Rep. Pantaleon “Bebot” Alvarez. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO / RICHARD A. REYES
Presumptive Speaker and Davao Del Norte Representative Pantaleon “Bebot” Alvarez on Friday denied the alleged move by the emerging majority bloc in the House of Representatives to field some of its members to elect a cooperative minority leader and prevent outgoing Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. from getting the post.
In an interview during the luncheon meeting of the new administration party Partido Demokratikong Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban), Alvarez dismissed the allegation as mere “speculations” and urged his colleagues to just wait for Monday, when the House of Representatives would convene to start the 17th Congress and elect its Speaker.
Under the rules, the second placer in the Speaker race would automatically become minority leader and the representatives who voted for the minority leader as members of the minority bloc.
Alvarez is eyeing a super majority in Congress to reduce the minority bloc to a “bite-size” number.
READ: Alvarez vows to be fair to minority solons
“Maraming speculation. Tingnan na lang natin sa Lunes kung paano ang botohan (There are many speculations. Let’s just see how the election goes on Monday),” Alvarez said.
“Yun ba ang ginawa nila noong 16th Congress? Baka takot sila sa sarili nilang multo (Is that what they did in the 16th Congress? Perhaps they are afraid of their own ghost),” he added.
Alvarez was referring to the previous minority leader race when then Leyte Representative Martin Romualdez lost to San Juan Rep. Ronaldo Zamora, who was then a member of the Nacionalista Party which aligned itself with the ruling Liberal Party. Zamora recently jumped ship to the PDP-Laban.
READ: Suarez to challenge Belmonte for ‘crumbs’
Alvarez is seen to clinch the Speaker post by a landslide after Belmonte, the Liberal Party vice chair, conceded and opted to lead the small minority bloc in Congress.
Belmonte decided to vie for the minority post after talks for the Liberal Party to join the majority coalition broke down due to the requirement supposedly for Liberal members to jump ship instead to the PDP-Laban, reducing the size of the once powerful administration party to 20.
Alvarez denied requiring the Liberals to jump ship to reduce the clout of the former administration party.
“Walang ganun. Nakapag-usap kami. Sabi niya kung okay lang na mag-minority, sabi ko, okay lang, walang problema (There is nothing like that. We talked. He asked me if it is all right to join the minority [bloc], I said there is no problem with that),” Alvarez said.
READ: Belmonte eyes minority post
It was Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman, prominent author of the Reproductive Health law, who first 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 in a previous statement.
READ: Lagman warns of ‘co-opted’ minority bloc
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 the 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 in 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 ship to the Liberal Party.
READ: Lagman quits minority, Arroyo
Lagman urged his colleagues in the upcoming 17th Congress “not to allow themselves to be pawns in a sinister plot to create a rubberstamp Congress.”
He also called on 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.
Duterte is seeking clout in Congress in his bid to fast-track the passage of his legislative agenda, among others the reinstatement of the death penalty for heinous crimes (which was 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 country’s system of governance to a federal state in his bid to decentralize Metro Manila’s powers to the provinces. RAM/rga
READ: Alvarez cements ‘super majority’ in Congress