Former speaker and Quezon City Rep. Feliciano Belmonte Jr. may opt to be part of the minority bloc in the House of Representatives for the incoming 17th Congress.
“We were reduced and raided deliberately by the new majority. Our number now is 35 LP lawmakers. There is no reason to join the supermajority [because we may end up being left out there],” Belmonte told reporters following a meeting with his Liberal Party allies in Quezon City Tuesday afternoon.
But once elected as the House minority leader of the new Congress, Belmonte said he would be a “a responsible and lead fiscalizer” in supporting the legislative agenda of President Rodrigo Duterte of the Partido Demokratiko Pilipino Laban ng Bayan (PDP-Laban).
“I am taking the challenge to be a responsible and lead fiscalizer and I will perform my job as opposition leader,” Belmonte, an LP vice chair, said.
Belmonte said talks that the LP would join the so-called “supermajority” of Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez, representative of Davao del Norte and PDP-Laban secretary- general, did not prosper after the LP membership “was reduced significantly.”
The supermajority of PDP-Laban is also composed of the Nacionalista Party, Nationalist People’s Coalition, the National Union Party, and the 57 allied party-list groups.
Belmonte said he hopes some independent members of the Lower House will also join them, adding there are still uncertainties that his group will be able to be formed into a ‘solid’ minority.
He said he fears Alvarez may ask some members of the supermajority to join a “fake opposition group” similar to a “company union” to prevent a genuine opposition group in this Congress.
“He [Alvarez] might do that [lend some of his allies to vote for a fake minority leader], I hope he doesn’t,” Belmonte said. Right now, Quezon Rep. Danilo Suarez and Navotas Rep. Toby Tiangco are aspiring to be the next House Minority Leader.