THE superiority in numbers of the ruling Liberal Party will soon diminish as President Benigno Aquino III wants its members to join the majority but those who will choose to be in the opposition or the minority will lose their membership, House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte revealed Sunday.
He made his statement even as Senator Alan Peter Cayetano is wooing President-elect Rodrigo Duterte to back him as Senate president and not Senator Aquilino Pimentel Jr., the president of Duterte’s PDP-Laban, sources from Duterte’s camp said Sunday.
“President Aquino prefers that LP would go with the majority as a group and support President-elect Duterte and vote for Pantaleon Alvarez as Speaker,” Belmonte announced over radio dzBB.
“Since the majority of the LP members would be with the Alvarez majority, that will become the LP, the majority,” Belmonte said.
Those LP members who would choose to be opposition and go with the minority need not retain the name LP or be associated with the majority LP, Belmonte said.
“Ang LP na nasa majority, yun na ang LP,” Belmonte said.
This was because Duterte wanted the LP members to switch parties first before they could belong to the majority, since the incoming President did not want an LP-majority and LP-Minority, the Speaker explained.
However, Belmonte said it was earlier agreed with Alvarez that the LP would be allowed to join the majority coalition as the LP and need not switch parties.
The negotiations on the issue were ongoing and these would be pursued after the proclamation, the Speaker said.
Belmonte said he had not decided yet on whether he would contest the speakership to bag the minority leadership.
“That is just one of my options. But at the moment, the number one option of the Liberal Party is to be cooperative with the new administration,” whe said.
He said the party as a whole wanted to be part of the majority.
And the reason the majority of the LP members wanted to belong to the majority coalition was because they wanted the administration not to forget their districts in terms of projects, Belmonte said.
The others, he said, wanted to “advance their career by getting better positions.”
“We are almost 290 and not all would be given positions,” he said.
Only about 56 positions and committee chairmanships were up for grabs in the House that would be divided among 292 members.
Belmonte could not help but reveal he felt betrayed by his party mates.
“Yes, in a sense I felt betrayed because some of them are pretty close to me. But outside of that, I know that that’s the reality of Philippine politics.”
He also revealed that he did not want to run for reelection but that he was overruled by the President “who asked me to run.”
Belmonte said President Aquino was also “realistic” and that he had no false expectation that the LP would remain the ruling party.
“The President himself came from the House of Representatives. He is also realistic,” Belmonte said.