Solon irked by ‘arrogant’ Deles, proposes 1-peso OPAPP budget

A Mindanao congressman on late Friday evening recommended a one-peso budget allocation in 2011 for the Office of the Presidential Adviser on Peace Process (OPAPP), after its head Teresita Deles allegedly showed arrogance towards a lawmaker who wanted to question her agency’s programs. Davao del Sur Rep. Marc Douglas Cagas moved for the reduction of OPAPP’s budget to show his outrage, together with other lawmakers, at what they saw as the high-handed attitude of Deles towards Lanao del Norte Rep. Aliah Dimaporo. “Colleagues, let us not allow such arrogance to happen in our House, not in our House. You [Deles] come here to Congress to ask for the approval of your agency’s P235 million budget and yet you cannot stand to be questioned. This representation moves that the OPAPP be given a P1 allocation for 2011 budget," Cagas said. Before Cagas, Sulu Rep. Tupay Loong stood up and called the attention of the plenary to a letter of Dimaporo complaining about Deles. Dimaporo, a member of the House minority bloc, had earlier sent the letter to House minority leader Edcel Lagman. Loong, reading the letter of the woman legislator, said Deles raised her voice against Dimaporo during a caucus with other lawmakers to discuss budget issues. Deles’ overall tone during the meeting was allegedly defensive, bordering on hostile. In the letter, Dimaporo said she told Deles that she was speaking in behalf of the Muslim legislators who wanted to question the programs and policies of OPAPP and the lack of importance given to cultural sensitivity. Deles allegedly responded that the problem with Muslim legislators is that they are mostly new and do not understand how the process works, while she (Deles) has been working on the peace issue for a long time. Dimaporo had earlier asked Deles during the plenary about the root causes of the insurgency in Mindanao. During the caucus, Deles allegedly chided the legislator on why she asked the question in plenary and not when the two of them met in person twice in different events outside Congress. Dimaporo noted that Deles seemed to be getting personal. “She insinuated that I was delaying the budget hearing of the Office of the President," the Lanao del Norte representative said. When the legislator reminded Deles that she was asking questions on behalf of the other Muslim lawmakers, the peace process adviser said: “Nobody was there, nobody was listening, so who were you asking the questions for?" “She also told me that even the majority and minority representatives did not understand why I was taking so long to interpellate and that the Speaker was even advised to keep his answers short so that it will end quickly," Dimaporo said. While she was asking Deles about OPAPP programs, Dimaporo recalled, the latter cut her off, saying that she wished that before the lawmaker spoken to her, Dimaporo should “read up her background. [Deles] then told me to read her books." Dimaporo said that she felt insulted “throughout her (Deles) discourse… The things that she said, whether or not she is aware of it, were demeaning not only to me but also to my fellow Muslim colleagues in Congress." The representative said it was her first experience to be approached by a Cabinet-rank official during budget deliberations and “I had expected at least some kind of diplomacy from a member of the Cabinet and much more so from the leading officer of the peace process in the country." Dimaporo is a neophyte member of the House. As of posting time, the session was suspended to allow for “a dialogue between the Honorable Secretary Deles and Honorable Rep. Dimaporo".—JV, GMANews.TV