Cayetano: House won’t hold passage of proposed P4.5-T budget hostage

Speaker Alan Cayetano has promised that the House of Representatives will not put on hold the passage of the proposed P4.5-trillion budget for 2021 hostage or yield to requests for pork barrel funds.

Cayetano made the comments a week after representative Arnie Teves questioned the Department of Public Works and Highways if there is truth to reports that P11 billion and P8 billion worth of infrastructure allocations were provided for the province of Camarines Sur and Taguig City—hometowns of Deputy Speaker LRay Villafuerte and Cayetano, respectively, under the proposed 2021 national budget.

“Kaisa kami ni Martin na lahat ng representatives na merong concern, kahit isang constituent lang, they can talk to us. But there will be no blackmailing. There will be no hostage taking. There will be no moves that will force us na pumayag ng pork, parking or corruption,” Cayetano said ahead of his meeting with a number of House members on Wednesday.

Cayetano was referring to House Majority Leader Martin Romualdez of Leyte.

“Doon sa nangangailangan at may problema ang constituents, kaya kami nandito ni Martin precisely, para makatulong sa bawat distrito at bawat sektor sa ating party-list. So please pray for us and please pray for this budget na kung survival tayo ng 2020, we can have a progressive budget for 2021 that will be a stepping stone to great things in the future,” he added.

The P4.5-trillion proposed budget for 2021, Cayetano said, should provide livelihood assistance to Filipinos amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Balewala ang support if we stay in office pero we don’t deliver yung priorities ng administration at pangangailangan ng tao. So yun po ang puno’t dulo,” Cayetano said.

Cayetano is supposed to step down from his post as Speaker next month and yield it to Representative Lord Velasco of Marinduque City under a term-sharing agreement brokered by no less than President Rodrigo Duterte.

Cayetano, however, has accused Velasco of plotting a coup against him less than a month before he is supposed to yield his Speakership.

Velasco has since denied Cayetano’s accusations, saying that his turn will come at the right time. — BM, GMA News