Spoilers

With barely ten months to go before the third and last regular sessions of the 17th Congress, President Rodrigo Duterte definitely could not allow his administration’s legislative priority bills become casualties of the continuing squabble at the House of Representatives. As the nominal chieftain of the ruling Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban), President Duterte has to stay neutral though among his squabbling allies.

At one hand, there is still a struggle among his allies in the so-called “super majority” led by his PDP-Laban partymates. This was the immediate consequence of leadership change at the Lower House after the removal last week of Davao del Norte Rep. Pantaleon Alvarez as erstwhile Speaker. The PDP-Laban secretary-general was unceremoniously replaced as House Speaker by former president and now Pampanga Congresswoman Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (GMA). 

Alvarez, in a television interview over the weekend, declared he wanted to “join the minority but not the opposition.”

Unlike Alvarez, Sen. Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III did not go through the same ruckus when he was replaced as Senate president toward the end of the second regular sessions of the 17th Congress. The “super majority” installed Sen. Vicente Sotto III as their new Senate president.

Pimentel’s leadership as PDP-Laban president and Alvarez are now being challenged by a supposed breakaway faction led by a certain lawyer Rogelio Garcia from General Santos City. The breakaway group, composed of Duterte supporters, convened over the weekend in Quezon City and installed their supposed new party leaders to replace Pimentel and Alvarez.

Special Assistant to the President, Christopher “Bong” Go disclosed President Duterte will intervene in the row with the fractious PDP-Laban leaders. Though no definite date yet is set, Go revealed, the President has called for a meeting of PDP-Laban officials led by Pimentel, Alvarez, and other key party leaders.

Speaker GMA is seemingly oblivious despite this hullaballoo. With implicit support from the President’s daughter, Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte, the new Speaker conducts the House order of business with ease. This is not to mention her erstwhile Cabinet officials-now fellow members of Congress who are closely working with her led by Camarines Sur Rep. Rolando Andaya Jr. as the newly elected House majority leader.

Aside from Andaya, who was once her budget secretary, the rest include Bohol Rep. Arthur Yap (ex-agriculture secretary), Albay Rep. Joey Salceda (ex-presidential chief of staff); Marikina City Rep. Bayani Fernando (ex-MMDA chief); just to name some, who, like GMA took their oaths as PDP-Laban card-bearing members last year.

Ironically, the resulting leadership struggle is not only limited among his administration allies but also amongst the House minority bloc contesting who should assume as House minority leader. The quarrel is among the three groups claiming to be the minority at the Lower House.

More likely than not, the question might again reach the Supreme Court (SC) to resolve the disputed House rules. Such option of elevating this case before the SC was announced yesterday by Ilocos Norte Rep. Rodolfo Fariñas and Marikina City Rep. Romero Quimbo. Fariñas and Quimbo raised this course of action should, they warned, Speaker GMA still recognize Quezon Rep. Danilo Suarez as the House minority leader.

Fariñas, who belongs to the PDP-Laban group of Alvarez, was replaced by Andaya as House majority leader. Quimbo, on the other hand, is formerly the deputy speaker, belonging to the ragtag remnants of the Liberal Party (LP).

Suarez, along with 13 other fellow minority bloc members, voted for GMA to become new Speaker. Thus, Suarez and his group of lawmakers no longer represent the minority membership, Fariñas and Quimbo argued. By voting for the new Speaker, the two Congressmen cited, they effectively became members of the new “super majority” at the House.

“Miro Quimbo cannot claim to be minority leader because that position was not declared vacant when we elected a new Speaker. The system of succession should operate,” Fariñas insisted.

Fariñas explained the minority leadership should logically be passed on to Eugene Michael de Vera, party-list representative of Arts, Business and Science. De Vera, one of Suarez’s deputies, abstained from voting when GMA was elected Speaker. In accordance with House rules, Fariñas pointed out, De Vera should be the rightful successor as House minority leader.

Fariñas disclosed he and Alvarez along with 13 of their former majority colleagues have applied to be part of the minority. According to him, De Vera has already accepted them. In fact, the Ilocos Norte Congressman, admitted they already wrote to Speaker GMA to officially recognize them.

Unperturbed, Quimbo vowed he and his fellow LP Congressmen will join forces with the seven left-leaning members of the Makabayan bloc.

The third group from the Suarez camp welcomed the plan of the Fariñas-Alvarez and Quimbo-LP groups to challenge this before the SC. If there is one thing going in favor of the way of the third group, the SC ruling in July 2017 that upheld the election of Suarez as minority leader and the House majority’s recognition of him still holds.

And as stated at the outset, time is not on the side of those who want to grab the minority leadership. It took one year for the SC to resolve that House minority row. That SC ruling came when the 17th Congress was already on its second regular sessions.

 Speaker GMA called to a meeting yesterday at her office the Duterte economic team to discuss the rising inflation in the country, among other urgent economic measures. Except for a very few shake-up of key House committee chairmanship, Speaker GMA is keeping status quo.

Aware of her very short period of leadership at the Lower House, Speaker GMA does not need more spoilers to derail President Duterte’s priority bills at this late stage.

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Fariñas and Quimbo are guests in today’s Kapihan sa Manila Bay at Café Adriatico in Remedios Circle, Malate.