By Jovee Marie de la Cruz
MARINDUQUE Rep. Lord Allan Velasco said on Tuesday night the PDP-Laban, which represents the biggest bloc of the Super Majority Coalition in Congress, strongly denounced the unilateral acts of Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano and his allies in the House of Representatives that led to the hurried approval of the 2021 national budget on second reading and the suspension of the plenary session until November 16, 2020.
According to Velasco, Cayetano and his “minions” deserve collective condemnation by the collegial body and should be held accountable for railroading the legislative process when they terminated deliberations on the annual budget for 2021, considering that the lawmakers were not given the ample time to scrutinize the outlay of government agencies.
“Approving on second reading without going through the required budget process and procedure—sponsorship, debate, amendments—and crucial discussion with government agencies. The railroading is contrary to the Speaker’s commitment for a national spending package that is open, transparent and meaningful and beneficial for the Filipino people,” he said.
Also, Velasco condemned what he called a flawed procedure to alter the approved Calendar of Congress, which states that the suspension of session shall be on October 17, 2020.
He assailed the “haphazard declaration of the suspension of session that contradicts and violates the provisions of the Constitution on the inter-parliamentary courtesy, as Congress is composed of two chambers where suspension of that long period of time must be with consent of the Senate of the Philippines in accordance with Sec 16, Article 6 of the 1987 Constitution.”
The Marinduque lawmaker said maneuvering of the House Rules and Calendar “is obviously an aftermath of Speaker Cayetano’s failure to secure the full support of President Duterte during our recent meeting and evade the October 14, 2020 peaceful transition of House Speakership to this representation based on the term-sharing agreement.”
Velasco said the acts of the current leadership only translate to the “loss of confidence” by majority House members on him.
“The foregoing acts manifest Speaker Cayetano’s extreme desire to hold on and hang on to power in clear defiance of President Duterte’s desire for the passage of fair and equitable budget that serves nothing but the interests of the Filipino people,” he added.
‘Desperate’ act – Atienza
Also, Buhay Rep. Lito Atienza said railroading the passage of the budget and suspending the session early prove “beyond doubt that Speaker Cayetano is desperately hanging on.”
“He has just publicly confirmed that he is losing ground, that’s why he did it. He didn’t care about Constitutional integrity, throwing everything into the air and making Congress go on a long vacation. Ginulo niya lahat [He messed up everything] and he violated all the rules of the House,” Atienza added.
The solon said many of lawmakers were objecting to the approval of the budget but were muted during teleconference and all of their objections were rejected.
“This is typical of a poor loser – Pag natatalo ka na, guluhin mo na lang ang mesa, sunugin mo na lang ang bahay ‘ika nga [When you’re losing, mess up the table, burn down the house, as they say],” he added.
This article first appeared on BusinessMirror
