MANILA, Philippines — Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano and Marinduque Rep. Lord Allan Velasco should honor their gentleman’s agreement on the term-sharing for the speakership, President Duterte said yesterday.
“Our agreement is sharing, half-half. Now, if anyone of them would not honor it, be it Lord Velasco or si Peter Cayetano, that is… that would be his decision,” Duterte said in a chance interview after the dedication ceremony of his great grandson in Davao.
“But he has to take care that there is an agreement of sharing. If you violate it… Usapan ‘yan,” he added.
It was the President who intervened in the duo’s fight for the speakership before the 18th Congress opened last July.
Under the term-sharing agreement, Cayetano would turn over the House reins after 15 months to Velasco, who will preside in the next 21 months of this Congress.
The controversy emerged anew after Cayetano and his allies hinted they would want continuity, meaning the current speaker should stay at his post.