Villar returning to House?

MANILA, Philippines - Former senator Manuel Villar Jr. may run for congressman of Las Piñas City if his son Mark, the city’s incumbent representative, seeks a senatorial seat in 2016.

Sources in the House of Representatives told reporters yesterday that the elder Villar would most likely return to the chamber he once led as Speaker.

He famously railroaded the impeachment in November 2000 of  President Estrada, despite being an ally of the then sitting chief executive.

A few months later, Estrada was forced from power amid his Senate impeachment trial when his senator-allies refused to open an envelope that supposedly contained damning evidence against him.

The sources said Villar might again gun for the top House post if he runs to replace his son Mark, who is doing well in senatorial surveys.

The sources are not sure under whose presidency he might aspire for Speaker.

Villar heads the Nacionalista Party (NP), which is currently in coalition with the ruling Liberal Party (LP). His wife Cynthia is an incumbent senator who sits in the Senate Electoral Tribunal, which is hearing the citizenship case against presidential aspirant Sen. Grace Poe.

Former local government secretary Mar Roxas is LP’s presidential candidate. If he gets elected, he is expected to support the incumbent Speaker, Rep. Feliciano Belmonte Jr. of Quezon City, who is LP vice chairman.

However, Roxas is trying to woo the NP to remain part of the daang matuwid coalition. If he succeeds, Rep. Mark Villar will have a slot in the LP senatorial ticket.

Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano, a potential vice presidential candidate of the LP standard-bearer, is a Nacionalista. Roxas is considering him, though Camarines Sur Rep. Leni Robredo is reportedly President Aquino’s choice to be the LP presidential candidate’s running mate.

There are reports that Aquino cannot forget until now something nasty Cayetano said about him during the 2010 presidential election campaign.

Cayetano’s backers in the LP said he would give his Senate colleague Francis Escudero a run for his money if Roxas drafts him as his vice presidential partner.      Escudero is Poe’s running mate.

It is not clear who among Poe’s congressmen-supporters would aspire for Speaker if she wins.

There is speculation that if Negros Occidental Rep. Alfredo Benitez, who is LP provincial chairman, cannot fix his problem with the ruling party on local politics, he might opt to switch to Poe’s camp and gun for the top House post.

Benitez, the fourth richest congressman with a net worth of P845 million and head of the Visayas bloc of House members, does not see eye-to-eye with his governor, Alfredo Marañon, Jr., who, like him, is an administration ally.

In case of a Binay presidency, Navotas Rep. Tobias Tiangco, who is president of the Vice President’s United Nationalist Alliance, will most likely lead the House as Speaker.

Belmonte earlier said he does not feel threatened by those who want his job.