Right at home in the House: PGMA delivers SONA before allies

Having allies in the right places clearly has its benefits. Each year since 2005, impeachment complaints against President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo have never made it past the walls of the House of Representatives, thanks to her allies there. President Arroyo further strengthened her hold on the House with the merger of Lakas CMD and Kampi. She is currently the national chair of Lakas-CMD-Kampi.

With the merger, seven in 10 district representatives in the House now belong to the President’s political party. The House has 265 members, 216 of whom are district representatives. Lakas-CMD Kampi boasts 140 members. In June this year, the House passed HR 1109 through viva voce voting. HR 1109 calls for charter amendments through a Constituent Assembly, arguing that voting should be done by both Houses of Congress combined, in effect overpowering Senate votes. Of the 171 representatives who signed the ConAss resolution, 122 were from the President’s party. Co-authors from the Nationalist People’s Coalition, Liberal Party, and Nacionalista Party have threatened to withdraw their support of the resolution if House pushes for charter change without the Senate. The Senate meanwhile has been consistent in its opposition of House attempts to unilaterally amend the charter, adopting resolutions in 2006 and 2008 declaring such moves unconstitutional. In 2006, Speaker Jose de Venecia, then one of the staunchest allies of Arroyo, led the ConAss moves in the House. This ConAss resolution was later shelved after overwhelming public dissent. Two years—and a bitter end to De Venecia’s leadership-- after, another Arroyo ally has taken the lead in House pursuit to amend the Constitution. Speaker Prospero Nograles authored the two controversial resolutions on charter change this Congress, HR 1109 and HR 737. The Supreme Court has ruled in June this year that a challenge to HR 1109 is still premature, saying that “the House has not yet performed a positive act that would warrant an intervention from this Court." De Venecia and the President had a falling out after his son Jose de Venecia III, blew the whistle and later testified on the anomalous NBN-ZTE deal in 2007. After five months, De Venecia lost the Speakership in a 174-35 vote – and a month after, the chairmanship of Lakas where he was among the founding members. With his ouster, De Venecia declared war on the President, accusing Malacañang of orchestrating his removal from the speakership. The President’s allies in the Congress are bound not only by party loyalty but by blood as well. With the new Supreme Court ruling in April this year, another Arroyo joined the roster of the House of Representatives. Ma Lourdes Arroyo, sister of First Gentleman Mike Arroyo, became part of the 14th Congress as nominee of ANG KASANGGA, an organization of small entrepreneurs. Ma Lourdes Arroyo is among the 27 new party-list representatives who took oath just this year, with barely a year left in office. She is the fourth Arroyo in the House. Two sons of the president are district representatives. Diosdado “Dato" Macapagal Arroyo is in his first term as Camarines Sur (1st District) representative, while Juan Miguel “Mikey" Macapagal Arroyo is on his second term as Pampanga (2nd District) representative. Ignacio “Iggy" Arroyo, the President’s brother-in-law, is congressman of Negros Occidental (5th District). In Philippine politics, affiliation with political families is the rule rather than the exception. In the current batch of representatives, 68 percent – 180 out of 265 representatives – are from political families. Seven in 10 representatives have at least one former or incumbent elected relative, or a relative appointed to a major position in government. - With reports from Aedrianne Acar and Jamaica Pascual, GMA News Research