Alejano draws rare, severe critique from colleague

Update

A party-list lawmaker defended President Rodrigo Duterte on Thursday from Magdalo Rep. Gary Alejano’s “wasteful junket” remark against the Chief Executive’s Hong Kong trip last week.

ACTS-OFW Rep. Aniceto “John” Bertiz III called Alejano a “publicity seeker” and a “whiner” who was only “trying to draw attention” to himself.

“We cannot avoid grandstanding nitpickers who always try to find fault, however petty, everywhere they look,” Bertiz said.

“The way we see it, these whiners are actually the ones trying to draw attention to themselves. The President is a natural media magnet wherever he goes, even abroad. He does not need gimmicks,” he added.

Bertiz even urged Mr. Duterte to visit Hong Kong again “to pay tribute and lend encouragement to the 190,000 Filipino domestic workers there who send home an average of US $830 million, or P43.16 billion, every year.”

Last week, after attending the annual Boao Forum for Asia 2018 in Hainan, China, Duterte visited Hong Kong and addressed more than 2,000 mostly Filipino domestic workers there.

“Our workers in Hong Kong have long been wishing for the President to visit,” said Bertiz, adding that Duterte’s trip to mainland China “provided an excellent opportunity for him to drop by and lend moral support to Filipinos in the autonomous Chinese territory.”

Meanwhile, Bertiz sees “positive upward pressure” on the wages of Filipino domestic workers in Hong Kong in the years ahead, on account of the strong demand for educated, English-speaking household staff in mainland China.

Hong Kong’s Labor and Welfare Bureau has warned that some 50 percent or 95,000 of the Filipino domestic workers there are bound to transfer to mainland China once Beijing allows its citizens to hire foreign household staff for the equivalent of HK $15,500 dollars, or nearly four times the monthly minimum wage in the self-governing Chinese region.

He added that the Labor and Welfare office said Hong Kong would need an extra 240,000 domestic workers in the years ahead, partly to help look after its growing number of senior citizens.

Alejano’s reaction

The issue on the recent Hong Kong trip of President Rodrigo Duterte is one of “accountability and integrity to his words that his administration will not tolerate junkets,” Alejano said on Thursday to dispute Bertiz.

Alejano urged Bertiz to focus on the substance of the matter itself and do away with personal attacks in pursuit of personal advocacies.

“Kung sa iba ang pagpuna sa kamalian at kurapsyon ng mga nasa gobyerno ay pagpapapansin lamang, nagkakamali sila,” he said.

The opposition lawmaker said the Magdalo party has been consistent in calling out the policies and actions of this administration which are detrimental to the people and are unbecoming of government officials.

“To accuse my opposition to the Duterte administration as a publicity-seeking tool reflects ignorance on what Magdalo has always stood for,” Alejano said.

He also lamented how “there have been attempts to twist and mislead the people by framing it as an anti-OFW tirade.”

“I respect the hard work and sacrifices our OFWs are making for their families’ sake. Having OFW siblings, relatives and friends myself, I recognize their plight working in a foreign country away from home,” he said.

“Samahang Magdalo even has international chapters comprised mostly of OFWs. In fact, my sources are OFWs themselves who have manifested their disappointment over Duterte’s junket,” he continued.

/kga/ac