THERE’S nothing wrong with going to Las Vegas and cheering for a modern-day Filipino hero.
Defending his congressional colleagues’ trip to the so-called Entertainment Capital of the World, Davao Oriental Representative Joel Mayo Almario said yesterday they were making the trip to “lend moral support? to Manny Pacquiao in his epic match with Mexican Erik Morales.
Almario, chair of the House committee on games and amusement, denied reports that he was in the group of more than a dozen congressmen who had gone to Las Vegas.
One of the group, Agusan del Sur Representative Rodolfo Plaza, even said that Congress had paid for his plane ticket and given him a $1,500 allowance.
Almario said that House members had completed action on the administration’s urgent bills and were still waiting for the Senate to come up with its own versions of the proposed laws.
“There is nothing wrong with congressmen going to support Pacquiao, our modern hero,” he said. The House of Representatives on Thursday adjourned its session for the Lenten break.
“House members have not been remiss in their duty to their constituents as well as to the country as shown by the completion of urgent measures,” Almario said.
Surigao del Norte Representative Ace Barbers, chair of the accounts committee, said he did not sign any travel authority concerning his colleague’s trip to Las Vegas.
He said the House did not sanction the trip and that if members of Congress wanted to see the boxing match, they should spend their own money.
Barbers added that the congressmen who left for Las Vegas could not avail of any travel allowance since travel authorization must first be signed and submitted to the committee on inter-parliamentary relations and diplomacy, prior to the trip.
