MANILA, Philippines — Pro-administration House leaders and political party stalwarts were all-out in praising Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano’s trust and approval ratings from a major pollster Tuesday, calling him the “right choice” for the fourth-highest elective post in government.

National Unity Party (NUP) President and Cavite 4th District Rep. Elpidio Barzaga Jr. said the ratings Cayetano got only two months into the speakership post proved that “competence and hard work pay off.”

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“This achievement only proves once more that the NUP made the right choice in supporting Cayetano for the speakership post,” Barzaga added in a statement.

Cayetano, the representative of Taguig-Pateros district, received 62-percent trust rating and 64-percent approval rating in the September survey done by Pulse Asia. The NUP claimed that this was the highest percentage a Speaker ever received and the first time a Speaker rated higher than the Vice President under the Duterte administration.

President Rodrigo Duterte, meanwhile, remained the most trusted top government official with a 74-percent rating and 78-percent approval rating. Cayetano is Duterte’s running mate in the 2016 elections and the latter’s choice in the speakership race.

READ: Duterte’s approval and trust ratings drop in September poll – Pulse Asia

Deputy Minority Leader and Bayan Muna Rep. Carlos Zarate has said that the 11-percent drop in Duterte’s trust rating in the latest survey could be due to the “high prices of commodities and the administration’s pro-China policy.”

The Nacionalista Party (NP), Cayetano’s political party, meanwhile attributed Cayetano’s rating to the chamber’s “accomplishments” such as the swift approval of the proposed P4.1 trillion national budget for 2020 and the speedy approval of the tax reform bills and economic reform measures that the President wanted to be prioritized.

After a swift one-month deliberation, the House passed the expenditure plan on September 20 and transmitted it to the Senate on October 1. However, members of the opposition questioned the hasty passage in which Zarate said the House had “sacrificed” proper scrutiny of programs and projects of the Duterte administration just to “railroad” its approval.

READ: House swiftly OKs P4.1-T nat’l budget for 2020 after only a month of debates

House Majority Leader and Leyte Rep. Martin Romualdez for his part said the trust and approval extended by Filipinos to Cayetano would “prompt all of us in the House of Representatives to work harder in the legislative mill in the days to come.”

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Anakalusugan Rep. Mike Defensor and Deputy Speaker Michael Romero, leader of the party-list coalition in the House, also lauded the former senator and former foreign affairs secretary’s work. /jpv

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