FOLLOWING presumptive president Davao City Mayor Rodrigo Duterte’s ascendancy to power, his fellow Mindanaoans are set to capture the Senate presidency and the House speakership, and for the first time in history.
While he topped the senatorial race and most of the ruling Liberal Party’s candidates won Senate seats, Senate President Franklin Drilon, who now ranks number one in the senatorial race, will have to step down or fight it out with Cagayan de Oro’s Senator Aquilino Pimentel III, the lone Partido Demokratikong Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan nominee who already announced his availability for the post.
The numbers game also begins in the House, where the lone PDP-Laban nominee, Pantaleon Alvarez of Davao del Sur, is heading the 17th Congress.
As the Liberals led by House Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. won the majority of the House seats, and the 46-strong Visayan bloc led by Negros Occidental Rep. Alfredo Benitez got reelected, most lawmakers have started to negotiate with Alvarezfor the committee chairmanships.
Belmonte and Benitez were negotiating to join forces to beat Duterte’s nominee or use their numbers to get the major House posts.
Belmonte remains quiet about the LP’s plan, but his party whips have started reaching out to other allied parties in the majority rainbow coalition, such as the 40-member Nationalist People’s Coalition that backed the presidential bid of Senator Grace Poe, and the 22-member National Unity Party that also supported the candidacy of LP standard bearer Manuel Roxas II.
The 40-member Congressional Party-List Foundation, co-led by Citizens’ Battle Against Corruption Rep. Sherwin Tugna and Ako Bicol Rep. Rodel Batocabe, which also bankrolled Roxas, was also being wooed by the contenders for the speakership.
The Liberals won more than 100 House seats in the congressional race in this month’s polls.
But just like in the 2010 presidential elections, political pundits believe that “history will repeat itself.”
In the 2010 elections, the original Liberals, with now outgoing President Benigno Aquino III as standard bearer, were only able to win 22 House seats.
The Lakas-Kampi-CMD, the party of then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who ran and won a congressional seat in Pampanga, won 110 House seats in 2010 polls.
But shortly after President Aquino assumed power, the Liberals grew by leaps and bounds with the party membership growing to 110 overnight and winning for Belmonte the speakership of the House.
Kampi broke away from Lakas-CMD and Lakas was left with less than 30 members. Kampi was abolished and renamed NUP, and then allied itself with the Liberals and supported the Aquino presidency.
The Lakas membership further eroded to 17 in 2013. The LP grew to 110 and most incumbents ran unopposed and won.
Negotiations and horse-trading were ongoing in the House, with the Belmonte camp still to decide whether to continue to contest the speakership, remain with the majority and cooperate with the Duterte presidency or go as opposition or minority.
Alvarez confirmed that this early, several congressmen had already reached out to him and signified their intention to support his speakership bid.
“They came to me by bloc and also as individuals,” Alvarez said.
He said he was confident the next speaker would be the one to be endorsed by Duterte.