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Press Release

The issue on the premeditated marginalization or even demise of the House minority as engineered by the leadership of the supermajority is now with the Supreme Court for adjudication.

The petition for mandamus dated 14 October 2016 has been docketed as G.R. No. 227757, entitled “Rep. Teddy Brawner Baguilat, Jr., Rep. Edcel C. Lagman, Rep. Raul A. Daza, Rep. Edgar R. Erice, Rep. Emmanuel A. Billones, Rep. Tomasito S. Villarin and Rep. Gary C. Alejano vs. Speaker Pantaleon D. Alvarez, Majority Leader Rodolfo C. Fariñas and Rep. Danilo E. Suarez”.

Rep. Edcel C. Lagman, one of the petitioners, disclosed that the petition praying for the recognition of Rep. Teddy Brawner Baguilat as Minority Leader is anchored on the following grounds:

  1. Since Baguilat was the clear runner-up to Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez in the Speakership contest on 25 July 2016, by an unbroken tradition he automatically becomes the Minority Leader because he defeated Rep. Danilo Suarez by a vote of 8 to 7, thus relegating Suarez as third placer.

  2. Suarez was “elected” on 27 July 2016 by an aggrupation principally consisting of pseudo minority members who were directed by the leadership of the supermajority to beef up the small group of Suarez by first abstaining in the election for Speaker and then convening to elect Suarez as “minority leader”.

  3. Under the last paragraph of Section 8 of Rule II, all those who did not align themselves with the majority or the minority, as when they abstained from voting in the Speakership contest, are considered independent Members of the House, not as minority members.

  4. Suarez was disqualified to be minority leader because he belonged to the majority after voting for Speaker Alvarez.

  5. Ten of those who “elected” Suarez as “minority leader” soon returned to the majority coalition, thus revealing the malevolent scheme to subvert the choice of a minority leader.

  6. The separate election of the minority leader by members of the minority under the second paragraph of Section 8 of Article II of the Rules of the House only applies when there is no clear runner-up to the Speaker as when there was a lone candidate, which happened in the 14th Congress in 2007, or when three candidates for Speaker figure in a tie for runner-up, which has not happened.

  7. Suarez as the Majority’s “minority leader” has utterly failed to discharge the role of the opposition.

  8. Petitioners who constitute the authentic minority are the real oppositionists in the House as shown by their consistent advocacies and pronouncements critical of the administration and the majority.

EDCEL C. LAGMAN

Press Statements

The majority decision penned by Associate Justice Disodado Peralta starts with a blind exhortation for closure “in law, as much as in life”.

The error in the said call for closure is the failure to realize that closure is a happy and welcome ending to a tragedy or misfortune.

It is not closure if the eventuality will open anew the deep wounds of atrocities, would relive the haunting memories of torture and mayhem and would exacerbate gross injustice and wanton impunity, all at the expense of the victims of Marcos’ martial law regime.

The burial of Marcos, the condemned dictator, confirmed plunderer and censured violator of human rights, in the Libingan ng mga Bayani will not lead to closure because it sanctifies evil and installs a despot and tormentor in the venerable memorial for good men.

No less than the Supreme Court itself, as well as international judicial tribunals, in several decisions have acknowledged and documented the plunder committed by Marcos and his commission of brutalities against human rights victims.

The absence of closure is highlighted by the escalating protest rallies nationwide and cogent commentaries against the majority decision of the Supreme Court which allows the interment of Marcos in the Cemetery of Heroes simply because he was a former President and soldier, statuses which were overridingly negated by his mortal sins against the Filipino people.

 

EDCEL C. LAGMAN

Press Statements

Alarming shades of martial law are in the offing with President Duterte’s inclination of suspending the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus to reportedly “strengthen” the campaign against the drug menace and suppress the so-called “rebellion” in Mindanao.

There are no legal and factual bases for the suspension the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus.

The Constitution provides that the suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus may be made by the President only in “case of invasion or rebellion, when public safety requires it”.

The deadly campaign against drug traffickers and narcotic abuse is not a ground for suspension.

Claims of success of peace initiatives in Mindanao belie a brewing rebellion.

The suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus will only be a farce because the carcass of victims of extrajudicial killings may not be brought anyway before the courts even without the suspension since the privilege of the writ demands the judicial presentation of the live bodies.

Moreover, with the growing culture of violence and killings, the suspension of the writ may further embolden the police to summarily execute suspects or cause their involuntary disappearance.

Under the Constitution, the Congress, voting jointly, by a vote of at least a majority of all its Members in regular or special session, may revoke the suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, which revocation shall not be set aside by the President.

The Supreme Court may also review, in an appropriate proceeding filed by any citizen, the sufficiency of the factual basis of the suspension of the privilege of the writ.

 

EDCEL C. LAGMAN

Press Statements

Rep. Edcel C. Lagman (LP, Albay)
0917-1023737 (new) / 0916-6406737
08 November 2016

While I respect the decision of the Supreme Court, I am puzzled to no end why the majority of the High Court would allow the burial of a judicially and historically confirmed despot, plunderer and transgressor of human rights in the Libingan ng mga Bayani.

A high sense of patriotism and the common standards of reason and logic bar the interment of Marcos in the Cemetery of Heroes.

Motions for reconsideration are in order for a reversal of the majority decision.

Pending resolution of the motions for reconsideration, the Supreme Court needs to reissue or extend the status quo ante order against the Marcos burial in the Libingan ng mga Bayani to prevent the case from being rendered academic by a precipitate Marcos internment and to accord due respect to the final decision of the Supreme Court.

 

EDCEL C. LAGMAN

Press Statements

Rep. Edcel C. Lagman (LP, Albay)
0917-1023737 (new) / 0916-6406737
08 November 2016

The proposed revival of the death penalty in the Administration’s House Bill No. 001 is a retrogression. The abolition of the death penalty in 2005 under Republic Act 9346 was the culmination of a multi-year crusade which I spearheaded. Its proposed re-imposition is a patent affront to human rights and an abandonment of modern penology’s focus on rehabilitation of the convict, not the exaction of retribution.

The revival of capital punishment even for heinous crimes is an anachronism and execution by hanging is inordinately aggravating.