Palace ‘eager and ready to work’ with Arroyo
MALACANANG on Thursday announced that it was “eager and ready to work with the new House leadership” as it formally congratulated Pampanga 2nd District Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on her election as the new Speaker of the House of Representatives.
“We are confident that Speaker Arroyo would put her considerable skills and experience behind [President Rodrigo Duterte’s] agenda,” Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque said in a statement on Thursday.
“We look forward to Speaker Arroyo’s successful leadership in Congress, and through that, pushing the President’s priority legislation in the Lower House,” Roque said.
Roque also cited former Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez’s “invaluable service to the institution and to the nation.”
“Together, let us roll up our sleeves and start our work in bringing comfortable life for all Filipinos,” he said.
Alvarez, who served as Speaker since 2016, was booted out by 184 members of the House who voted for Arroyo to succeed him on Monday, an hour before Duterte was to deliver his third State of the Nation Address (SONA) at the Batasang Pambansa.
The raucus put a damper on the event, which Duterte threatened to walk out from had the fighting lawmakers not agreed to set aside their differences, at least until after the SONA.
Arroyo and Alvarez met on Wednesday, with the former Speaker conceding defeat to the Pampanga lawmaker and urging everyone to “move on and work.”
Later on the same day, the House adopted a resolution formally proclaiming Arroyo as the Speaker despite last minute attempts by Alvarez’s allies to delay the proceedings.
On Tuesday, Roque said that the ouster of Alvarez may have been a result of his “no-elections” in 2019 position to make way for the shift to federalism, one of Duterte’s campaign promises.
“I think really what changed is… I’m now speculating, but even the President had problems with the call of the House Speaker on no-el – no elections. And I noticed that the President was visibly concerned about the pronouncements of the Speaker on no election in so far as he related also no elections to federalism,” Roque said.
“The President has always maintained that federalism should be accepted by the people on its own merits, and he has always said that he did not want to benefit from charter change. So I noticed that there was much concern on the part of the President with the pronouncements on no-el, and I think you will recall here that he used very strong language,” Roque added. RALPH EDWIN VILLANUEVA
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