“It’s not impossible for a House coup to happen, especially when the top House official has no real support from the majority of the members, and a Speaker gets to keep his post only by keeping the members happy.

Has wisdom finally dawned on the House of Representatives, its leaders and members for them to drop the humongous P1.5 billion pork, or was it a matter of presidential veto for the entire pork budget allocation that the House leaders drop the billions they could have had if a congressman failed to blow the whistle on the House leaders?

Chances are high that the reason was the presidential veto that caused the House leaders to drop the P1.5 billion each for the House deputy leaders and probably, and maybe, even the still unreported billions the Speaker would have had allocated for himself.

The congressmen certainly aren’t happy about the cancellation of their P700 million each by way of pork barrel and, certainly, neither are the deputy speakers happy as they are, for now, now bereft of their P1.5 billion each.

The congressmen and their leaders’ quick abandonment of their humongous pork was announced by Sen. Ping Lacson, who had earlier bared the scandalous move of the Speaker and his deputy leaders, as well as the other members of Congress and all, to ensure that they keep their posts with no real worry over a coup attack on the House leadership.

Lacson said the plan of House members to stash pork allotments in the P4.1 trillion spending program for 2020 fizzled out even before he spoke about it.

He stressed that even before he bared the humongous pork barrel allocations of House leaders and congressmen, its leadership had already decided not to push through with it, although he also said he was not aware of the House’s decision.

No doubt congressmen are not pleased at all with Lacson’s baring of their billions in pork barrel through amendments to the budget bill that was passed by the House, and are even more displeased at the senator for his refusal to name his so-called source.

Truth is, Lacson was not expected to name his source because if he did, no one — and not just in Congress — would trust him at all the next time around with valuable information.

The same goes for the media and its reporters. Disclosing the name of the sources who requested anonymity would lose their trust in reporters who disclose the name of their sources publicly.

Suspicion is high that the Speaker and his deputies deliberately came up with such a budget amendment in order to escape the presidential veto.

It certainly was a strange move with the House passing the budget in quick time, yet just as quickly proposed amendments to the budget — evidently in the hope that the pork barrel issue would be put to rest, while amendments would be pushed after the budget bill is approved by the Senate and signed by the President.

However, it can hardly be denied that many congressmen, including those in positions of power, aren’t happy over the sudden abandonment of their pork barrel, and there is also that possibility, if not probability, of a sudden change of leadership in the months to come, especially as they would be left without the P700 million pork.

It’s not impossible for a House coup to happen, especially when the top House official has no real support from the majority of the members, and a Speaker gets to keep his post only by keeping the members happy, usually by ensuring their bigger and better pork barrel. And the bigger the pork for them, the easier for the members to retain the Speaker, unless of course, the Palace intervenes.

But why should the Palace, through the President, intervene should the majority of House members decide to stage a coup, when any President would want a pliant Congress and majority of the House members agreeing with the presidential policies?

It will be recalled that in the case of a House coup lodged against then Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez, not only was the 2019 budget so delayed that it had impacted negatively on economic growth, but hardly anything else was done by the House by way of legislative matters of national interest.

Even worse for the House, its leaders and congressmen, the President exercised his power to veto bills, which ended it all, since there has never been a time in post-Marcos years when a presidential veto was overturned by the required number of members of Congress — both in the House and the Senate.

The humongous pork in the billions for congressmen and the 22 deputies can be kissed goodbye by them — but it is certain that somehow, sometime, this humongous pork will reappear in some form.

Trust the usual greed of these honorable members of Congress to do the pork job, sooner or later.