(Eagle News)–The group of ousted Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez has asked the Supreme Court to intervene in the squabble over who should be the Lower House’s minority leader.
The lawmakers also asked the SC to order Danilo Suarez to cease and desist from performing the functions of the minority leader, and to acknowledge ABS Party-list Rep. Eugene Michael de Vera for the position instead.
Alvarez’s group had argued Suarez could not be the minority leader as, under House rules, he was disqualified from the position because he voted for and campaigned for Arroyo, the winning speaker, in the first place.
Despite this, he was designated as the minority leader.
Named as respondents in the petition were Suarez, Speaker Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, and Majority Leader Rolando Andaya Jr.
“If the arbitrary, erroneous and capricious recognition by Respondents [Arroyo] and Andaya of their co-respondent Suarez as the incumbent Minority Leader in the HOR is not annulled or modified, and enjoined, it shall violate and prejudice the legal rights and duties of the Petitioners who belong to the duly constituted Minority in the HOR and establish a bad precedence for future Congresses,” the petitioners said.