Arroyo, the committee chairman, said that because of the opposition’s demand, the Blue Ribbon "sacrificed" a prior schedule for the hearing of the coconut levy fund controversy to hear Marcelo instead, on Dec. 13.
"After the Blue Ribbon acceded to hear Mr. Marcelo on Dec. 13, a date the minority proposed, the minority turned around and short-circuited Mr. Marcelo’s turn to testify by proposing plenary sessions also on Dec. 13," he complained.
He said that the minority "inexplicably" asked yesterday that budget hearings continue this week despite an earlier agreement, so plenary debates on the budget were rescheduled to Dec. 10 to 14, morning and afternoon. He pointed out that his committee could not hold hearings simultaneous with the budget debates.
"The Blue Ribbon Committee went out of its way to accommodate the minority but the minority is playing games. We can’t trust them anymore," Arroyo roared.
He claimed that this indicated the minority is not really serious in pushing for the testimony of Marcelo, majority owner of the Philippine Communications Clearing House Inc. and of APC Wireless Interface. Marcelo claimed in an affidavit that President Arroyo wanted to wrest majority control of the two firms in a meeting in Malacañang last August.
The President, who vetoed the legislative franchise of the two firms last April, denied the charge.
"They are not serious because they are afraid Marcelo will collapse during the committee hearing from our questions," Arroyo said.
He noted that Marcelo did not even mention his nationality in his affidavit.
"He said that PCCI would not be a monopoly and yet, he said it would earn $1.2 billion a year, dollars, not pesos," Arroyo added.
He said that the actuations of the opposition on the Marcelo testimony indicated that the minority is not serious about its avowed policy of critical collaboration with the administration.
"The minority members are great pretenders. There is no collaboration, only hypocritical collaboration," Arroyo charged.
He said that the Dec. 13 hearing on the telecommunications firms is now out of the question because of the budget deliberations on that day. He also dared the opposition to try to transfer the case from his committee to a select committee.
He claimed that the threat is just a bluff because there is no rule to support the transfer. – Efren Danao, Aurea Calica