Perks and ‘presidentialitis’

DISGRUNTLED members of the House of Representatives who gathered signatures for a resolution calling for a leadership change at the chamber did it quietly and without much fuss, but it was not exactly a cloak-and-dagger undertaking. The allies of House Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez were aware of the resolution and signature gathering as early as a few months ago and probably considered it a minor irritant, a minor fracture in the ruling coalition. Two reasons why the Romualdez camp initially did not nip in the bud the act of insurrection.

First reason: Ruling coalitions are naturally fractious, unruly and undisciplined, and represented by various interest groups. A minor wing, once timid and unambitious, can overnight hatch plots to change the current leader with a favored one, which was exactly the content of that resolution — to make Pampanga lawmaker and former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo the new leader vice the current speaker. The Romualdez camp believed that a group of small but noisy core of malcontents was always a possibility in a House of many loyalties and interests, which is precisely the kind of coalition tenuously led by Romualdez.

The second reason for the initial reluctance to take action against the disgruntled faction openly rooting for Mrs. Arroyo’s takeover as House speaker was the certainty that there was no way for the resolution to gather the 200 signatures needed for a leadership change. The disgruntled group had boasted of more than 100 signatories and growing by the day, numbers that had been dismissed outright as bloated or more of a wish list than real signatories. Apparently, the Romualdez camp has a regular running tally of loyalists, fence-sitters and outright traitors and the regular headcount has given it supreme confidence that the disgruntled would always remain on the fringe and in dreamland.

We can add a third reason, the motive, the driving force behind the signature campaign. The disgruntled, except for a few, were no fierce and devoted loyalists of the former president. They merely wanted a speaker whom they felt would guarantee an equitable sharing of the perks and privileges that the House bestows on its members, from pork barrel to allowances to committee assignments to many other things. The rallying call of the disgruntled was to end what they called the “swapangan “at the House, specifically the allocation of pork barrel funds per congressional district. The Romualdez camp believed it did its best to spread out the privileges equitably and a rebellion based on the distribution of perks would hardly gain any traction.

Why did the Romualdez camp finally demote Mrs. Arroyo, which in a way was the best tactical move to tell the House insurgents to stop, to cease and desist and tear up that resolution that in the first place would go nowhere?

It was the signal that Mr. Romualdez has been bitten and bitten hard by a bug called “presidentialitis,” that overweening ambition to be president. Like so many House speakers before him — Jose Yulo, Ramon Mitra Jr., Joe de Venecia and Manny Villar. I may have forgotten a few others. I knew that then Speaker Jose Laurel Jr. ran as vice president to Carlos P. Garcia in 1957, with the hope that his time as president would someday come. Unfortunately, Speaker Laurel lost to the “Poor Boy from Lubao,” Diosdado P. Macapagal, in the 1957 vice presidential race. The rest is history.

Before Mr. Romualdez was bitten hard by the presidential bug, it was assumed that the ruling coalition would rally behind Vice President Sara Duterte in the next presidential elections. After all, the daughter of the former president agreed to be the number two in the 2022 presidential race so as not to split the votes between a Marcos and a Duterte and create an opening for the opposition candidate. The tandem was precisely called “Uniteam” because it was just that, a transient marriage of political forces out to prevent the victory of the loathed opposition. There was no other bind other than the need to shellack the opposition: no ideological ties, no meeting of minds on the core policy pursuits, no deep and historical ties. Of course, the political science of the 21st century has fully documented that such superficial political alliances based purely and singularly on loathingfor-the-opposition truly existed. Just to illustrate, the US Republican Party has a mass base that loudly proclaims “Better Russians than Democrats,” a proclamation considered treasonous in early times but is now completely acceptable to the Republican Party because of its intense loathing for Joe Biden and what he stands for and represents.

Mr. Romualdez has none of the Sara Duterte fealty. He was an informal broker in the Marcos-Duterte alliance, but that was it. He owed Sara nothing. He was not bound by a commitment to support her in the next presidential elections.

The speakership, a perch of awesome power, has historically been a perch where the holder dreamt of more power, then seek the post of ultimate power, the presidency. In the reckoning of Mr. Romualdez, the 21st century failure of Manny Villar, a former speaker, to win the presidential race is already ancient history. Even the fact that he failed to gain one of the 12 slots in a recent Senate election, his first test of a nationwide run, has been conveniently canceled, to prop up the case that this time it will be different.

Mr. Romualdez is surrounded by the usual gofers who would tell him of the sad history of former House speakers who ran for president.

Mrs. Arroyo, perceived as forever rooting for Sara Duterte, was a casualty of the “presidentialitis” that hit — and hit hard — the current speaker. And coming down with her was a small group of malcontents decrying what they felt was the “swapangan “over perks and privileges at the House of Representatives.