte is seeking clout in Congress to fast track the passage of his legislative agenda, among others the reinstatement of the death penalty for heinous crimes (abolished in 2006 under the Arroyo administration), the amendment of the Juvenile Justice Welfare Act to lower the age of criminal liability for minors, as well as a total constitutional overhaul to change the system of government to a federal state and decentralize Metro Manila’s powers to the provinces. RAM/rga
READ: Alvarez cements ‘super majority’ in Congress