CEBU CITY. Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) president and general manager Winston Garcia is filing libel charges against Manila Representative Bienvenido Abante for claiming GSIS funds are being used to buy votes for the Speakership bid of Garcia's father.

Garcia, son of former Cebu governor and congressman-elect Pablo Garcia, said he had already instructed the chief legal counsel of GSIS to file the suit against Abante.

Abante was one of four congressmen who issued a statement on Saturday accusing the young Garcia of using GSIS funds to buy support for the bid of his father to run for House Speaker.

The other congressmen were Eduardo Zialcita of Parañaque, Edcel Lagman of Albay, and Nur Jaafar of Tawi-tawi. In the statement, they reportedly claimed the cash offered for congressmen to vote for Representative Garcia ranged from P300,000 to 400,000.

But the young Garcia said only Abante showed up at a press conference last Monday to reiterate this accusation.

The GSIS executive said he had called up the other congressmen and they denied having issued the statements.

In fact, he said Zialcita also apologized to him.

"I talked to them. Representative Zialcita denied issuing those statements and claimed that the statements were just ascribed to him without asking permission," Winston said.

Winston said he learned that the statements allegedly came from the public relations of Representative Jose de Venecia.

He said he would file the libel case against Abante in Manila and, probably, in areas, such as Cebu and Iloilo, where the television newscast was aired.

He said the issue raised against their family only showed that the camp of De Venecia is in a panic.

He claimed this is because several congressmen from De Venecia's camp had switched support to his father.

The young Garcia said De Venecia claimed to have the support of at least 190 congressmen. However, he claimed many of them had abandoned the Speaker.

"By the end of this month, this will be over. I think we will have the numbers already to put my father as Speaker of the House," Winston said.

Winston said the support for his father is gaining ground and that is why De Venecia allegedly floated false stories.

However, he refused to say how many congressmen have already expressed support for his father. "We have the numbers that would cause Joe de Venecia to panic," he said.