Solons objecting to House suspension 'muted', says Atienza

Buhay party-list Representative Lito Atienza, a known critic of Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano, said he was muted during the plenary session of the House of Representatives on Tuesday afternoon when n the chamber gave a surprise second reading approval of the 2021 budget bill and suspended session until November.

Atienza's office on Tuesday released photos to the media showing that House members participating in the session through videoconference platform Zoom was not allowed by the host of the meeting to "unmute themselves" during Cayetano's speech before the plenary.

"Many of us were objecting at the top of our voices but again, we were muted on Zoom and all our objections were thrown out the window," Atienza said in a statement.

In that speech, Cayetano moved to terminate the deliberations of House Bill 7727 or the 2021 General Appropriations Act. The measure was eventually approved on second reading, and the House session was suspended until November 16.

This means that there will be no formal proceedings to transfer the speakership supposedly on October 14 to Marinduque Representative Lord Allan Velasco, who has a term-sharing agreement with Cayetano.

Atienza said what happened in the House plenary this afternoon only proves that Cayetano is "desperately hanging on."

"He has just publicly confirmed that he is losing ground that’s why he did it," he said in a statement.

"He didn’t care about Constitutional integrity, throwing everything into the air and making Congress go on a long vacation. Ginulo niya lahat and he violated all the rules of the House," he added.

Atienza said Cayetano's move is "typical of a poor loser – Pag natatalo ka na, guluhin mo na lang ang mesa, sunugin mo na lang ang bahay ika nga."

The Buhay party-list lawmaker earlier claimed that Cayetano was "losing his grip" at the House supposedly due to his continued defiance to implement the term-sharing agreement on the speakership.

He said that at least 154 members of the House from the party-list bloc, PDP-Laban, and the Nationalist People's Coalition will be supporting Velasco.

But Cayetano's allies at the House doubted Atienza's numbers, saying that some of the lawmakers belonging to these parties have earlier declared support to the Speaker.

Under the original term-sharing agreement, Cayetano would hold the speakership for months and Velasco would take over to finish the succeeding 21 months. -NB, GMA News