Cong. Mikee Romero Demands 20 percent of House Committee Chairmanships for Partylist Coalition

I’ve been an observer of leadership contests in the House of Representatives for a little over two decades now and I can tell you that gathering signatures of support or claims of party coalitions are pretty much exercises with psychological warfare.

Infact, things only firm up during the last few days of before the opening of the opening of a new congress.

So, what this most recently published claim by Congressman Mikee Romero looks like to me is just plain bluffery that perhaps only he believes is working.

With zero social shares as of this writing, I don’t think Romero’s demand for 20 percent of House Committee Chairmanships got a rise from anybody else except him.

What Romero is claimed to have said is this, “It’s 20 percent or nothing. We are the second biggest political group in the House (after PDP-Laban). And we are the swing vote.”

First, even granting it really had 51 members, Romero’s coalition cannot claim to be the second largest block because that really is Congressman Alan Peter Cayetano’s NP and NUP coalition which has 67 members total. Of course, this would be true only if PDP Laban remains divided equally between Congressman Lord Allan Jay Velasco and Congressman Pantaleon Alvarez.

Second,  I dropped a truth bomb and debunked Romero’s claim that not all 51 or 54 party list congressmen were solidly together behind Romero’s imaginary coalition. It is more likely that only those 20 congressmen named in its list of officers are the ones who more or less agreed to appear to be behind Romero. They’ve got nothing to lose at this point and may even get a much better deal later to turn their backs on Romero later as July 22 draws nearer.

There are 58 standing committees and 14 special committees or a total of 72 committees all together, 20 percent of which is 14 committee chairmanships. This means little until after the biggest party within the biggest coalition takes it pick of the committees, most like the largest ones in terms of membership or the most powerful ones.

Which makes me ask, why is Mikee only asking for 14 Committee chairmanships and not chairmanships for all of his 20 or so coalition members? I’d be miffed if I were one of the 20 and didn’t get a committee membership when my vote counts as one same as the rest.

Also, for certain, Romero’s demands for certain committee chairmanships might not be given as others in the ruling party or coalition may take it for themselves.

A likely scenario is that Romero has already promised his “coalition members” committee chairmanships he won’t be able to deliver on.

What is even more mocking laughter and sneers is Romero’s claim that his puny coalition is the one vetting all contenders for House Speaker.

If I were a member of PDP Laban or even Lakas CMD (which cannot be dismissed as a serious contender because despite having 11 members has a wider span of influence that crosses party lines) I’d feel a litter annoyed by Romero’s empty, boastful claim of being THE SWING VOTE.

If all his loud claims of having the numbers fall flat will tend to characterize him as a second class congressman, a pejorative term that used to be leveled at Party List congressmen such as Romero.

All bluster, no muster.

P. Farol

Writer.