The House of Representatives had no shortage of newsmakers and newsworthy moments in the year that was.

But for the sake of concise reading, this reporter can say that these particular people and moments came in pairs in 2025. Specifically, there were two House Speakers, two disruptors, and two major issues this past year.

The year 2025 bridged the 19th and 20th Congresses. There could have easily been just one House Speaker for entirety of the year, but it didn't pan out that way.

Leyte 1st district Rep. Martin Romualdez, president of the dominant Lakas-Christian Muslim Democrats (Lakas-CMD) party handily won a second term as House Speaker on July 28 to kick off the 20th Congress.

Romualdez ran unopposed--the same way that he secured his first speakership during the entire three-year stretch of the previous 19th Congress, where he proved to be President Marcos' top ally in government. However, his second term as House head honcho would last less than two months.

Romualdez resigned as Speaker on Sept. 17--a move that was meant to give authorities like the Independent Commission for Infrastructure (ICI) the leeway they needed to investigate House members' alleged involvement in the flood control projects corruption scandal (more on that later).

Replacing Romualdez was Isabela 6th district Rep. Faustino "Bojie" Dy III, a Partido Federal ng Pilipinas (PFP) stalwart. Despite not being the political heavyweight that Romualdez is, Dy has attained reassurances from various regional blocs in the House tha they support his leadership.

Seeing how public trust for the country's lawmakers have plumetted, Dy has vowed a more transparent House--particularly in the budget process--in an effort to appease Filipinos.

Speaking of the ICI, it eventually said that it had no finding or conclusion of guilt or liability on the part of former Speaker Romualdez.

The youth movement persisted in the House of Representatives in 2025 with the likes of neophytes Cavite 4th district Rep. Francisco "Kiko" Barzaga and Batangas 1st district Rep. Leandro Legarda Leviste. But "Young Guns" they aren't.

Instead of serving as well-groomed talking heads for the majority bloc like the Romualdez era Young Guns, Barzaga, 27 and Leviste, 32 chose to be disruptors--solons who challenged established norms, did away with niceties, spoke with zero filter, and made their House colleagues uncomfortable.

Nothing is romanticized here: they may not say it out loud, but they've independently taken on the mantle of moral compass of the House, cordiality with seniors and elders be damned. They are self-styled white knights against corruption, and are social media savants to boot.

The more eccentric of the two is "congressmeow" Barzaga. An expert rage-baiter, the Dasmariñas solon resigned from the National Unity Party (NUP) and went off the hinge. He began posting inflammatory comments against President Marcos and other top officials in government, called for a public uprising, and antagonized his fellow solons by calling all of them "buwaya".

By Dec. 1, Barzaga found himself on the receiving end of a 60-day suspension in connection with his ethics complaint. His colleagues had enough of his antics (which also included lewd posts about women), and demanded that he be held to a certain standard.

Leviste is the more polished between the two disruptors, but this doesn't mean he hasn't ruffled any feathers. He had a lot of good will going for him when, in August, he rejected millions in bribe money from a Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) district engineer and even had him arrested afterward.

Since then, Leviste has switched several times from being a supporter to critic of DPWH Secretary Vince Dizon, while also calling out his much older amd experienced colleagues on alleged insertions to the national budget.

Just last Dec. 24, Leviste began to post dozens of DPWH budget documents on his Facebook supposedly to prove "irregularities". However, Bicol Saro Party-list Rep. Terry Ridon said the Batangueño could face an ethics case over allegations that he took the papers by force.

By now, its clear how the flood control projects mess impacted the House this year: it ignited public outrage against the administration, fueled Barzaga and Leviste's rhetoric, and led to Romualdez's resignation as the fourth highest-ranked official of the land.

It was also in late September when Ako Bicol Party-list Rep. Zaldy Co--allegedly complicit via his role as Committee on Appropriations chairman during the 19th Congress--resigned as congressman and went into hiding abroad.

It all started when President Marcos himself exposed the controversy in his July 28 State of the Nation Address (SONA), delivered in front of House members and senators. He vowed a no-nonsense investigation on what has been described as the biggest corruption scandal in the country’s history.

The House through the newly-formed Infrastructure Committee (Infracom) carried out its own investigation on anomalous flood control projects, although it had to be cut short after the Palace-created ICI entered the picture.

Five months after the SONA, Filipinos are still angry, the President is still looking for a "big fish" to place behind bars, and Congress (House and Senate) is still picking up the pieces of its shattered reputation.

On a positive note, the ensuing call for transparency led to a more open budget process in the House. The so-called "small committee" on the General Appropriations Bill (GAB) was abolished, and the Bicameral Conference Committee hearings on the budget was livestreamed for the very first time.

But earlier in 2025, during the tail end of the 19th Congress, it was the impeachment of Vice President Sara Duterte that dominated discourse in the lower chamber.

Last Feb. 5, the lady official became the first Philippine vice president to ever be impeached by the House, with at least 215 solons signing her impeachment complaint. The complaint contained seven articles of impeachment, including the conspiracy to assassinate President Marcos and malversation of P612.5 million in confidential funds.

However, the Senate, which was constitutionally mandated to conduct an impeachment trial "forthwith", sat on the complaint. By the time that the mid-term elections were over, the impeachment process had lost a lot of steam.

The coup de grace came just before the start of the 20th Congress in July when the Supreme Court (SC) declared the impeachment rap unconstitutional for violating the one-year bar rule. Although it filed a motion for reconsideration (MR), the House begrudgingly moved on.

With the new year, it remains to be seen whether or not congressmen will again try to unseat Vice President Duterte.