(Trinidad Express) – Describing his Member of Parliament for Diego Martin West Dr Keith Rowley as “a raging bull” when he is opposed, Prime Minister Patrick Manning told the Parliament on Wednesday that he suffered 12 years of Rowley’s “bullying” in silence.

Manning’s powerful counter-attack was the culmination of unusually strong interventions by successive People’s National Movement ministers, directed primarily at its own-Diego Martin West MP Rowley, in this and previous debates, had been systematically taking aim at the PNM Government and its leader.

Seeking to draw a parallel with Tabaquite MP Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj’s undermining and eventual bringing down of the Basdeo Panday Government of 2001, Manning likened Rowley’s attack to Maharaj, whom he labelled a “destroyer of governments”. Rowley, Manning alleged, was now joining the RamJackG faction.

During his contribution to the debate on the Validation and Immunity Bill in the House of Representatives at the Red House, Port of Spain, Manning said he saw the “tag-team relationship between the member for Diego Martin West and the Member for Tabaquite (Maharaj)“. Manning said this method, “which is not unfamiliar to me”, was used to bring down a government in 2001. And, Manning admitted, he (Manning) was part of it then.

“So when I see it, I recognise the hand of the man I describe as ‘El Capo dei Capi’. And I will now advise this Parliament what you thought was RamJackG is now RamJackG and Rowley.”

“Oooooooooh!” was the collective cries from MPs on both sides.

Asked by the Speaker to translate, Manning said “El Capo dei Capi” was a mafia term which meant “the boss of all bosses”.

Rowley asked the prime minister to give way, and he did.

“I want to thank the prime minister very sincerely for being so gracious… But I would just like to ask him the name of the brand that he was drinking, so that I could avoid it,” Rowley said, drawing loud guffaws from members of Opposition.

Manning, without missing a beat, swiftly responded: “Mr Speaker, the brand from which I was drinking was the Holy Bible.”

“Now that is blasphemous!” Rowley declared as if he, too, was expecting the rejoinder. But Manning again shot back: “Yuh believe you are a God? Yuh not God, yuh know.”

“If I appear to be drunk, I am drunk on God and love,” the prime minister said.

Manning recalled when the PNM was preparing its candidates for the last general election, it discussed Corinthians, chapter 13, which speaks of the power of love, and the only candidate absent from that session was Rowley.