Read this in The Manila Times digital edition.
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.
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