Three Hugpong members join Sara-led Lakas-CMD

Three more lawmakers from the Davao Region-based Hugpong ng Pagbabago party joined the Lakas-CMD party chaired by Vice President Sara Duterte, the party announced Tuesday.

These newly minted Lakas-CMD members from HNP include congressmen Isidro Ungab and Vincent Garcia of Davao City and Alan Dujali of Davao del Norte.

Ungab, Garcia, Dujali took their oaths before Leyte Representative Martin Romualdez, the Lakas-CMD president, in a ceremony in Manila. Also taking her oath as a new member was Representative Josefina Tallado of Camarines Norte.

Duterte was present at the oathtaking.

“We await, with great expectations, opportunities for engaging and bonding with them and the rest of our membership. We hope they will have an enjoyable and fruitful engagement with us,” Romualdez, who is running for Speakership when Congress opens its First Regular Session on July 25, said in a statement.

"I am happy and very much honored to join Lakas-CMD Party. I fervently share Lakas-CMD’s support for unity, peace and progress, and I am inspired to join them in their effort to take on the difficult challenge of steering our country towards economic recovery and working for improved welfare of the Filipino people," Ungab, who once served as chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations which scrutinizes the annual national budget, added in a separate statement.

Ungab then called on his fellow lawmakers to  pass laws needed to rebuild the economy, create jobs, reduce poverty and ensure the delivery of social services.

"We will work doubly hard to secure a better future for our nation," Ungab added.

Ungab, Dujali and Garcia, however, will remain members of regional party Hugpong ng Pagbabago.

The four lawmakers who joined Lakas-CMD this week hiked the party's House membership in 19th Congress to 64.

Last week, several lawmakers joined the party, including Representatives Joey Sarte Salceda of Albay, Rachel Arenas of Pangasinan, Paul Ian Dy of Isabela, Maria Vanessa Aumentao of Bohol, and Claude Bautista of Davao Occidental, who is president of HNP, the regional party founded by Duterte. — BM, GMA News