Lobregat explains side on GRP Panel invitation issue

In a letter sent to Zamboanga Today with an attached Press Release (PR), Mayor Celso Lobregat strongly asked that his side of the story be published in this paper relative to a published news article on the GRP-MILF peace talks based on a recorded TV news story  where the Mayor said in an interview, “I have been asked before even by Speaker de Venecia and I told Speaker de Venecia, you know, the way the peace panel goes, I will just be agonizing there, because my presence in the peace panel might just legitimize their action.”

According to the PR, “Mayor Lobregat vehemently debunks the story that he declined an offer to sit in the government peace panel extended to him by the national government, as he categorically stated no official invitation has been made by the national government.”“It would be presumptuous and conceited on my part to state that the national government invited me to be part of the peace panel when no such invitation was ever made”, Lobregat declared.He said there was never such an invitation made by the national government for him to form part of the government peace panel and that since there was no invitation, “by implication there was no refusal or decline of such invitation to speak of”.The PR added, the statement of the Mayor “I have been asked before even by Speaker de Venecia and I told Speaker de Venecia, you know the way the peace panel goes, I will just be agonizing there, because my presence in the peace panel might just legitimize their action,” was part of an interview by a TV-11 crew with the mayor August 3 when the issue about the first anniversary of the August 4, 2008 anti-MOA-AD rally in front of City Hall was discussed.Lobregat said his statement about Speaker de Venecia in the said interview was a conversation that took place over 6 years ago when he was still in Congress wherein Cong. De Venecia was the Speaker of the House. The PR explained that Lobregat could not have been invited by Jose De Venecia last year because De Venecia was no longer speaker of the House.The PR stated, “The Dateline Zamboanga news included another interview with Hon. Juan Climaco Elago, who revealed that Lobregat and Councilor Abdurahman Nuño were invited to be members of the peace panel. Nuño on Tuesday strongly reacted to the statement of Elago saying it is baseless and unfounded, as there was never an invitation.”It furthered, “Nuño said the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) and the Office of the Presidential Adviser on Peace Process (OPAPP) are currently holding a series of individual interviews and dialogue sessions with key figures and personalities in Mindanao in order to solicit their own views about a range of issues concerning peace, security and development in celebration of the National Peace Consciousness Month in September. Nuño, Lobregat and Congresspersons Beng Climaco and Erbie Fabian are included in the list of key figures.”Lobregat reiterates that his talk with Jose De Venecia took place when he was still the Lone Representative of the city of Zamboanga to the National Government and not when he was already Mayor. 

Via Zamboanga Today