Sara Duterte meets with Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, House leaders

MANILA, Philippines — Seen to be the new political kingmaker, Davao City Mayor  Sara Duterte-Carpio sat down to lunch yesterday with Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and about 150 administration lawmakers who supported the latter’s election as the new Speaker of the House of Representatives.

“It was just a thank you lunch. It’s a private social gathering,” Arroyo told reporters in a chance interview at the Seda Hotel in Quezon City yesterday.

Duterte-Carpio, daughter of President Duterte, is widely believed to have played a role in the ouster of Davao del Norte Rep. Pantaleon Alvarez as speaker and his replacement with Arroyo.

Negros Occidental Rep. Albee Benitez, chairman of the House committee on housing and urban development, said Arroyo “presided” over the meeting and quoted her as saying: “Let’s get back to work. Let’s support the legislative agenda of the President.” 

The senior administration lawmaker disclosed Arroyo assured them there will hardly be any reorganization in the House, based on their original agreement that all positions in the House “would remain with their respective parties.” 

True enough, only a few positions have been shuffled, among them that of House majority leader, which is taken over by Camarines Sur Rep. Rolando Andaya Jr.

Sen. Panfilo Lacson said Carpio and her political party Hugpong ng Pagbabago has emerged as a political force to reckon with “not only in her region but the national political scene as well.”

“The fact that she is being talked about as the architect behind the changing of the guard in the House of Representatives, true or not, says it all,” Lacson said.

Reports said Mayor Carpio had called up lawmakers to seek Alvarez’s ouster and replacement with Arroyo.

Malacañang, however, denied claims of former president Benigno Aquino III that President Duterte himself had a hand in the ouster of Alvarez.

“No congressman can ever attest to that fact,” presidential spokesman Harry Roque said.

“I don’t know where president Aquino got his information but, more or less I am in contact with the President and I can assure you that he did not take any steps to influence either way the choice of leadership in the House,” he added. – With Paolo Romero