Although the four-day special session of the Congress from October 13 to 16, 2020 called by President Rodrigo Duterte is welcome as it is needed to resume consideration of the national budget, the short period may not be sufficient to assure the approval on second and third readings of the 2021 General Appropriations Bill (HB No. 7727).
President Rodrigo Duterte’s call for the Congress to hold special sessions from October 13 to 16, 2020 to resume deliberations on the 2021 national budget is a rebuke of Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano who precipitately terminated the budget debates, according to Rep. Edcel C. Lagman.
The crippling impasse in the acrimonious contest for the Speakership is inevitably and ultimately traceable to President Rodrigo Duterte’s having brokered in July 2019 a term-sharing agreement between Reps. Alan Peter Cayetano and Lord Allan Velsaco, both staunch supporters of the President.
The on-going power struggle has derailed the budget deliberations and imperiled the seasonable enactment of the General Appropriations Act for 2021 due to the unprecedented and precipitate actions of Speaker Cayetano to hold on as Speaker.
Deputy Speaker Neptali Gonzalez II is grossly mistaken in his defense of Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano’s causing the:
Unprecedented and premature termination of the plenary deliberations on the 2021 proposed national budget;
Precipitate approval of the General Appropriations Bill (GAB) under HB No. 7727; and
Suspension of the plenary session for 40 days up to November 20, 2020.
As a member of the independent opposition, I have tried not to meddle in the intramurals of the majority coalition on the Speakership row.
But I cannot anymore remain silent as a Member of the House of Representatives because the unresolved acrimonious leadership issue is damaging both the institution and the public interest.
