Minority leader Abante steps down to join House majority

MANILA, Philippines — Rep. Bienvenido Abante (Manila) stepped down Friday as House minority leader and expressed his intention to join the majority, citing his “full trust” in the leadership of Speaker Lord Allan Velasco (Marinduque).

“There is no better symbol of this trust than an expression of intent to join the majority so I could be more proactive in providing urgently-needed legislation and congressional oversight,” Abante said near the end of his turno en contra speech.

Abante said this was a “difficult decision” for him as he has considered his colleagues in the minority bloc as part of his extended family in the House.

“Our parties or our beliefs or our ideologies may be different, there are more things that unite us, there are more advocacies we share, and there will always be one thing that will always bind us together: Our desire to serve our people,” he said.

With the departure of Abante as minority leader, the 24-member bloc would now have to choose among themselves who would be their new leader.

The minority bloc earlier signed a manifesto of support for the continued leadership of Rep. Alan Peter Cayetano (Taguig-Pateros) as speaker before he was ousted by a majority of lawmakers in an unprecedented session outside of Batasang Pambansa.

As the leader of the minority bloc, Abante defended its members, even joining calls for the resignation of Presidential Communications Operations Office undersecretary Lorraine Badoy for red-tagging members of the left-leaning Makabayan bloc.