“Coup plotters” planning to overthrow House Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano should stop spreading intrigue and focus on the job at hand—or “they are going to get what’s coming to them,” the top congressman warned Wednesday.
This developed as one of Cayetano’s allies, Deputy Speaker and Camarines Sur Rep. Luis Raymund Villafuerte, said the lawmakers who were behind the rumored ouster plot against Cayetano would be named “in due time.”
“Members of Congress know who the plotters are,” Villafuerte said in a TV interview.
“If I get removed as Speaker, I will not run to the President for help. I will not blame anyone but myself,” added Cayetano, who also reaffirmed his commitment to honor the term-sharing agreement with Marinduque Rep. Lord Allan Velasco, as brokered by President Rodrigo Duterte.
“I remain committed to what the President says. I remain true to my commitment,” Cayetano said at a news conference, saying that the plot to oust him was useless since Velasco would simply have to wait his turn.
Cayetano last week accused Velasco of trying to unseat him by promising committee chairmanships and budget allocations to lawmakers who would join him.
Velasco has denied the accusations.
At the same time, Cayetano said he respects the sentiment of the regional party Hugpong ng Pagbabago, which denounced his decision to remove Davao City Rep. Isidro Ungab as chairman of the House appropriations committee, citing their “untenable working relationship.”
Ungab was “no longer productive,” Cayetano said.
HNP is led by Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio, the President’s outspoken daughter.
Cayetano also urged Velasco to vow that upon his assumption as Speaker, there would be no changing of the guard.
At the start of the current Congress, Cayetano and Velasco were the strongest rivals for the speakership, and it took Duterte to broker an agreement under which Cayetano was supposed to sit for the first 15 months and Velasco for the remaining 21 months.
Villafuerte lamented the fact that when he echoed Cayetano’s revelation about the alleged ouster plot, supporters of Velasco, specifically Mindoro Rep. Doy Leachon, took his statements against him.
On Monday, Leachon was removed as chairman of the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal. He was replaced by Kabayan Party-list Rep. Ron Salo, who chaired the House public information committee.
Ungab, a known ally of Mayor Sara Duterte, was removed as chairman of the House committee on appropriations, and replaced by ACT-CIS Party-list Rep. Eric Go Yap.
But Leachon said Cayetano’s accusations were a “prelude to dishonor” his term-sharing deal with Velasco.