AND THE “devotees to the cult of the yellow ribbon” woke up the day after the State of the Nation Address or SONA and Rodrigo Duterte is still president, which was already a bitter pill to swallow. But it seems fate played a cruel joke on them, making it more difficult to swallow.
There were already talks that Cong. Pantaleon Alvarez would be replaced as Speaker of the House of Representatives and stories, although unconfirmed, were coming out that majority of the congressmen banded together and would elect Pampanga representative and former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
Indeed, Gloria Arroyo replaced Pantaleon Alvarez but there were some questions that proper parliamentary procedures were not observe in the “coup.” At best, though, these questions seemed more like “hair splitting.”
President Duterte’s SONA ended and there was still no confirmation and Alvarez was last heard saying that “last time he looked he was till the Speaker.”
So the “devotees to the cult of the yellow ribbon” went to bed comforted with the thought that it was just glitch and God forbid Gloria Arroyo was not the Speaker of the House.
Waking up every morning for six years with Rodrigo Duterte as president is already too much and is driving them nuts; why that nincompoop Noynoy Aquino is so stressed he can’t seem to enjoy his daily video games with Joshua.
When it rains it pours the day after they woke up to this …
Excerpts from the July 23 issue of GMA News:
It’s official, Arroyo installed as new House Speaker
The House of Representatives on Monday officially elected former President and now Pampanga Representative Gloria Macapagal Arroyo as its new Speaker.
Arroyo’s election came after what appeared to be an informal voting among House members to install her as their new leader moments before President Rodrigo Duterte delivered his third State of the Nation Address (SONA).
Her election also effectively removes Davao Del Norte Representative Pantaleon Alvarez from his position.
A special session after the SONA was called to make a formal election, with 238 members present in the session.
One hundred eighty-four members of the chamber voted for Arroyo’s speakership and 12 abstained.
Indeed the bitch is back, and some say with a vengeance. Take note that moi is just using this as a figure of speech, but the coming days will tell.
While Noynoy Aquino pissed in his drawers with this news, the rest of the “devotees to the cult of the yellow ribbon” were squirming in their Marks and Spencer yellow knickers.
And to add to that apocalyptic scenario, compounding the nightmare of the “devotees to the cult of the yellow ribbon”, particularly Noynoy Aquino, was that their “last line of defense”, Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales, just had her last day in office, officially yesterday, July 26.
Just to rub salt to the already bleeding hearts of the “devotees to the cult of the yellow ribbon”, excerpts from the July 25 editorial of the Manila Times:
Arroyo, Asia’s Iron Lady, rises again
THE election of former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo as the first female Speaker of the House of Representatives may be viewed as either a turning point or a regression in Philippine history. But it comes at a crucial period in which the political class decides the country’s future course.
That the House, historically one of the most unpopular institutions of government, needed a leadership change was not in question.
No one was more unfit for the speakership than Pantaleon “Bebot” Alvarez, a political non-entity before he rode on the coattails of President Rodrigo Duterte.
Arroyo, who represents the first district of Pampanga, is of course not the most desirable replacement for Alvarez. But as a former bureaucrat at the Department of Trade and Industry, Cabinet secretary, senator, vice president and president, she is the House’s most experienced politician, capable of steering the chamber toward watershed changes expected to occur very soon.
Apart from Arroyo, no one was likely able to quickly assemble a majority coalition independently of Malacañang, which usually gives the imprimatur on the choice of House speaker.
The reason: this is a pro-Arroyo coalition as much as it is a pro-Duterte one. Arroyo worked with the same political families to achieve her legislative agenda as president from 2001 to 2010, notably the fiscal stimulus that saved the Philippine economy from ruin during the global debt crisis. This is also the same circle that ensured the stability of Arroyo’s rule by quashing successive impeachment attempts against her.
Arroyo, therefore, is able to operate her own power center within the Duterte administration, and is, thus, the only politician with enough gravitas to marshal political support for the President’s bid to overhaul the antiquated Constitution and shift to a federal system of government.
The blitzkrieg fashion in which Arroyo was installed speaker at the resumption of the 17th Congress also showed her strong motivation to take on the job.
Arroyo’s ruthlessness was on display when she and her allies made sure Alvarez won’t last the day as Speaker by staging two sessions, two rounds of voting and two oath-takings, never mind that the House was unable to ratify the Bangsamoro Organic Law, an important piece of legislation, or that the power struggle overshadowed the important event of the day – the President’s State of the Nation Address.
No doubt Arroyo has one eye on overseeing the country’s transition to a federal republic, and another on rehabilitating her image and legacy, having suffered four years in detention over corruption charges.
Arroyo clearly has an unfinished business with history. The nation waits with bated breath what she does with her rare gift of a second chance at the helm of political power.
Karma is indeed a bitch. (brotherlouie16@gmail.com/PN)
Nobody reads your section.