Another Nani figures in near-fight with solon

Another "Nani" in President Arroyo’s Cabinet figured last night in a brawl with a Nueva Ecija congressman at the House premises on Batasan Hills in Quezon City.

Agrarian Reform Secretary Hernani Braganza and Rep. Raul Villareal exchanged unprintables in front of congressmen when they chanced upon each other.

"P–g ina mo!" Villareal shouted at Braganza. "P–g ina mo rin!" the agrarian reform chief shot back.

Cooler heads had to intervene to prevent the two from coming to blows.

Braganza, who was also once a Pangasinan congressman, later told reporters that Villareal wanted him to stop a P23-million farm-to-market road project in Nueva Ecija because of alleged irregularities.

He said he asked the lawmaker to submit to him a complaint and the details of the alleged irregularities so he could act on them but that the congressman failed to do so.

"So I did not stop the project. That’s when he got sore at me," he said.

Braganza went to the Batasan to attend the plenary deliberations on the proposed 2003 budget.

It was not the first time that Villareal got himself entangled in a controversy involving a public works contract.

Some months ago, his colleague Rep. Pablo Bondoc of Pampanga accused him of meddling in a flood control project in his district.

Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. had to mediate the differences between the two House members. – Jess Diaz