Senators have started getting committee chairmanships but many of them are grumbling that they are not getting a fair shake from the Senate leadership.
Neophyte senators complained that their senior counterparts are being favored in the distribution of major committees at their expense.
Liberal Party senators have managed to get the choicest committees, causing dissatisfaction among their colleagues from other parties.
For instance, Frank Drilon was named chairman of the finance committee, which handles the national budget, Francis Pangilinan, the blue ribbon committee and Ralph Recto, the ways and means committee.
Pangilinan also wants to head the committee on agriculture which Juan Miguel Zubiri is eyeing while Recto is also interested in the committee on public services, which is also being sought by Ramon Revilla Jr.
“We were the ones who worked hard to resolve the Senate leadership dispute and to get Enrile reelected Senate president. But why are the juiciest committee going to the LP members,” grumbled a senator from the groups of Villar and Angara who did not want to be identified.
The disgruntled senators aired their grievances over the apportionment of committees during a meeting of the members of a 13-member group within the so-called “super-majority” held lunchtime at the Hotel Sofitel on Tuesday.
But Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III said he did not hear any grumbling from his colleagues during the group’s discussion.
“I think the committee assignments are balanced. There are little problems, but these are being ironed out,” Sotto told newsmen.
Senator Edgardo Angara, who chaired the finance committee in the last two years, is reportedly unhappy that the committee is being given to Drilon.
“I don’t think so. He (Angara) said that for the sake of unity, he was willing to give it up,” Sotto said. Angara will get the committee on education and committee on science and technology.
Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile said that out of 37 committees in the chamber, l0 are considered contentious because two or three senators would want to get the chairmanship. But he assured them that he is not playing favorites in the committee assignments.
“I assign committees according to my perception of the capability of each one, not because of the money that they can get out of it, of the power they can get from it but because of what they can do to use the committee for the service of the nation,” Enrile said.
The Senate president said he sees to it to talk to the senators who vying for the same committee and if the conflict is unresolved, he throws the issue to the whole Senate.
Senator Loren Legarda admitted that she wants to head the committee on energy but freshman Senator Teofisto Guingona III is also eyeing the same committee.
Legarda said it is only proper that such a major committee should go to senior senators like her.
Legarda said she would also want to retain the committee on agriculture and committee on climate change.
Sotto said Enrile has offered alternative committees to Guingona such as the committee on peace, unity and reconciliation and the committee on agrarian reform.
Neophyte Senator Ferdinand Marcos Jr. confirmed that there is a tendency in the Senate to give preference to senior senators in the choice of major committees just like in the House of Representatives. Marcos will chair the Senate committee on local government.
Enrile said even minority senators will get their committee assignments—Joker Arroyo as chairman of the committee on constitutional amendments and Pia Cayetano as chairman of the committee on health and committee on women, children and family relations.
Sotto reported the committee assignments of other senators—Manuel Villar, Committee on economic affairs; Gregorio Honasan—committee on public order and illegal drugs; Jinggoy Estrada, committee on labor; Francis Escudero, committee on justice and on human rights; and Revilla, committee on public works and highways.
Sotto said Zubiri is favored to head the committee on agriculture and he may also retain the chairmanship of the committee on cooperatives. –Fel Maragay, Manila Standard Today
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