THE speakership race for the incoming 20th Congress is effectively over now that Speaker Martin Romualdez has won the support of 285 colleagues, including from the Liberal Party, who want him to continue leading the House of Representatives, Deputy Speaker David Suarez said yesterday.
“This is already a supermajority,” Suarez said. “Tapos na (It’s finished). The Speaker has the numbers.”
As of yesterday, Suarez said, 285 House members have expressed support for Speaker Romualdez, with 278 lawmakers “having already signed formal declarations, including four out of six members of the LP who are now part of the larger movement for legislative continuity and national stability.”
Last week, there were about 240 solons backing Romualdez. There are 306 members in the current Congress.
Suarez said majority of the LP members have officially joined the expanding supermajority coalition, supporting the calls for Romualdez to continue his leadership after Navotas Rep. Toby Tiangco earlier said he would challenge Romualdez in the speakership race only with the backing of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and his colleagues.
The supermajority bloc led by the ruling Lakas-CMD is now composed of the Nacionalista Party (NP), National Unity Party (NUP), Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC), Partido Federal ng Pilipinas (PFP), the Party-list Coalition Foundation Inc. (PCFI), and the LP.
Suarez said this development “cements the broadening consensus across party lines that Speaker Romualdez remains the most unifying, competent, and effective choice to lead the chamber during the crucial second half of the Marcos administration.”
“Speaker Romualdez has earned the trust of the current and incoming members of the House through principled, results-oriented leadership,” he said. “What we are witnessing is no longer just support from traditional allies — it’s a political groundswell cutting across the entire spectrum.”
“The Speaker is also heeding the President’s call for results-oriented leadership, as demonstrated by the House of Representatives’ swift approval of the majority of priority measures aligned with the Chief Executive’s legislative agenda,” he added.
Tiangco earlier expressed willingness to join the speakership race as he tried to deflect blame for the defeat of five of the 11 administration senatorial candidates of the Alyansa Para sa Bagong Pilipinas.
He was reacting to incoming returning senator Panfilo Lacson who said that among the reasons for the defeat of almost half of Alyansa’s candidates were the failure of the administration’s machinery and the lingering influence of former president Rodrigo Duterte despite being detained in the Netherlands where is facing trial by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Tiangco, who served as Alyansa campaign manager, has blamed the defeat of the five candidates to the House’s move to impeach Duterte’s daughter, Vice President Sara Duterte, last February, saying it was the reason the Alyansa lost in Mindanao where the candidates were advised to individually campaign in lieu of grand rallies.
He said the House leadership did not listen to him when he opposed the decision to impeach the Vice President. He was later rebuked by House leaders, who said that almost 82 percent of the congressmen who endorsed the impeachment complaint won reelection, including those from Mindanao.
