House Speaker Lord Allan Velasco has been reelected as representative of the lone legislative district of Marinduque province for a third consecutive term.
The Marinduque Provincial Board of Canvassers on Tuesday, May 10 proclaimed Velasco, who ran unopposed, as the winner in the congressional polls after the tabulation of all election returns.
Velasco garnered 100,794 votes in the final tally. Marinduque has 161,538 registered voters, but only 140,674 voted.
The Speaker’s parents, retired Supreme Court (SC) Justice Presbitero Velasco Jr. and Lorna Quinto Velasco, were also reelected as governor and Torrijos town mayor, respectively.
“I am deeply honored and humbled by my reelection to the House of Representatives. I am extremely grateful to the people of my beloved province of Marinduque for putting their trust and faith in me to represent them in Congress for another three years,” Speaker Velasco said.
He also congratulated his colleagues in the 18th Congress who have been reelected to the House.
“I look forward to seeing all my fellow House members as we and our Senate counterparts convene in two weeks’ time as the National Board of Canvassers which will canvass the votes cast, and proclaim the newly-elected President and Vice President of the Republic of the Philippines,” he added.
Hailing from Torrijos town, Velasco was first elected Marinduque representative in 2010. He tried to get reelected in 2013 but lost to the late Regina Reyes-Mandanas, whose COC was later canceled by the Comelec after she was found to be naturalized American citizen.
After almost three years of battling it out at the House of Representatives Electoral Tribunal (HRET) and the SC, Velasco took his oath of office as congressman in February 2016 or just three months before that year’s general elections. He ran again for the same post in 2016 and 2019, winning both instances.
In October 2020, Velasco assumed the speakership in the middle of a raging global pandemic. Undaunted, he was able to lead the “bigger house of Congress” in producing desperately needed legislation aimed at mitigating the impacts of COVID-19.
This new term is Velasco's fifth overall as congressman.