Santiago to block Soliman’s confirmation

Social Welfare Secretary Dinky Soliman. FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines – Senator  Miriam Defensor-Santiago  said on Tuesday she would invoke Section  20 of the  rules of the Commission on Appointments  to block the confirmation of Social Welfare Secretary Corazon Soliman.

Santiago disclosed her plan in her letter on Tuesday to Representative  Conrado Estrella, chairman of the  CA’s committee on labor and employment and social welfare. The committee is set to hear Soliman’s confirmation  on Wednesday.

“This is to respectfully notify that I intend to invoke the CA Rules, Section 20, to suspend the consideration of any nomination for DSWD Secretary Corazon Soliman. The practice is that when Section 20 is invoked it is non-debatable,” she said.

Santiago said she has been opposed to Soliman’s nomination from the very beginning of the Aquino administration.

“Ms. Soliman was a fervent devotee of President (Gloria Macapagal) Arroyo. All of a sudden, on her way to Emmaus, she heard a voice telling her that President Arroyo is allegedly corrupt. Conveniently, she turned her back on her erstwhile patron and ran to the other side of the street to join President Aquino’s daang matuwid,” she said.

“In the first place, she (Soliman)  should be satisfied with one term under one president. In the second place, she should not retain her public office on the strength of her denunciations of her first boss,” she added.

The senator also  noted  how  Soliman  supposedly  denounced  her integrity when  she  sat as a judge during the impeachment trial of then President and now Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada.

“Palace insiders have  told me that she and her “ilk” have  felt free to denounce my integrity. I was a judge in the Estrada impeachment case, and I voted against the opening of the second envelope. Ms. Soliman and her ilk immediately seized this incident as proof that I was pro-Estrada, and therefore corrupt,” Santiago said.

“Eventually, the second envelope was opened and the glee concert failed to emit a peep when it turned out that they were wrong, because there was nothing incriminatory in the second envelope.”

In the previous hearing of the CA, Santiago said, she accused Soliman and her ilk of Manichaeism, which she described as an “obsolete attitude based on the supposed primeval conflict between light and darkness, where the most vocal proclaim themselves to be the  personification of light, and their victim as the personification of darkness.”

“These people are dangerous,” said the senator.

Santiago , who has been on medical leave,  expressed  her intention to face Soliman in the hearing if the committee would require her presence.