No rift with Speaker – Fariñas

Majority leader and Ilocos Norte Rep. Rodolfo Fariñas yesterday denied that there is a rift between him and Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez.

Rumors that all is not well between the two top leaders of the House of Representatives started to circulate last Wednesday after the plenary vote to impeach Chairman Andres Bautista of the Commission on Elections (Comelec).

It was Fariñas who moved in plenary for approving the report of the committee on justice dismissing the impeachment complaint against Bautista. Days earlier, he led administration allies in voting to throw out the case at the committee level.

During Wednesday’s session, shortly after Fariñas called for adopting the committee’s dismissal report, Alvarez, who usually does not cast his vote, took the floor to vote and to show to members of his majority coalition that he was leading Bautista’s impeachment.

“The majority is getting stronger; more so, with my relationship with the Speaker. It is only I, or through my deputies, who may move for the consideration or adoption of anything in plenary. I did it personally (last Wednesday), as I always do during our opening and closing sessions. I also personally move for adjournment for every recess we have,” Fariñas said.

He said the majority decided to impeach the Comelec chief in a caucus Wednesday afternoon he himself called to discuss Bautista’s case.

He said he and other members of the committee on justice are not allowed under the rules of the House to vote against its report in plenary unless they voted in the committee level with reservation or qualification.

“Thus, we had to maintain our vote in favor of the report, even if we were already in favor of impeachment,” he said.

“The Speaker (and those who voted with him) and we who voted in favor of the report, did not really have any real difference as the decision to impeach was made by us, but there were members like me who could no longer vote against the report,” he added.

Fariñas pointed out that he even asked his colleagues in the majority not to follow his vote for dismissing the impeachment complaint against Bautista.

Some members of the justice committee who voted for throwing out the complaint said Alvarez put them in a dilemma by not making it clear before the complaint was voted on at the committee level that he was for impeaching the Comelec chief.

At least two of them claimed that Alvarez and Fariñas were actually for dismissing the case until last Wednesday morning, when Bautista announced that he was resigning effective Dec. 31 this year.

The announcement piqued the Speaker, who had expected the Comelec chief to tender an irrevocable resignation, the two said.

Alvarez then decided that Bautista should be impeached, they said.