Benhur shows letter as proof he remains in House

REP. Benhur Salimba-ngon (Cebu, 4th district) yesterday dismissed the report he is no longer in the list of congressmen in the House of Representatives, calling it false and misleading.

Salimbangon faxed to Sun.Star Cebu a communication dated March 15 and signed by House Speaker Prospero Nograles and Rep. Junie E. Cua, chairman of the committee on appropriations.

The letter endorsed his request for the release of P5 million as financial assistance to the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center.

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The Department of Budget and Management received the letter last March 17.

Salimbangon said the House speaker would not have endorsed his request if he was no longer the congressman representing Cebu’s fourth district.

The report used as basis a comment that Speaker Nograles and House secretary-general Marilyn Barua-Yap submitted to the Supreme Court, that Salimbangon’s name was no longer in the attendance sheet during the session last Feb. 2 or in the payroll. Lourdes Jayme, officer-in-charge of the accounting service, also issued this certification last March 11: “This is to certify that starting February 2010, Salimbangon was deleted from the House members’ payroll.”

But according to Salimbangon, the best evidence is the official attendance in Congress last Feb. 3, the last session day.

“I was recognized as the congressman in the fourth district. I don’t know if there was another roll call outside Congress where Tining’s name was called,” said Salimbangon. He said he has not received a copy of the document Nograles and Yap submitted to the court.

He advised Tining to campaign hard if he wants to win in May.

“If he will roam around the fourth district to campaign, he should not forget to explain to the people who substituted the election returns during the 2007 elections and who replaced the genuine ballots with fake ones during the revision of ballots as discovered by the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal,” Salimbangon said.

His lawyer, Delon Urot, said the Martinez camp “can claim anything they want because they are entitled to that” but they ought to realize they “can’t fool the people of the fourth district anymore.”

“Besides, like we said before, can Tining categorically say that he has taken his oath before the Speaker in plenary session? I doubt it,” Urot said in a text message.

The Supreme Court (SC) last January declared Martinez the winner of the May 2007 elections, with a lead of nearly 5,000 votes over Salimbangon.

That decision contradicted a ruling by the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal, which had declared Salimbangon the winner by 453 votes. The original ruling from the Commission on Elections, in June 2007, was that Salimbangon won by 104 votes.

But the SC said the votes cast for “Martinez” and “C. Martinez” should be counted in the former mayor’s favor, instead of being declared stray ballots.