Inday Sara is still open who to support for House Speaker in the 18th Congress

Presidential daughter and Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte at the ground breaking of Pier 88 in Barangay Poblacion, Liloan town, Cebu on March 22, 2019. | Delta Dyrecka Letigio

LILOAN, Cebu, Philippines– Presidential daughter and Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte-Carpio today clarified that she was not going to make a choice yet on who she believed should be the next House Speaker.

The presidential daughter, who has been in Cebu since Thursday for a two-day campaign caravan of the senatorial candidates supported by Hugpong ng Pagbabago (HNP), a national political movement she founded,  said she only has one criteria when the time comes that she would decide who to back for the House Speakership: Someone who can show he or she is moving in the same direction as that of her father, President Rodrigo Duterte.

Inday Sara, as the presidential daughter is popularly known, has proven her sizeable political stock when it was widely reported that she helped unseat then House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez and backed the installation of former President  Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in his place in July last year.

With Arroyo now in her last of three consecutive terms as representative of Pampanga and longer eligible to run for a fresh term, it is expected that a number of pro-administration congressmen who will win their seats in the May 13 midterm elections will seek Duterte-Carpio’s backing for the highest post in the House of Representatives.

In an interview with Cebu reporters at the sidelines of the HNP senatorial caravan in Liloan town on Friday, March 22, Duterte-Carpio clarified that her support for the supposed speakership bid of Marinduque Representative Lord Allan Velasco was simply a “general support” for  anyone who wishes to be the House Speaker.

“Lahat that is supportive to the administration of Duterte and who expressed interest in becoming speaker, I support them,” she said.

She reiterated that the only reason why she is showing interest in who should be the next speaker is because she would want to ensure it would be someone who is supportive of the desired track of the President.

“Because we need the House of Representatives to move with the direction of the President,” said the younger Duterte.

Early in November 2018, the President and his daughter addressed Velasco as “Speaker” in events held in Marinduque.

Later Sara Duterte clarified that she only called him “Speaker” because she heard that Velasco was interested in the position.

Duterte-Carpio also said in previous interviews that she will back whoever the President will support to lead the Lower House when the 18th Congress of the Philippines opens in July this year./elb