“The last time I checked, Celebrity Sports Plaza is not Congress,” Cayetano said. “It creates a very, very disturbing precedent.”

“If that [voting] is valid,” he warned, “we have become a banana republic. Never in the history of the Philippines has Congress been turned into a pigsty”.

“To our beloved president, our countrymen – especially the overseas Filipino workers – despite the noise, despite the circus that others are doing, we are working and we will finish this budget,” he said, adding, “God bless you.”

Cayetano and his allies are likely to question Monday’s vote, which took place outside the session hall of Congress while it was in recess and without the official mace – the symbol indicating sessions are under way – being displayed during the vote. The sports club event displayed a mace that lawmakers conceded was a duplicate.

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After the vote, Cayetano gave the media a “manifesto” claiming that 200 of the 305 representatives still backed him, which could force a showdown vote on Tuesday between the two. On September 30, Cayetano had actually offered to resign by October 14, but 184 congressmen voted to reject his offer, enabling Cayetano to stay on as speaker.

Duterte offered no comment on the matter, but presidential spokesman Harry Roque scolded congressional members.

“You should first pass the budget that will help combat Covid-19 before you engage in politicking,” he said. “Set aside ambition. Serve the country first.”

The budget could have been approved by the lower house, but on October 6 – or 10 days before Congress was supposed to go on recess – Cayetano abruptly suspended sessions, sensing moves to oust him and leaving the budget approval hanging.

Since the budget bill still has to be sent to the Senate for approval, Senate President Vicente Sotto III warned this would mean the national government will not have a new budget for next year.

Last week, Duterte had warned Cayetano and Velasco, who are both his allies, that if they did not resolve the issue, “then I will solve the problem for you. You choose”.

Velasco is personally close to Duterte and Duterte’s daughter, Davao city mayor Sara Duterte, who made it known she was siding with Velasco by dining with him at her house last Friday.

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However, Cayetano has proven his usefulness to Duterte by not only running as his vice-presidential mate in 2016 but also donating 71.3 million pesos for the tandem’s campaign advertising.

The feud between Cayetano and Velasco turned ugly in recent days after Cayetano refused to honour a verbal agreement brokered by President Duterte in June 2019, giving Cayetano 15 months to sit as speaker – or until the end of September – and Velasco the remaining 21 months.

“When the president brokered the gentleman’s agreement, all of us respected it,” PDP-Laban Party spokesman Ronwald Munsayac, told This Week in Asia.

“We are inviting him [Cayetano] to sit down to work with the new leaders of the House, to respect the [vote of the] majority and honour the agreement so that the order of business can continue,” Munsayac added.

After he was voted speaker on Monday, Velasco publicly offered to make Cayetano a deputy speaker, of which there are currently 22. Cayetano offered no response.

Political analyst Ramon Casiple said he expected that the political rumble between Cayetano and Velasco would lead to the House becoming “tumultuous” and “confusing” in the run-up to the 2022 presidential election.

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In a Facebook live post on October 2, Velasco publicly accused Cayetano and some of Cayetano’s allies of cornering the bulk of infrastructure funds in the 2021 national budget to fund their own pet projects.

“The question for Speaker Cayetano and his peers: Is this a budget for the nation or a budget for your clique?” Velasco asked. “Is this a responsive budget in the middle of a pandemic or just another huge budget for your group?”

One of Velasco’s political allies, Congressman Arnolfo Teves Jnr, pointed out that the two congressional districts that Cayetano and his wife, Congresswoman Laarni Cayetano, represent have been allotted 11.1 billion pesos worth of infrastructure funds in the proposed budget – a far bigger slice than what other regions in the country could expect.

Casiple said the feud over the infrastructure budget was understandable, since the budget that is passed the year before a presidential election is generally called the “vote-getting budget” – when politicians try to funnel as much funding into their own districts as possible in the hope of persuading their constituents to re-elect them.

“Obviously, there is now a power struggle and the budget [passage] will be delayed,” Casiple said.

The House vote on the budget was originally set to occur by October 16, before Congress went on recess. This would have allotted one month for the Senate to pass the budget and for both chambers to reconcile conflicting provisions by December 18, when Congress is scheduled to adjourn for the rest of the year.

Casiple also said that if issues between Cayetano and Velasco remain unresolved, this could split the ruling coalition – at least in the House. At the moment, Duterte allies hold a super majority, which would enable pet bills of Duterte, like the proposed Anti-Terrorism Act, to pass swiftly.