Fitial: Manglona, Santos more desperate than ever

Gov. Benigno R. Fitial expressed grave disappointment yesterday regarding Senate President Paul Manglona’s (Ind-Rota) latest attempt to use false allegations in order to save whatever chance is left for his re-election. This comes after Manglona engineered a family feud of sort by manipulating Felix Santos to run against his first cousin, incumbent Rep. Teresita Santos (Ind-Rota).

“Felix is the 10th person approached by Manglona because the first nine individuals have completely lost faith in the Senate president,” said Fitial. “Now that he realized that much of his political traction is lost, he has resorted to unfounded political attacks against the good congresswoman of Rota.”

The governor cited the separation of powers doctrine in refuting claims that Rep. Santos was connected to his recent budget submission to the Legislature.

“Have Paul and Felix lost touch with reality? No legislator participates in the governor’s budget submission process because lawmakers know that when I submit the budget to them, it then becomes their job to come up with an appropriations measure,” noted Fitial. “Over 20 years in the Legislature and Manglona still doesn’t understand the process?”

Fitial also took exception to Manglona and Felix Santos’ attempt to link Rep. Santos to his decision to veto the Rota local bill this week.

“Obviously, neither Paul nor Felix did any fact checks before they spoke. I made it very clear that I have no qualms with making sure dialysis patients are taken cared of. However, I was forced veto the bill because of the inclusion of a dangerous provision that would create another layer of bureaucracy,” stated Fitial. “This provision aimed at politically picking which patients get funding is yet another concoction by the subsistence allowance expert. It is a pure shame that even for the well being of dialysis patients, Sen. Paul and his cohorts still look for ways to ensure that they can reap political benefits.”

Fitial noted that Rep. Santos has successfully pushed for passage of local bills that gave funding to dialysis patients.

“So why do they want to come up with a new board now? The timing and purpose is extremely suspicious,” added Fitial. “It’s a travesty that Sen. Paul would even consider politicizing dialysis patients just because he’s up for re-election.” (Office of the Governor)