President Duterte Calls Congress to Conduct Special Session

President Duterte issued Proclamation No. 1027 calling the Congress to a special session. The President was forced to issue the said proclamation amid the squabble in the House of Representatives. House Speaker Allan Peter Cayetano decided, together with his allies, for the early suspension of the budget hearing in the lower house.  The move is seen to derail the assumption of his position by Rep. Lord Allan Velasco come October 14, 2020.  The two admin allies previously forged a term-sharing agreement which was duly signed by both parties. However, Speaker Cayetano said that majority of the congressmen supports his leadership despite the President's advice to honor their agreement. 

The Lower House is now on recess and will only resume its function next month. This could badly affect the timely passage of the National Budget for 2021. The president is worried about the consequences of a delayed budget especially that the country is battling the COVID-19 Pandemic. 

Proclamation #1027 directed the Congress to hold a Special Session on October 13 to October 16' 2020 to allow the resumption of the 2021 National Budget deliberations.

Let us wait and see what will happen in the next few days, particularly about the plans of Speaker Cayetano and his allies.

Here's a copy of the proclamation. Sourced from the PCOO website.

Merging of Lakas and Kampi: Far from Reality

The efforts of some Kampi official to merge with Lakas is far from reality. Although they have agreed on some issues but again when it comes to political agenda, they have different objectives. Another issue raised by Lakas officials is to make them the dominant party in the merging and Kampi will just be part of the minority.

One obvious reason why Lakas is not letting go of Kampi as an ally is the resource and machinery they can provide. Although Kampi officials are trying to get more support from other Lakas members specially in the local politics. Shifting of political affiliations will not be surprising specially if there will be some promises given as what was made before. In the philippine politics, our politicians will only shift allegiance if they can get something in return. If Kampi will give what they want, maybe they will get the majority in the coalition. Again this would mean a lot of money.

Another problem with the merging is in the local level where there are aspiring candidates for both party. It already happened last election where both Kampi and Lakas have their own candidates in the local level which caused some problems in the coalition. although they were able to surpass this issues but this coming election in 2010, it is expected that more cases will be occurring. This will test how strong the coalition is.

As of this moment, no one can tell if the merging will take place, would it be sooner? or it will just be a dream of Kampi.