Belmonte to be elected Speaker today

MANILA, Philippines - Quezon City Rep. Feliciano Belmonte Jr. (Liberal Party) is expected to be elected speaker of the House of Representatives today.

The House and the Senate will convene separately this morning to elect their officers.

They will meet in joint session at the Batasan complex in Quezon City for President Aquino’s State of the Nation Address (SONA).

The LP coalition will hit the ground running as it has almost completed filling important posts in the House.

Mandaluyong Rep. Neptali Gonzales II (LP) will take the job of majority leader.

To be elected deputy speakers are Representatives Lorenzo Tañada III of Quezon (LP), Jesus Crispin Remulla of Cavite (Nacionalista Party), Arnulfo Fuentebella of Camarines Sur (Nationalist People’s Coalition), Pablo Garcia of Cebu (Lakas-Kampi-CMD), Raul Daza of Northern Samar (LP), and Ma. Isabel Climaco of Zamboanga City (LP).

The chairmanship of the appropriations committee will go to Cavite Rep. Joseph Emilio Abaya with Batanes Rep. Henedina Abad as one of his vice chairmen. Both belong to LP.

Parañaque Rep. Roilo Golez (LP) will get the chairmanship of the 12-member House contingent in the Commission on Appointments, which is empowered to confirm or reject major presidential appointments and promotions in the military and diplomatic service.

By tradition, the chairman of the House contingent is elected vice chairman of the CA, whose ex-officio presiding officer is the Senate president.

CA representation is by political party affiliation.

Other House members most likely to chair committees are Juan Edgardo Angara of Aurora (Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino), higher education; Hermilando Mandanas of Batangas (LP), ways and means; Mark Llandro Mendoza of Batangas (NPC), agriculture;

Niel Tupas Jr. of Iloilo (LP), justice; Salvador Escudero III of Sorsogon (United Opposition), basic education; Sergio Apostol of Leyte (LP), banks and financial institutions; Vicente Belmonte Jr. of Iligan City (LP), dangerous drugs; Benjamin Asilo of Manila (LP), people’s participation; and Amado Bagatsing of Manila (LP), games and amusement.

Romblon’s Eleandro Jesus Madrona will most likely get the vice chairmanship of the franchise committee and the committee on transportation and communications.

The LP-led coalition is yet to choose the chairman of the committees on constitutional amendments, good government, energy, legislative franchises, and ethics.

The constitutional amendments committee is where the Charter change resolution of Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo will be referred.

The incoming majority coalition has decided to abolish the committee on oversight, which Quezon Rep. Danilo Suarez (Lakas-Kampi) chaired in the 14th Congress.

Coalition leaders are of the view that the Suarez panel is redundant since all House committees exercise oversight functions.

Arroyo and Suarez will most likely belong to the minority or opposition bloc, which Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman, the Lakas-Kampi-CMD candidate for speaker, is expected to lead.

Last Tuesday, Lagman told reporters that with the defection of many Lakas-Kampi members to the LP, he obviously no longer had the numbers to win the speakership.

However, he vowed to “continue the fight for our steadfast members and allies.”

Lawmakers will reconvene this afternoon to hear Mr. Aquino’s first SONA.

Local and foreign journalists will not be able to personally hear Mr. Aquino as the office of the acting House secretary-general inexplicably banned them from the Batasan session hall, where they used to cover the annual SONA.

Under guidelines issued by the secretary- general’s office, only those with official invitations from Malacañang would be allowed inside the session hall.

Only a few journalists have such invitations.

None was issued to reporters of The STAR who cover the Senate and the House.

Apparently to make up for their blunder, the secretary-general’s office sent text messages to reporters over the weekend informing them that they could cover the President’s SONA live from the third-level gallery of the session hall near the roof of the Batasan building.

House personnel, congressional staff members and guests are expected to fill the first, second and third-level galleries.