• INDEPENDENCE OVER IMPORTUNING
• (Privilege Speech delivered by REP. EDCEL C. LAGMAN
• on 24 January 2012)

 

          At 10:43 in the evening of Thursday, January 04, 2012, I received a text message from a very reliable source which recounted the A-1 information relayed by one in the small group of about four who met that night at former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s hospital suite at the Veteran’s Memorial Medical Center. The text message reads in full:

   “Kakatapos lang ng meeting with GMA. Suarez is it. He’s got the numbers. 10 withdrew from Edcel. A manifesto of support will be signed tomorrow to be formalized in a Minority caucus on the 15^th with Edcel manifesting on the floor on the 16^th that he is turning over the power to Suarez. The manifesto supersedes Edcel’s reso.”

           This text message confirms an earlier report that former President Arroyo was meeting with a few select opposition members closely allied with her. It also refutes denials that the former President was not in the conclave. The message spills the plot: “Katatapos lang ng meeting with GMA. Suarez is it.”

           Other than confirming the role of former President Arroyo in the enterprise to replace me, the message is presumptuous propaganda.

           First, while it claims that Rep. Suarez as early as January 04, 2012 had the numbers, the fact is as of last Wednesday, January 18, 2012 or two full weeks later, he still did not have the uncontestable absolute majority of the Minority Members.

           Second, the following day, January 05, 2012, the group of Rep. Suarez failed to secure a signed manifesto of support, contrary to the assertion in the text message.

           Third, during the Minority’s regular lunch meeting on January 16, 2012, the group of Rep. Suarez presented an alleged manifesto which showed that only five, not 10, of the 15 Minority Members who signed the resolution retaining me as the Minority Leader also signed for Rep. Suarez. As of said date, 10 colleagues who signed in December 2011 the Resolution maintaining me as Minority Leader have remained steadfast.

           Fourth, in the caucus hosted by Rep. Suarez on January 15, 2012 at the Manila Golf and Country Club only six to eight Minority members attended.

           Moreover, it was unabashedly presumed that I would relinquish the Minority leadership at the mere say-so that the Suarez camp had the numbers.

           But what is important to underscore is that the text message never mentioned a term-sharing agreement for the Minority leadership, which bogus arrangement was pursued to deodorize the plot to oust me.

           The term-sharing being claimed by the Suarez camp is baseless and non-existent. The agreement was limited to a splitting of the term of the Speaker had I won as the then Lakas-Kampi candidate.

           Rep. Suarez offered the term-sharing agreement as a condition for withdrawing his bid to contest my candidacy for Speaker within the then Lakas-Kampi. We were fighting for the Speakership and to forge a splitting agreement on the Minority leadership would have been foolhardy and would have sent defeatist signals.

           Remember, this was in early June 2010 when Lakas-Kampi still held the numerical superiority.

           The meeting at Club Filipino to formalize the choice of the then Lakas-Kampi candidate for Speaker was covered by tri-media. The news accounts of the event unmistakably document that the splitting of term was limited to the speakership.

           Inquirer.net posted on June 04, 2010 a report entitled “Lakas-Kampi leaders agree to term-sharing for Speakership.” The news report stated that “Albay Representative Edcel Lagman and Quezon Representative Danilo Suarez have agreed to a term-sharing scheme if the administration party Lakas-Kampi Christian Muslim Democrats (CMD) would bag the Speakership in the House of Representatives.”

           The report further stated that “Emerging from the meeting of Lakas-Kampi congressmen Friday, Suarez said the party agreed to field Lagman for the top post of the chamber in the 15^th Congress” and “If Lagman gets the speakership, he will serve for the first 18 months, then Suarez will sit in the second half of the term.”

           Similarly, Manila Standard Today in a news account entitled “Lakas-Kampi taps Lagman in speakership race”, reported that “The administration Lakas-Kampi CMD party has agreed to a term-sharing formula between Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman and Quezon Rep. Danilo Suarez if it bags the speakership in the House of Representatives.”

           The report further recounted: “Lagman said he agreed to the term-sharing proposal to avoid division within the ranks of the ruling party”; “They made the proposal and I accepted it and I will take the first 18 months, said Lagman, adding that he expected to win a majority”; and “Suarez said a coalition with other parties was in the works to get some 20 party-list lawmakers to their side.”

           No mention whatsoever was made about an alleged term-sharing for the Minority leadership.

           I am not a stranger to term-sharing agreements. Before I assumed the Chairmanship of the powerful Committee on Appropriations, Speaker Jose de Venecia brokered a term-sharing agreement between me and Rep. Junie Cua. When the time came, I voluntarily relinquished the Chairmanship to Representative Cua despite the fact that Speaker De Venecia had been replaced by Speaker Nograles who was not privy to the arrangement.

           I always honor a commitment or agreement. But I should not be forced to comply with an imagined or contrived arrangement.

           The repeated incantation of the Suarez camp about a term sharing agreement has become a repulsive refrain even as its creeping signature campaign demeans Minority members who are relentlessly pressured to renege on their commitment and abandon their support for me.

           Under the circumstances, the only principled action to take is to resign as Minority Leader so that former President Arroyo’s anointed one can take over despite his failure to obtain an uncontestable absolute majority of the Minority members.

           Those who affixed dual signatures for me and for Rep. Suarez cancelled out their preferences and nullified their contradictory choices. By parity of reasoning, the rule provided for in the Omnibus Election Code is instructive and applicable. It is provided that: “Where there are two or more candidates voted for in an office for which the law authorizes the election of only one, the vote shall not be counted in favor of any of them…”

           Moreover, two signatories to the Suarez manifesto have already left Lakas and joined the Nationalista Party, a member of the majority coalition. Consequently, they are disqualified from participating in Minority decisions unless they are able to show, which they failed to do, concrete proof that they have been authorized by the leadership of the Nationalista Party to remain with the opposition.

           What the Suarez manifesto achieved was to indelibly show the hand of the former President. Her two sons signed the manifesto despite earlier protestations that the Arroyos would remain neutral. All of the former Arroyo appointees now in the Minority, except for two, sided with Suarez.

           In order to foreclose further skirmishes within the ranks of the small Minority and render my association with some colleagues irreparably damaged, I resign irrevocably as Minority Leader. I have also communicated to Sen. Ramon “Bong” Revilla, Jr., President of Lakas-CMD, my resignation as Chairman and member of Lakas-CMD and Vice President of the Centrist Democrats International, a worldwide organization of Christian and Muslim democratic parties, of which Lakas-CMD is a member.

           I cannot continue to serve and lead a political aggrupation whose core ignores independent, committed, competent and responsible leadership.

           I cannot respect a group that demeans colleagues by relentlessly pressuring them to withdraw their signatures in a Resolution retaining me as Minority Leader.

           I cannot continue to associate politically with some opposition members who are closely linked and beholden to the former President so much so that they succumb to the importuning of a patron.

           I cannot allow the Minority to lose its credibility and independence by becoming a mere mouthpiece of the former President.

           When I interposed the petition challenging the constitutionality of the Philippine Truth Commission, I did not file it for former President Arroyo and her officials. I did not even consult her nor ask the help of her lawyers. She learned about it when it was already filed and her office even had to ask for a copy of the petition.

           I filed the petition on my own to confront the Aquino administration for committing an affront against the Constitution, more particularly the equal protection clause. I was sustained by the Supreme Court.

           Likewise, when I questioned the constitutionality of the cancellation of the ARMM elections and the granting of authority to President Aquino to appoint OICs, as well as when I challenged the validity of the GOCC Governance Act for derogating the security of tenure of government personnel and arrogating in favor of a super administrative body the powers of the Civil Service Commission, I did these again without consulting the former President.

           I wanted to deliver the strong message to the Aquino administration to uphold at all times the supremacy of the Constitution and the ascendancy of the rule of law.

           My only respectable alternative now is to become an independent. I cannot join the Majority party or coalition because I have serious policy differences with the Aquino administration like my pending petitions before the Supreme Court and my criticism of the blitzkrieg impeachment of the Chief Justice. I cannot forsake my convictions for partisan concessions.

           I wish to thank the House leadership for recognizing the importance of the Minority in a democratic system.

           I salute the members of the opposition who have remained steadfast in supporting my leadership and refusing to yield to tremendous pressures.

           I would like to thank the congressional media for a fair coverage of Minority concerns, except that a very few during the Minority intramurals were writing news accounts as if they were opinion columns.

           I will continue to fiscalize the Aquino administration and pursue to the hilt my progressive and alternative agenda, including the Reproductive Health Bill.

           I have been telling the public and media that although the former President and I were both in the opposition, I was never a GMA minion. Now, everybody knows that I am not.

           I am not the anointed one. I did not seek anointment. I treasure my principles and independence.