SPEAKER Pantaleon Alvarez on Tuesday expressed hope the so-called super majority in the House of Representatives would remain strong in the event Liberal Party members allied with the majority bloc should decide to join the opposition bloc following Vice President Leni Robredo’s resignation from the Duterte Cabinet.
“I’m comfortable with our numbers. I welcome any move if they decide to bolt the [super majority] coalition, and join the opposition. I have no problem with that,” Alvarez told a radio interview.
Opposition Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman earlier urged LP members in the super majority coalition in the House to join the seven-man opposition bloc following Robredo’s resignation as chair of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council.
Former speaker and Quezon City Rep. Feliciano Belmonte Jr. and Deputy Speaker Miro Quimbo of Marikina led the LP members in the super majority coalition in the Lower House
Other LP members allied with the majority bloc include Reps. Jorge Banal, Alfred Vargas and Winnie Castelo—all representatives from Quezon City; Vilma Santos of Batangas and Henedina Abad of Bataan, wife of former budget secretary Florencio Abad Jr.
The LP, the dominant party during the Aquino administration, has 34 members in the House.
Of the total, only five of them are with the opposition led by Lagman and Ifugao Rep. Teddy Baguilat.
The Lower House has 293 House members.
Baguilat said those who would join the opposition would be making sacrifices since it would mean losing committee chairmanships, vice chairmanships and other privileges.
Caloocan Rep. Edgar Erice, a member of the LP in the opposition bloc, finds it awkward for LP members to remain in the majority bloc while Robredo leads the opposition.
“It’s very awkward that LP members in House are in super majority while our leader is the opposition leader. It’s time to take stand,” Erice told a news conference.
“Personally, (I feel) LP members have no choice but to choose whether to join our leader in opposition or split from LP.”
While it is a fact that Cabinet serves at the pleasure of the President, Lagman said the vice president holding a Cabinet portfolio must be treated differently from the rest of its members.
Lagman said a vice president’s appointment in the Cabinet “has constitutional basis or anchorage, unlike all of the other Cabinet Members who are political appointees.”
Lagman cited the second paragraph of Section 3 of Article VII of the Constitution which provides: “The Vice-President may be appointed as a Member of the Cabinet.”
“This makes the vice president distinct from the other Cabinet members,” Lagman said.
Lagman pointed out that as a Cabinet appointee, the vice president requires no confirmation by the Commission on Appointments, “unlike the rest who have to pass the gamut of the confirmation process.”
He said that as a cabinet member, the vice president “could not be considered merely as an alter ego of the President because he or she has a distinct and separate popular and constitutional mandate.”