Speakership: What’s in it for GMA?

Was Pantaleon Alvarez deposed as Speaker due to scorn of three mighty women? Or are there deeper political reasons? That question will continue to be asked for months to come, as Gloria Macapagal Arroyo acts as replacement.

House supermajority members had been content with Alvarez’s generous, if brusque Speakership. Though outlawed by the Supreme Court, pork barrels were granted to each one by the tens of millions of pesos, built into executive agencies’ budgets. Funds for school buildings and road works of minority members were divvied up among his key supporters. President Rody Duterte is said to be satisfied with him. In his State of the Nation last Monday he acknowledged two of Alvarez’s major enactments: the TRAIN tax and the Ease of Doing Business Law.

Yet, in a snap sentiment changed. On the morning before the Duterte’s address 186 of the 268 ruling congressmen signed a manifesto for ex-President-turned-congresswoman GMA. A formal vote followed later that night.

Months prior, GMA had disavowed interest in Alvarez’s post. The latter, her transportation secretary in the 2000s, had removed her as Deputy Speaker for opposing his death penalty restoration bill. But personal grudge was not enough for her to take on a job that required daily confidence of the majority. Or was it? Congressmen told reporters that Duterte’s daughter, Davao City Mayor Sara D. Carpio, had called party leaders to oust Alvarez. She reportedly resented Alvarez’s videoed brag that he has powers to impeach his friend Duterte.

Former first lady, now congresswoman Imelda Romualdez Marcos joined last Monday’s power play. She wanted the head of Majority Leader Rudy Fariñas, Alvarez’s sidekick and law school fraternity brother. Although a protégé of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, Fariñas recently caused the indictment of Imelda’s elder daughter, Ilocos Gov. Imee Marcos, for misuse of public funds. For Imelda, getting back at Fariñas needed Alvarez’s toppling first.

 What next for comeback kid GMA? She has seen it all. A trade-and-industry technocrat in the 1980s, she became senator then Vice President in the 1990s, and nine-and-a-half-year President in 2001-2010. She was placed on house- then hospital-arrest in 2011-2016 while on trial for plunder, later dismissed. She is presently Pampanga congresswoman, till May 2019.

Being on her third and last congressional term, Arroyo attracts close watch. Surveys put her in the lead, but she reportedly is averse to gunning for Pampanga governor next. Meantime, there’s the draft  federal constitution that calls for a transition from 2019 to 2022. In May 2022 there shall be simultaneous elections for national, regional, and local positions, including President, VP, federal and regional legislatures. Significantly, all past Presidents would be members of a transition commission but barred from running for any post.

The draft can be revised, though, by the present Congress sitting as Constituent Assembly. One proviso is particularly pesky for congressmen – a ban on political dynasties. They can delete it from the final version, along with proposed two-term limits and the prohibition on ex-Presidents. Many of the incumbents are, like GMA, on their last terms.

The congressmen must convince the Senate to go along. They’re said to be banking on GMA’s good ties with many senators. Senate President Tito Sotto had been her VP mate when she initially ran for President in 1998. (She eventually slid down to – and won as – VP of Joe de Venecia.)

There are sticky points, though. The draft federal charter calls for a ratification plebiscite by May 2019. The deadline is tight. Cramping the congressmen are a plebiscite for an expanded Bangsamoro Autonomous Region and enactment of a 2019 national budget, both by Nov. to Dec. this year. Then, there’s the filing of candidacies by this Oct. and campaign starting Feb. for the midterm elections of May 2019. Due to time constraints, Alvarez had proposed scrapping the 2019 balloting by legislation, or switching to federal by people’s initiative. For good measure, he wanted joint voting of the House and Senate. His 268-man supermajority would have needed only 240 votes to muster the three-fourths to propose constitutional change.

Sotto, however, has scoffed at Alvarez’s plot. In case GMA pushes for federal, she would have a now divided supermajority, with her 186 members a far cry from the needed 240 joint three-fourths.

GMA in press conference yesterday said her Speakership’s aim is to support Duterte’s legislative agenda. Federalism, Duterte’s campaign promise, could be out of the picture. But they share an acquiescence towards China. Against overwhelming public sentiment, Duterte refuses to assert Manila’s UN arbitration victory against China’s grab of eight reefs within the Philippine exclusive economic zone. GMA had started that pro-Beijing stance. As President she signed a secret Joint Marine Seismic Understanding that let China explore Philippine territorial waters and maritime jurisdiction in 2005-2008. It unconstitutionally surrendered sovereignty and natural resources, and allocated huge sums without congressional assent. China in 2009 used the seismic survey in its unilateral claim over the entire South China Sea.

In 2006 GMA caused the ceding of gold-rich Mount Diwalwal in Mindanao to China’s ZTE International. Again it was in breach of the Constitution that limits foreigners to only 40 percent in mining. That deal enabled telecom giant ZTE Corp. to bag a $329-million (P17-billion) national broadband network. Whistleblowers exposed a $200-million (P10-billion) kickback in the project worth only $129 million (P7 billion).

Militants are wary of GMA. Unsolved forced disappearances had marked her Presidency. Journalists too are worried. Under her reign occurred the Maguindanao massacre of 33 journalists, plus kinswomen and female lawyers of her political ally’s rival.

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