Deputy Speaker and Batangas Rep. Raneo Abu on Thursday brushed aside speculations that the plenary session ended quickly to avoid any attempt to declare all seats vacant and oust Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano.
Abu, who presided over the session, rushed to the budget hearing of the Department of Foreign Affairs immediately after ending the Thursday proceedings.
“There’s just nothing else to discuss. No such thing as coup, Speaker Cayetano enjoys the full trust and confidence of congressmen,” Abu told this reporter.
ACT-CIS Partylist Rep. Eric Yap, chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, was as equally surprised as Abu when he learned that an ouster plot was to be carried out on Monday.
“These speculations may have been started by Deputy Speaker (Paolo) Duterte’s text message to a fellow lawmaker that he was so “disgusted” at the squabble among solons over budgetary funding for their congressional districts that he would ask the Mindanao bloc to declare all leadership positions vacant Monday,” said Yap, a close ally of Duterte.
“But he told me what he said was a mere expression of disappointment,” said Yap.
Yap disclosed that Speaker Cayetano has called for a majority caucus to discuss the budget controversy that saw Deputy Speaker and Camarines Sur Rep. Elray Villafuerte and Negros Oriental Rep. Arnolfo Teves exchanging insults in the viber thread of House members.
“I am confident this problem will be resolved because the House leadership treats all congressmen equally,” said Yap.
During the budget hearing for the Department of Public Works and Highways, Teves chided Cayetano and Villafuerte for allegedly cornering huge infrastructure funds for their respective congressional districts.
This is the second time Villafuerte was accused of getting billions of infrastructure funds for his congressional district. The first was during the term of former Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo when over P100 billion in so-called “parked pork barrel” were discovered by the Appropriations Committee at that time.