PARTY-LIST Reps. Leila de Lima (Mamamayang Liberal) and Jose Manuel Diokno (Akbayan) are set to join the House minority bloc, which is expected to have at least 30 members to be led by Rep. Marcelino Libanan (PL, 4Ps), who is vying to retain his post as minority leader in the 20th Congress.
De Lima, who, like Diokno, is a member of the 11-man prosecution panel in the impending impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte, said congressmen who will form the new minority bloc held a meeting last Thursday and signed a manifesto of support for Libanan’s retention as minority leader, the same post he held in the 19th Congress.
“We will be fiscalizers,” she told reporters. “We’ll be scrutinizing various policies, programs and legislative agenda of the administration. We will perform our role, but we are not going to be obstructionists.”
In the 19th Congress, the late former Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman, a member of the opposition, urged the House leadership to allow the formation of a legitimate minority bloc and do away with the old practice of forming a “company union” led by what he called a “pseudo” minority leader who is appointed by the majority bloc.
While De Lima is with the minority bloc, Deputy Speaker David Suarez earlier said four of the six Liberal Party congressmen are with the supermajority coalition which is backing the bid of Leyte Rep. Martin Romualdez to retain his post as Speaker.
The other parties who are with the would-be majority bloc are the ruling Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats, which Romualdez heads as president; the National Unity Party (NUP), the Nacionalista Party (NP), the Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC), President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s Partido Federal ng Pilipinas (PFP), and the Party-list Coalition Foundation Inc (PCFI).
De Lima, a former senator and a former justice secretary in the last Aquino administration, said the minority bloc can always support some of the administration’s proposed legislation they deem worth backing “but we will call them out over their deficiencies.”
De Lima said there were about 17 lawmakers who attended the meeting but the would-be minority bloc is expecting at least 30 members to be part of the group.
“The Marcos administration, during the first three years, were given some leeway,” she said. “But for the last three years, we will be stricter in monitoring what happened to its legislative agenda.”
De Lima declined to say if she was offered a post by Libanan in the minority bloc but said she has expressed interest to be a member of 20 House committees since there is no limit to the number of panels she can join.
Diokno said the group supports Libanan because “we want to push for legislation that will address the needs of ordinary people, and the place for that is really the House minority.”
“We believe that our place in the House is really in the minority,” said the human rights lawyer, who was a staunch critic of the Duterte administration’s bloody war on drugs.
Akbayan party-list Reps. Percival Cendaña and Dadah Kiram Ismula are also backing Libanan, along with returning Rep. Arlene Bag-ao of Dinagat Islands and party-list Reps. Renee Co (Kabataan) and Antonio Tinio (ACT), who are members of the militant Makabayan bloc.
