Senators feud over plum committees

Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago has warned that the conflict among the senators over committee chairmanship is making the Senate leadership unstable, a situation which could induce the disgruntled to attempt a coup.

Santiago put the blame on the Liberal Party senators, who have cornered key, powerful, committees even if there are only four of them, alienating their colleagues from other parties who voted to keep Juan Ponce Enrile as Senate president.

“The story is not yet over. There will always be a group (of senators) who will make that attempt. No Senate president can sleep soundly for the next six years,” Santiago said when asked in a radio interview if another attempt at power grab in the Senate is in the works.

“If there are disenchanted senators, anytime that can happen. If only to assert their power, they will stage a coup.”

She added that the “unjust” decision to give the most important committees to partymates of President Benigno Aquino III, has given rise to a “tyranny of the minority” in the upper chamber.

Santiago, who has been absent from Senate sessions since the July 26 convening of the l5th Congress due to an ailment, herself has not been given any committee chairmanship.

Enrile said he has not acted on Santiago’s request to be assigned to a major committee and to keep her seat at the Commission on Appointments because she has not even bothered to call him.

“I do not know if she is with the majority or minority. I am waiting for her to contact me,” the Senate president said.

Meanwhile, Sen. Franklin Drilon, LP president, revealed that the administration party has resolved that Francis Pangilinan will chair the committee on agriculture while Teofisto Guingona III will chair the blue ribbon committee. This was in accordance with the decision of all senators during a caucus last week that that conflicts over committee chairmanships between senators from the same party will be resolved within the party.

Drilon was earlier named chairman of the finance committee while another Liberal, Ralph Recto, was named chairman of the committee on says and means and the committee on public services.

Pangilinan prevailed over Juan Miguel Zubiri who had lobbied for the agriculture committee to make use of his training as an agriculture degree holder.

Recto dislodged Ramon Revilla Jr., who chaired the committee on public services under the l5th Congress.

Still to be resolved is the chairmanship of the committee on energy, which was originally being contested by Guingona and Loren Legarda.

The problem over this committee was made more difficult after Serge Osmena III also expressed interest in becoming its chairman. Osmena is married to Isabel Mejia Lopez, who comes from the family that used to control the Manila Electric Company but has now focused on power generation.

Enrile promised to settle all disputes over committee chairmanships within this week.

Santiago made it clear that she is joining the minority in the Senate whose members include Minority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano, Pia Cayetano and Joker Arroyo, all allies of Manuel Villar, who was one of the contenders for the Senate presidency

She said it was logical for her to go with the minority because she ran for and was reelected senator under the Nacionalista Party of Manuel Villar who was defeated in the May 10, presidential elections.

“I am sure that I will be with the minority. I was together with Villar. We campaigned together under his ticket. Villar was defeated and it is only natural that I will not abandon him. Wherever he is, I will be with him,” she said.

Villar however voted for Enrile in the election of the Senate president, which technically makes him part of the majority. But Arroyo foresaw that Villar will eventually join the minority.

Santiago said all the senators have agreed to bury their differences to break the stalemate in the Senate leadership fight between Villar and Pangilinan and to express their willingness to cooperate with the Aquino administration.

But she said the expectations of the LP senators to foist their design on their colleagues and grab the most important committees was unrealistic.

“What they are doing is to dictate what they want even if there are only four of them just because it was President Aquino who won the election. That becomes the rule of the minority, the tyranny of the minority,” she said.

“Normally, veteran senators give way to each other. Not all key committee chairmanships should go to a single bloc even if it does not constitute the majority while the insignificant committees whose tasks are not part of the legislative agenda and therefore will do nothing will go to the senators from other blocs.”

The feisty lawmaker said that senators who are disenchanted with the inequitable distribution of committees will not allow that kind of situation sitting down and that “it will not last long.”

Santiago said the rule and practice is for every senator to get one major committee and one minor committee. –Fel Maragay, Manila Standard Today