{"id":77305,"date":"2016-06-14T02:16:33","date_gmt":"2016-06-14T06:16:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=77305"},"modified":"2016-06-14T02:16:33","modified_gmt":"2016-06-14T06:16:33","slug":"belmonte-denies-seeking-position-duterte-administration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2016\/06\/14\/belmonte-denies-seeking-position-duterte-administration\/","title":{"rendered":"Belmonte denies seeking position under Duterte administration"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_13753\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-13753\" style=\"width: 196px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/sonny-belmonte.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13753\" src=\"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/sonny-belmonte.jpg\" alt=\"Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. (Wikipedia)\" width=\"196\" height=\"257\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-13753\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. (Wikipedia)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>MANILA \u2013 Outgoing House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. on Monday said that he has never sought any position in the Duterte administration and would decline any such offers.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLet me say, for the record, that I have never sought any position nor been offered any. I have also never issued any statement to this effect to anyone. And, in the event that an offer is made, I will respectfully decline the same,\u201d he said in a statement distributed to members of media.<\/p>\n<p>His statements were made amid increasing speculations on what transpired during his \u2018courtesy call\u2019 to President-elect Rodrigo Duterte in Davao City last Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>He also clarified that negotiations were still underway for the Liberal Party to become part of the majority coalition.<\/p>\n<p>Likewise, he said that he had chosen to remain with LP despite several party mates opting to join other political parties after the national elections.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have chosen to remain with the party, even after successful negotiations to coalesce with the majority shall have been completed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Belmonte, who had been House Speaker for the 15th and 16th Congress, also sought to allay fears over what is now dubbed as a \u201cSupermajority\u201d in both Chambers of Congress.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is a coalition that denotes strength and unity in numbers for the speedier passage of measures that can benefit majority of our people. I believe it can be viewed positively as a means to becoming more responsive to our people&#8217;s needs, and in a timelier manner,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>He also allayed fears on the disappearance of an opposition in the case of a supermajority.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere will always be an opposition within a democracy and I have and always will uphold my belief in the democratic processes and put the interest of our people and of our Constitution as my foremost priority,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs Speaker of the House, or in any other capacity I may continue to serve our people, I will remain steadfast in protecting the interest of the Filipino,\u201d Belmonte said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MANILA \u2013 Outgoing House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. on Monday said that he has never sought any position in the &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":13753,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,95],"tags":[4735,11223],"class_list":["post-77305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-ph","tag-belmonte","tag-duterte-administration","mauthors-cielito-reganit","mauthors-philippines-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13753"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}