The super majority says disunity in the original UniTeam is just a wild fantasy of the losers in 2022.
President Marcos has also described his running mate Vice President Sara Duterte as his “BFF” while the VP has openly professed her love for BBM.
Yet VP Sara’s continuing public broadsides directed at the President’s first cousin the House Speaker (if they were jokes, the Speaker isn’t laughing) keep stoking perceptions that all is not well in the UniTeam camp.
As for those declarations of undying friendship, nasty tongues are wagging about keeping one’s friends close, but enemies closer.
The elder Duterte’s camp has also started hitting certain policies and acts of Marcos 2.0. Apart from the markedly different approach to the drug menace and the pivot back to the US, the administration is being criticized for going after Duterte’s corrections chief Gerald Bantag and for the treatment of Negros Oriental 3rd District Rep. Arnolfo Teves Jr.
Currently, with the first session of the 19th Congress in sine die adjournment, all is quiet on the House front.
More accurately, as of this long Independence Day weekend, all seems quiet in both the House and the Senate (where there has also been talk of a brewing leadership change).
And yet speculations persist that this is a calm before the storm. Rumors typically precede contentious leadership changes in the House of Representatives; where there’s smoke, there’s usually fire in the HOR.
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Smoke preceded the chaotic ouster of Pantaleon Alvarez as speaker at the joint opening of Congress in 2018, and his replacement by Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, with a bizarre sideshow over the House mace that went missing.
Similar smoke emanated from the HOR in October 2020, when Alan Peter Cayetano suspended session ahead of the congressional All Saints’ Day break as he tried to sell a power-sharing arrangement with Marinduque Rep. Lord Allan Velasco. The HOR became the House of Lord anyway.
Both House coups were backed by then president Rodrigo Duterte’s daughter Sara.
This time, in the turbulence shortly before Congress’ adjournment, GMA was suspected to have plotted a repeat of her coup against Alvarez, again with Inday Sara’s support.
GMA issued lengthy denials. Judging from the statements issued by Speaker Martin Romualdez, however, he didn’t buy any of it. And he didn’t withdraw GMA’s demotion from senior deputy speaker to just one of several deputy speakers.
The headstrong Vice President, for her part, has not withdrawn her resignation as chair of the dominant Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats, whose president is Romualdez.
If the VP was behind any foiled House coup, she must realize by now that it’s a different administration, and the one with blood ties to Malacañang is no longer Inday Sara but the Speaker whose middle name she finds unmentionable.
Long before GMA wrested the speaker’s post from Alvarez, she was already familiar with House coups. In February 2008 during her presidency, her House minions kicked out her erstwhile ally Jose de Venecia and replaced him with Prospero Nograles.
GMA knows the price of a failed coup attempt. Whether real or imagined, the aborted coup against Romualdez came at a bad time for her supporters, some of whom were already dropping hints about their looming appointment to key positions in the Marcos 2.0 administration.
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Surigao del Sur 2nd District Rep. Johnny Pimentel told One News’ “The Chiefs” last week that Romualdez enjoys the support of about 95 percent of House members, with several parties forging alliances with Lakas-CMD.
But the Dutertes – father and daughter, separately – still enjoy significant political support. Also, even when congressmen sign manifestos of support for a speaker, loyalties are tenuous in the HOR and alliances can shift overnight.
Before Cayetano was dumped as speaker, 184 of 299 House members had rejected his offer to resign amid rumors of his impending ouster. Days later, apparently following a whisper from Malacañang, 186 of the congressmen jumped to Velasco’s camp.
“There must be some people who changed their mind,” one congressman commented at the time, tongue in cheek.
Until his final moments as speaker, Alvarez was believed to have enjoyed the support of Rodrigo Duterte; Cayetano lost that support. But what really mattered in House leadership fights at the time, it seemed, was the support of Inday Sara, a.k.a. Daughterte; her dad simply went along.
This time, like her foiled aspiration for the defense portfolio, it looks like VP Sara is in for a reality check in posturing as the ultimate House power broker.
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She’s clearly still aligned with President Marcos’ elder sister, who was with her in the video where she poked fun at an unnamed, ambitious tambaloslos.
But the elder sister, as others have noted, is no longer the special assistant to the president in the mold of Duterte’s Bong Go. The person who has emerged as BBM’s SAP is no other than cousin Martin, who is believed to be eyeing the presidency in 2028, pitting him against Sara Duterte.
When Cavite Rep. Elpidio Barzaga Jr. claimed that Romualdez “tremendously helped in pushing” Daughterte to slide to the VP race, she said the credit in fact goes to Sen. Imee Marcos. “There was no Speaker Romualdez in the picture,” the VP sniffed.
She also said her decision to slide down was sealed “only after President Bongbong Marcos agreed to the conditions I set before running for VP.”
This has triggered speculation that among the conditions was for GMA to be speaker. If there was indeed such an agreement, maybe something got lost in translation. Surely BBM could be expected to pick his cousin over GMA for such a high position.
In a barb that seemed directed at Barzaga, et al, the VP also said, “How the recent political developments have become an opportunity for sycophants is quite amusing.”
According to the smoke emanating from the HOR chimney, this has rankled a significant number of those behind Romualdez, who felt alluded to and saw venomous haughtiness in the VP’s statements.
Romualdez has chosen to ignore the VP’s barbs. If he carries on with his naturally amiable self, he might yet erode the VP’s support by simply letting her run her mouth. This can ensure his grip on the House until 2025.