Who really belongs to the minority party?

I was watching “Headstart with Karen Davila” on ANC yesterday morning with Representative Lito Atienza and learned something about who should be in the minority. Apparently, as reports show, ousted House Speaker Pantaleon “Bebot” Alvarez wanted to be part of the minority group, which triggered questions whether he should be part of it. As Atienza pointed out, he voted for Representative Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to be the next Speaker of the House, but still considers himself a member of the minority.

No doubt, there was an upheaval in the House of Representatives because of the election of Arroyo. To add to the controversy, Alvarez offered to be the head of the minority group in the House. But as Atienza pointed out in his interview with Karen Davila he was still in the minority even if he voted for Arroyo. Atienza pointed out that as fiscalizer in the Duterte government, he insisted that he still belongs to the minority.

But as it turns out, the House rules mention that the members of the majority party are those who vote for the Speaker of the House, so in the end, even Atienza should not belong to the minority party. So what Atienza’s role in the House is has yet to be defined. In the case of Alvarez, he is entitled to belong to the minority since he did not vote for Arroyo as Speaker of the House. However, both of them still support President Rodrigo “Digong” Duterte and his policies.

As far as the real minority group is concerned, I would like to emphasize that it is the Liberal Party (LP) that holds this position. I guess this is the reason why the LP members voted for Representative Miro Quimbo of Marikina. Quimbo’s pronouncements pointed out that an authentic minority bloc is needed at the House for maintaining checks and balances in the chamber. This only goes to show that many members of the House are somewhat confused as to their roles as fiscalizer of the group.

In the meantime, I would like to believe that this confusion will prevail until a week then things start to settle down. But with the midterm elections coming next year, the politicos would soon line up to the political party that will give money for the campaign and I don’t have to tell you that at this point, who has the money for the coming elections and more importantly, who has the clout to have people elected into office.

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Today is the last day as ombudsman of Mrs. Conchita Carpio-Morales. We have been demanding her resignation especially during the term of former president Benigno “PNoy” Aquino III when she literally kept him from being prosecuted. Come on, she didn’t even know about the Dengvaxia issue where billions where spent and many children died due to this questionable vaccine? So in a great way, it is good riddance for Morales and I hope that the new Ombudsman will truly work on corruption from all levels of the government and whatever political landscape that the crooks belong.

On her last day of office Morales hit President Duterte’s anti-corruption campaign by saying that the country has yet to see proof of the administration’s sincerity in eradicating crooks in government, citing the “recycling” of some officials accused of corruption. She went on saying: “Mr. President, I hope that when you say you want to fight corruption, you mean it.” While she took a swipe at President Duterte, she herself was not serious enough to stop corruption when she is confronted by it. This is why many members of the LP have not been filed graft cases by the Ombudsman.

For the past months, President Duterte has reappointed more than a dozen government officials he earlier fired or asked to resign after they were accused of corruption.

Among them is former customs chief Nicanor Faeldon who was accused by the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency of involvement in the smuggling of P6.4 billion worth of shabu from China. Faeldon resigned in August last year amid the allegation but President Duterte appointed him as deputy administrator at the Office of Civil Defense in December.

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For email responses to this article, write to vsbobita@ gmail.com. His columns can be accessed through www. philstar.com.