Pampanga Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s (GMA) dinner with select Catholic Bishops weeks before her Congress power grab paid off well and quickly yesterday when two top prelates lauded her ascent to the Lower House speakership albeit in a controversial manner.

Sorsogon Bishop Arturo Bastes lauded Arroyo’s installation as House leader replacing Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez following a rowdy affair that saw the former President being sworn in twice, grabbing attention away from President Duterte’s State of the Nation Address and his signing of the new Moro peace law on Monday.

Bastes said he was glad Alvarez was replaced “so that his plans (about postponing the 2019 mid-term elections) will not push through.”

“I am happy that Alvarez was ousted because of his extremely dangerous plans like ‘no election in 2019,’ a clear violation of our Constitution,” Bastes said in a statement.

“I am glad that GMA is the Speaker because she is a pro-life advocate and, as President, she abolished the death penalty. She is also an economist,” he added.

Cubao Bishop Honesto Ongtioco, meanwhile, noted those who supported Arroyo must have thought about what she would achieve as a leader of the lower chamber.

“I’m sure our lawmakers would always consider how things can become better. They must have thought that GMA would deliver,” he added.

With 184 votes on Monday, the 71-year-old solon was sworn into office as the country’s first female House Speaker.

Arroyo met with 18 bishops on 8 July ahead of the private meeting between President Duterte and Davao Archbishop Romulo Valles.

The meeting between Duterte and Valles was aimed at ironing out kinks in the President’s rocky relationship with the Catholic Church.

Arroyo’s meeting with the 18 bishops, her camp claimed, was preparatory to the Duterte-Valles meeting.

Presidential spokesman Harry Roque also attended the gathering at Arroyo’s residence which, Roque said, was held “to emphasize the need for close relationship between the Church and the State.”

Valles, president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, was not present in the first dinner.

It is, however, feared that Arroyo’s power grab in Congress was just part of a bigger plan among parties interested in ousting Duterte himself. Some bishops, a Daily Tribune source said, are aware of such plans.

Talks about a possible coup de etat has also been swirling for weeks and the leadership changes in the Senate, where Senate President Koko Pimentel was replaced by Tito Sotto, and in the House following Alvarez’s ouster, could have been the start of bigger political movements.

Prior to the bash with the 18 bishops, Arroyo also hosted congressmen allies in her birthday party on 5 April.

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