Romualdez eyes House leadership post

Rep. Ferdinand Martin Romualdez . congress.gov.ph photo

MANILA, Philippines — It’s a done deal, new Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats president Leyte Representative Ferdinand Martin Romualdez will aim for the position of Speaker this 16th Congress.

“We are declaring that Martin is taking a crack at the House leadership,” said outgoing House minority leader Danilo Suarez in a press conference on Wednesday.

But lacking the “luxury of numbers right now,” he told reporters that Romualdez was going to run for Speaker of the House with the objective of securing the leadership of the minority bloc.

“Of course when you try to run for a certain position, the expectation is that you will win the fight… but we don’t have the luxury of numbers right now. The objective is to be the minority leader,” he said.

The legislator with the second highest votes in the bid to secure the post of House Speaker will get the minority bloc, added Suarez.

In order to ensure that Romualdez does get the leadership of the minority bloc, he said that Lakas-CMD has already started courting the newly-proclaimed members of neighboring political parties like the Nacionalista Party (NP), the Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC), and the United Nationalist Coalition (UNA).

“We’ve started scouting members and many have expressed their intention to join the minority bloc,” he said.

He felt that it was necessary to have additional support from other parties when “Martin vies for the leadership of the House.”

Asked whether they were worried over possible issues in securing UNA’s help due to tensions between newly-elected Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada and Lakas-CMD chairman emeritus Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, Suarez said “perhaps Mayor Erap has already forgotten that issue.”

They had no worries over securing UNA’s support for Romualdez’ bid for the House leadership, saying that the Lakas-CMD president was even invited to the celebration of senator-elect Nancy Binay’s proclamation several days ago.

“He was there. He was invited,” said the minority leader.

Suarez said they sought to meet with Vice President Jejomar Binay, one of UNA’s leaders, next week.

“We will also start meeting with the elected members of the 16th Congress next week,” he added.