Arroyo allies chide administration over moves to defer ARMM polls

Minority lawmakers at the House of Representatives on Wednesday said administration allies “danced to the baton of Malacañang" when two House panels approved a proposal to postpone elections in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). House Minority Leader Rep. Edcel Lagman said majority members in the House committees on Muslim affairs and suffrage approved the deferral of the ARMM polls to give President Benigno Aquino III the power to appoint officers who will temporarily take charge of the region. “I don’t know if this can be done, and it can be subject again to a legal question, but considering the ascendancy of the members of the ruling coalition in the House, it’s clear that what the President wants, the President gets in the House of Representatives," he said at a press briefing. Lagman said the approval of the proposal is “apparently because the ruling party does not have viable candidates yet in the ARMM elections." The minority leader likewise reiterated his position to just continue with the ARMM elections scheduled in August this year instead of synchronizing it with the May 2013 midterm polls. The two House committees on Tuesday approved House Bill 4146 postponing the ARMM elections and giving Aquino the authority to appoint officers-in-charge in the ARMM government until new officials are elected in 2013. Voting on the measure was done despite opposition from seven lawmakers from Mindanao, who wanted to conduct consultations with their constituents first before deliberating on the proposal. Zambales Rep. Milagros Magsaysay, for her part, said that the approval of the bill at the committee level shows that Aquino “has no respect for the position held by Muslim legislators." “Sabi ni PNoy, we are his bosses, but apparently, he is the boss and we are just following. Who can know the situation in Muslim Mindanao more than the Muslim legislators in the House?" she said during the same press briefing. Malacañang has been very vocal about its support to the proposal to postpone the ARMM elections, noting that past elections in the region had been marked by irregularities. - KBK, GMA News