Marinduque Rep. Lord Allan Velasco hit back at Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano last night as he accused the House leader of breaking his word to President Duterte by resorting Wednesday to “political maneuverings and theatrics” to cling to power.
In an Instagram message posted last night, Velasco chided the speaker for breaking his pledge to Duterte that he will publicly announce his intention to step down as House leader on October 14.
Instead, Cayetano declared his resignation effective September 30 – a move that was rejected by 184 congressmen for various reasons.
A number of solons said they want to follow to the letter the October 14 changing of the guard in the Lower House while many others simply wanted Cayetano to continue serving past the 15-month limit provided under the term-sharing pact with Velasco.
Referring to the results of a meeting with Duterte and leaders of the Lower House at Malacanang on Tuesday, Velasco said Cayetano had “promised to resign on October 14”, allegedly on orders of Duterte for him to honor the term-sharing agreement for the speakership.
“Ito ay usapang lalaki. (This is a gentleman’s agreement)”, stressed Velasco, who was supposed to take over the speakership post on October 14.
“Moreover, the President entrusted you with the task of announcing the date of the turnover. October 14 was chosen as the date for the turnover because we committed to pass the budget before October 14 and do nothing else that would disrupt or derail the process,” said Velasco.
The House leadership decided to cancel the budget deliberations scheduled Wednesday afternoon after the chamber voted to retain Cayetano.
“It is most unfortunate, therefore, that today, deliberations on the budget was suspended. Instead of focusing on the work at hand, further political maneuverings and theatrics took the budget deliberations hostage,” stated Velasco.
Velasco was the center of Cayetano’s privilege speech delivered a few hours after they met Duterte to resolve the controversy surrounding compliance to the gentleman’s term sharing pact that the Chief Executive brokered last year.
The Speaker roundly criticized Velasco for various acts that Cayetano claimed were violations of the terms of the agreement.
“These attacks and distractions serve no purpose other than to perpetuate what is a purely personal agenda threatening to delay the passage of the budget. This is the truth,” Velasco responded.
He said: I call on my colleagues to continue our work and pass the budget on or before October 14. This is the commitment we’ve made before the President, and this is our responsibility to our constituents, to deliver to them a fair and equitable budget.”
Velasco also expressed his thanks to Duterte for calling the caucus that supposedly ironed out kinks in the observance of the term-sharing agreement.