Singson dropped from House roster

MANILA, Philippines - Ilocos Sur Rep. Ronaldo Singson, whom a Hong Kong court has sentenced to an 18-month jail term for drug trafficking, ceased to be a lawmaker yesterday.

Shortly after the House session opened, Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. ordered that Singson be dropped from the roster of members of the chamber.

Belmonte informed his colleagues that last March 1, he received a letter of resignation from the convicted Ilocos lawmaker.

Majority Leader Neptali Gonzales II said Singson’s salary and other emoluments were frozen last week upon the Speaker’s order.

“Same with the staff, they are coterminous with the congressman,” he said in response to a question from The STAR.

He said the House would shortly pass a resolution calling for a special election in Ilocos Sur’s first district to fill the seat vacated by Singson.

Singson gave up his congressional seat amid threat of expulsion from his colleagues. The House ethics committee has already taken up his case without waiting for any House member or citizen to file a complaint, as is the normal practice.

His resignation obviated the need for the ethics committee and eventually the entire House to act on his case.

In his letter to Belmonte, he said he was quitting “in keeping with the time-honored tradition of this august Congress to be ever vigilant that all who walk in its corridors or sit in its various sessions must come with clean hands, clean minds and clean hearts.”

He said he was resigning to fulfill a promise he made to his father, controversial Gov. Luis “Chavit” Singson.

He thanked those who gave him moral support and those “who demanded my ouster even before my plea of guilt and the final verdict.”

While the House lost Singson, it gained another member in newly proclaimed Rep. Homero Mercado of the party-list group 1-Utak (United Transport Koalisyon).

Mercado is the owner of a bus company operating in Southern Luzon. He replaced the late former Energy secretary Angelo Reyes as top nominee of 1-Utak.

At the time of his death, Reyes had a pending case with the Supreme Court questioning his replacement.

The Commission on Elections added Mercado to the already long list of party-list representatives 10 months after the May 2010 elections.

There are now more than 50 of these lawmakers, who are entitled to the same compensation and perks as district congressmen, including annual pork barrel funds of at least P70 million.