(Statement of Rep. Edcel C. Lagman against the recognition of Rep. Danilo Saurez as “Minority Leader”)

Representative Danilo Suarez and his group cannot claim any iota of legitimacy to remain as the Minority in the House for the following overriding reasons:

1. They dug their own grave as Minority when they campaigned and voted for the new Speaker, former President and Pampanga Representative Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Their resurrection to their erstwhile status as Minority is utterly nil and inconceivable.

2. They should not be allowed to perpetuate the anomalous charade of having been the “institutional Minority” after they sought and received the anointment of then Alvarez leadership as the “Majority’s Minority”.

3. The pertinent rule of the House is unequivocal: those who voted for the winning the Speaker constitute the Majority.

4. Rep. Suarez and his group do not deny that they voted for Speaker Macapagal-Arroyo as reflected in no less than Resolution No. 2025 which sought to validate the election of Speaker GMA to which was attached the record of those who voted for GMA, which included Suarez and his group, those who voted against, and those who abstained.

5. Rep. Suarez and his group vigorously campaigned for Speaker Macapagal-Arroyo. Their signatures are indelible in the manifesto endorsing the election of the new Speaker.

6. The pertinent rule, as amended and confirmed by the Supreme Court in Baguilat vs. Alvarez, is that those who abstain from voting for the Speaker belong to the Minority, like the 12 members of the Liberal Party who all abstained on record.

7. The convenient ruse of representative Suarez and his group of applying to transfer from the Majority to the Minority is patently flawed even as it is a clear admission that they have lost their Minority status. Any transfer from the Majority to the Minority as provided in the Rules must be addressed to the Minority Leader after the latter has been recognized and not earlier to the Speaker.

8. The posturing of Rep. Suarez and his group that only the position of Speaker was declared vacant, and consequently, all other positions, including that of Minority Leader remain the same, is destitute of legal anchorage.

9. Any change in the leadership of a legislative assembly, like the House of Representatives, necessarily results in changes in the composition of the majority and minority in the Chamber.

10. This is inevitable because a change in leadership automatically carries with it the shifting of alliances and loyalties.

11. The change in the speakership did not happen in an isolated vacuum. It was effected through the mobilization of partisan forces, severance of alliances, and obliteration of loyalties.

12. No less than the Supreme Court opined that the election of the Speaker will “determine the constituency of the majority and the minority.”