Is Yasay a US citizen? Congressmen want to know

Foreign Affairs Secretary Perfecto Yasay MARIANNE BERMUDEZ / INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay Jr. will face the Commission on Appointments on Feb. 22 after the House contingent sought to clarify reports that he remains to be an American citizen.

Yasay was supposed to face the commission’s committee on foreign affairs on Wednesday but committee chair Sen. Panfilo Lacson said the House contingent sought a postponement because it still wanted to make a preliminary vetting on Yasay.

Lacson said he heeded the request of the House contingent which always vote as a bloc out of “interparliamentary respect.”

“But I have scheduled him (Yasay) on Feb. 22,” Lacson told reporters.

It was San Juan City Rep. Ronaldo Zamora, who leads the House contingent on the commission’s foreign affairs committee, who told reporters he  wanted to quiz Yasay on questions over his American citizenship.

“We want him to tell us…‘that I am no longer an American citizen although I was an American citizen at one time,’” Zamora said.

He said the congressmen  had already posed this question to Yasay but the foreign secretary has not yet responded.

He said the House contingent would meet with Yasay on Feb. 20.

Confirmation hearing for the appointment of Agrarian Reform Secretary Rafael Mariano was also postponed on Wednesday and may be reset next week, according to Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III, chair of the committee on agrarian reform.

Sotto said some House leaders sought the postponement of Mariano’s confirmation hearings, adding that probably they were not yet ready with their questions for him.—CHRISTINE O. AVENDAÑO