Alvarez on coup rumors: Some people are making trouble

Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez has accused some people he did not identify of “making trouble” in the House of Representatives amid persistent rumors of a leadership change.

“I know who they are,” Alvarez said in Filipino during a dzMM radio interview late on Wednesday.

Alvarez, however, admitted that he had not spoken with Marinduque Rep. Lord Allan Jay Velasco, son of Supreme Court Associate Justice Presbitero Velasco Jr., who has been rumored to be interested in his position or that of Majority Leader Rodolfo Fariñas.

“I don’t want to talk to him. He might just put me on,” Alvarez said.

Velasco told the Inquirer on April 6 that President Duterte had broken the ice between him and Alvarez during a dinner party at Sofitel Philippine Plaza the night before.

He had insisted then that he “wasn’t even doing anything” to gain a higher post.

A provincial news report in April quoted an anonymous Northern Luzon congressman as saying lawmakers from Mindanao were working to install Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Velasco as replacement for Alvarez and Fariñas, respectively.—VINCE F. NONATO