BACOLOD City – Former president Gloria Arroyo having been elected as the House Speaker will give President Rodrigo Duterte “further grip on power,” according to militant group Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan) in Negros Island.
Bayan Negros head Mike Concepcion said Duterte was behind the “changing of guards” at the House of Representatives.
He added that the President knew that ousted House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez is “becoming unpopular among his peers in the Lower House.”
“Arroyo is a much better alternative,” Concepcion stressed.
Arroyo formally replaced Alvarez during an election where she garnered votes from 184 of the 238 representatives present in a special session on Monday evening.
But earlier that day, Arroyo was seen up the rostrum at the Batasang Pambansa plenary hall appearing to address her colleagues and taking oath as the new House Speaker.
This happened more than an hour before Duterte delivered his third State of the Nation Address.
In a statement yesterday, Arroyo said she was “extremely honored” to have been elected House Speaker.
“I will endeavor to carry out the legislative agenda of President Rodrigo Duterte in the Lower House,” she said.
Concepcion said Arroyo’s election as House Speaker has “ignited anger from the whole nation.”
He added that the masses want Arroyo to be in jail than “holding another powerful position in the government.”
“The Filipinos won’t accept a plunderer and election cheater to once become a powerful figure in the government,” Concepcion added.
In 2013, Arroyo was charged with plunder and spent four years on hospital arrest while suffering from cervical spine damage.
The former president and now Pampanga representative was mixed up in the Hello Garci controversy, the alleged misuse of multibillion-peso Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office funds, the NBN-ZTE deal, and the fertilizer fund scam, among other corruption scandals./PN
