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Tuesday, November 08, 2005
Capillas: Congress politics
By Stephen Capillas
The Lowdown
APPARENTLY getting wind of the reports that the public knows about their plans to get rid of House Speaker Jose de Venecia, the Mindanao bloc of congressmen who gathered with minimal fanfare in Cagayan de Oro last Saturday talked about anything but the political maneuverings in Congress.
According to a Sun.Star Cagayan de Oro report, the Mindanao lawmakers are instead calling on the House Speaker to act on the programs they deemed urgent in Mindanao. Unstated in that appeal is the threat that if he doesn't they will push for new leadership in the Lower House.
Being the political animals that they are it may not take long before they set about in motion the events that would result in a change in congressional leadership. And the public or at least a growing number of them has resigned themselves to the fact that politicians in Congress are prioritizing power plays and not programs of development.
At the very least the public has the right to know whether or not Surigao del Sur Representative Prospero Pichay has what it takes at least to become House Speaker. In this democracy they deserve to know what's coming to them.
And as pointed out in yesterday's editorial Pichay is little more than the Palace's lapdog, a yes man who would do the bidding of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her husband, First Gentleman Mike Arroyo.
It was that Dong Puno show in which Pichay failed to answer--more accurately, stayed silent--the allegations of government use of funds for President Arroyo's election campaign through the T-shirts worn by street cleaners last year that convinced this writer that the lawmaker is a Palace pet.
Granted that Senate President Franklin Drilon also failed to answer that allegation but the Liberal Party in which he was affiliated had a tactical alliance with Lakas of which Pichay is a member. Now that Drilon is on the other side it remains a question why he didn't raise that issue now. Perhaps after having seen the impeachment complaint go down, he felt it was unnecessary.
(November 8, 2005 issue)
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