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SEVERAL lawmakers on Wednesday criticized the progress of the approval of the P4.5 billion General Appropriations Law.
Albay Representative Edcel Lagman and the Makabayan bloc said the actions taken by the leadership on Tuesday violated congressional rules.
“I can no longer remain silent as a member of the House of Representatives because the unresolved bitter leadership issue is hurting both the institution and the public interest,” he said.
The House of Representatives approved last Tuesday in the second reading the proposal for the General Appropriations Law of P4.5 billion of 2021 and immediately suspended the session until November 16.
This after President Alan Peter Cayetano decided to terminate the plenary considerations on the national budget.
Lagman said the lower house approved the budget even as the proposed budgets of numerous major government departments, agencies and bodies have yet to be debated or reviewed.
Likewise, he said that the Lower House has suspended the plenary sessions without the prior consent of the Senate for 40 days until November 15, 2020 in violation of Article 16 (5) of Article VI of the Constitution and against Concurrent Resolution No. 11 that establishes the Congress Calendar.
“When 266 members of the House of Representatives elected Representative Alan Peter Cayetano as President on July 22, 2020 with virtually no opposition, except for the sample of the candidacy of Representative Welcome Abante, who was elected in advance by the incoming leadership of the Chamber to become the Leading Minority, all were fully aware of the shared term agreement in which Cayetano would be the Spokesperson for 15 months and Representative Lord Allan Velasco would assume the Presidency in October 2020 for the remaining 21 months of the XVIII Congress, for hence the “1521” agreement, “he said.
“Consequently, the members of the supermajority, together with Cayetano, are now irrevocably prevented from breaching the agreement,” he added.
According to Lagman, it is up to the members of the supermajority to honor the shared term agreement that was the decision of President Rodrigo Duterte, the supreme leader of the united majority.
“As far as the majority is concerned, what President Duterte negotiated must not be broken,” he said.
“The rejection of the members of the majority coalition to Cayetano’s ‘offer to resign’ as president was a Moorish-Moorish, an inordinate farce. To comply with the shared term agreement, Cayetano must not only offer his resignation, but must resign irrevocably, “he added.
