• GILBERT P. BAYORAN
Bacolod City Lone District Rep. Alfredo Abelardo Benitez said over the weekend that Speaker Martin Romualdez has to make a “supreme sacrifice” amid continued calls for the total overhaul of leadership in the House of Representatives.
Romualdez, who was linked to the flood control projects scandal, has strongly denied the allegations.
Benitez said that in the conduct of House hearing on the flood control controversy, it appears that there was a cover-up, noting that it took Navotas City Rep. Toby Tiangco to go to the Senate to present what he had learned in the flood control project scandal.
Tiangco has flagged a P13.8-billion insertion in the 2025 budget allegedly by then-House appropriations committee chair and Ako Bicol party-list Rep. Zaldy Co.
The budget was nearly all linked to flood control projects.
“It comes to a point that we really need to change the leadership because of the distrust of the general public,” Benitez said.
Benitez and Tiangco are part of the independent bloc at the House of Representatives. They did not vote for Romualdez during the selection of speakership for the 20th Congress.
As to the call for Romualdez to step down, Benitez said: “It is just a matter that it will happen. For me, his (Romualdez) position is untenable.”
Benitez said he observed that almost all House members are silent on the issue, which he said for obvious reasons.
Still, he noted that they are not deaf and blind on the issues against the House of Representatives.
Tiangco earlier thrown his support to Benitez for the Speakership.
“That would be a collegial decision. Whatever the decision of the majority of his colleagues, they will follow,” Benitez said.
He added: “We need a person that can cleanse the House. He has to have the credibility and integrity to bring those accountable to justice”.
“Whoever is in Congress right now feels the heat. But it needs somebody, I’m not saying it’s me, to cleanse the dirt thrown at Congress and to turn around its public image,” Benitez said. | GB
