LP to respect Arroyo decision on House ‘minority’ but to stay opposition sans approval
SPEAKER Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo will have the final say on who will comprise the opposition bloc at the House of Representatives, an opposition member at the House of Representatives said on Sunday but added that his party, nonetheless, has informed the lawmaker of its position under her leadership.
“It is going to be the Speaker’s call. Whatever we do here, whoever the Speaker wants to recognize as the Minority bloc, that is the one who will prevail. If she is going to recognize Congressman [Danilo] Suarez of Quezon as the House Minority leader, still, we can’t do anything about that,” Rep. Romero Quimbo of Marikina, who belongs to the Liberal Party (LP), said in a radio interview.
Quimbo insisted, however, that LP was ready to be the constructive opposition of the House even without the approval of Arroyo.
“We wrote her office not to seek approval, but to inform the head of the institution which is the Speaker [under the House rules]. So as far as we are concerned, we already did what we have to do,” Quimbo said.
Quimbo was elected Minority Leader by 11 lawmakers from the LP.
Quimbo said that Suarez and 16 others who were part of Minority group under then Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez ceased to become the Minority when, under House rules, they voted for Arroyo as Speaker, not once but twice, last July 23, before President Rodrigo Duterte was set to deliver his State of the Nation Address (SONA).
“We call on Congressman Suarez to give Speaker Arroyo a chance to start things right and not to repeat the mistakes of past leadership wherein there was no dissent allowed in the House. Not only did they vote for her, they even campaigned for her. For them to insist [on being the Minority]would only give Speaker Arroyo problems,” Quimbo said. LLANESCA T. PANTI
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