House speaker Alvarez accused of distorting the truth

INQUIRER FILE PHOTO / GRIG C. MONTEGRANDE

So who are the bullies and the bullied?

An opposition congressman on Friday pilloried the leadership of the House of Representatives for distorting the truth by labeling the actions of anti-death penalty lawmakers as the “tyranny of the minority.”

“Since when has a small authentic minority oppressed the ascendant majority?” said Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman, one of the staunchest opponents of the bill restoring the death penalty.

He was reacting to statements made by Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez and Majority Leader Rodolfo Fariñas who characterized the second-reading approval of the controversial measure as the majority standing up to the bullying tactics of the minority.

“It is the majority leadership that dictates, albeit with unreasonable alacrity, the tempo of the proceedings; it is the House leadership which interprets the rules, albeit arbitrarily; and it is the House leadership that stifles dissent,” Lagman said in a statement.

He said the House leaders seemed to be absolving themselves of their sins of “suppressing the right of free expression and debate” in the haste with which the death penalty had been passed on second reading.

The 292-seat chamber approved the bill through a voice vote on Wednesday evening following heated exchanges on the plenary floor as the sponsors entertained individual amendments to the bill.

After a second roll call upon Lagman’s motion, the presiding officer refused to accept any further changes, and called a vote of ayes and nays after Fariñas accused the dissenting lawmakers of having other motives besides introducing “honest-to-goodness” amendments.

The bill will be put to third and final reading next week.

Lagman accused the House leadership of transgressing the rules and tradition of the House by prematurely closing the period of individual amendments.

He noted that only three pages of a seven-page text of the bill had been subjected to amendments, contrary to the rule that the amendment of the title of a bill should have been in order “only after amendments to the text thereof have been completed.”

Lagman said the amendments proposed by the opponents of the bill were legitimate and grounded on their advocacy against the reimposition of the death penalty.