The National Unity Party (NUP) endorsed Thursday House Majority Leader and Leyte 1st District Rep. Martin Romualdez as House Speaker of the incoming 19th Congress.
“In a consultation with the NUP Members of the House of Representatives it was unanimously agreed to endorse Rep. Romualdez as the Speaker for the coming Congress,” NUP spokesperson Reginald Velasco said in a statement.
Velasco said the decision to push Romualdez to be the next Speaker was made “in recognition of his exemplary service as Majority Leader of the 18th Congress and his proven ability as a consensus builder for the different political parties in the House of Representatives.”
NUP was among the major political parties that supported the tandem of presumptive President and Vice President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. and Sara Duterte in the May 9 general elections.
NUP is poised to be one of the largest political parties in the 19th Congress as it is one the political parties accredited by the Comelec as a major national political party in the May 9 elections.
The reelected Romualdez, Marcos’ first cousin, currently serves as chairman of the House committee on rules, being the Majority Leader.
He is one of the campaign managers of presumptive vice president Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte, who chairs the Lakas-CMD.
Romualdez finished law from the state-run University of the Philippines and is the president of Philippine Constitution Association (Philconsa), the oldest association of legal luminaries in the country.