"Cayetano is Speaker because lawmakers do not want to offend the President who had to force feed him to them."
"Cayetano is Speaker because lawmakers do not want to offend the President who had to force feed him to them."
While he has yet to be formally elected Speaker of the 18thCongress, Taguig Rep. Alan Peter Cayetano is already manifesting the signs of how shrewd a leader he can be.
He first displayed it when he called for a seminar for incoming members of the House only to turn it into a pledging session for their future projects aimed at getting their support for the Speakership tiff.
Now that he had been personally endorsed by President Rodrigo Duterte to lead the House of Representatives on the condition he shares the term with Marinduque Rep. Lord Allan Velasco and designate another contender, Leyte Rep. Ferdinand Martin Romualdez as Majority Leader, he is already making moves to run around the agreement and turn the Lower House into his fiefdom, cornering all the powers.
Late last week, Cayetano was reported to have announced his appointments of Mandaluyong Congressman Neptali “Boyet” Gonzales as Deputy Speaker for Internal Affairs and Camarines Sur Congressman LRay Villafuerte as Deputy Speaker for Financial Affairs.
In so doing, Cayetano is effectively easing out Romualdez from the chain of command as whatever functions he will assign to Gonzales would simply be a duplicity of the functions of a Majority Leader.
In the case of Villafuerte’s appointment, his job as Deputy Speaker for Financial Affairs will render toothless the Chairman of the Committee on Appropriations which will supposedly be occupied by Davao City Congressman Isidro Ungab, the choice of Hugpong ng Pagbabago for the Speakership.
As far as I remember, having covered the House for more than a decade, those two positions were virtually non-existent. While it is the prerogative of the Speakers to have Deputy Speakers appointed, they were borne out of necessity. Thus, Deputy speakers were appointed for Luzon, Visayas, Mindanao, Women and other major representations. But never were Deputy Speakers appointed to duplicate the functions of other offices and render them useless.
Not only does Cayetano’s twin moves raise doubts on his sincerity to forge a unified House. It also goes to show how shrewd his leadership can be.
But lest he forgets, he has never been the choice of members of the House. Both Romualdez and Velasco claim to have the numbers to get elected. And even if Albay Rep. Joey Salceda’s theory that the members of the House signed both manifestos of support for the two contenders, that would still leave Cayetano out of the race. If ever he gets elected as Speaker, it was not because of House members’ overwhelming support for him, but due to the fact the lawmakers do not want to offend the President who had to force feed him to them.
In fact, since announcing his intention to pursue the top House post, he was always seen to have been seeking a presidential intervention to fulfill his ambition.
But with his shrewdness showing early, given the lack of support from his colleagues, he might easily get deposed, if even he gets elected come July 22. The coalition support arising from his presidential endorsement may just collapse. He is already giving his colleagues all the reasons to throw him overboard.
It had happened to former Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez. It is not far-fetched it could also happen to Cayetano. And Duterte, just like in Alvarez’s case, cannot or will not save him. That I can be sure of.