Senate showdown seen

The Senate brawl is far from over.

Fireworks are expected to flare up anew at the Senate today as the majority bloc is bent on putting to a vote the contentious issue on the legality of the June 3 to 6 sessions conducted by the opposition.

Pro-administration Senators Joker Arroyo and Francis Pangilinan insisted that the legality issue will never be resolved as long as they avoid tackling it head-on.

Meanwhile, Sen. Aquilino Pimentel Jr. has officially offered to give up his post as Senate minority leader so he can focus on his proposed amendments to the Local Government Code.

He told opposition leader Sen. Edgardo Angara that he wants Sen. Vicente Sotto III to replace him.

The senators remain locked in a heated debate on the legality of the June 3 to 6 sessions despite a compromise forged last week through a four-paragraph resolution that Majority Leader Loren Legarda had described as a "win-win" formula.

The measure stipulated that the majority agreed to pass on third and final reading three of four bills approved during the controversial sessions.

The fourth bill, the proposed Absentee Voting Act, will be recalled to enable the majority members to interpellate and introduce amendments before it is approved on second and third readings.

However, Pimentel argued that recalling the Absentee Voting bill would suffer procedural infirmities. He said certain rules have to be followed before they could deliberate anew on a measure that has been passed on third and final reading.

But Arroyo countered that recalling the bill would also mean recognizing the validity of the June 3 to 6 sessions.

The disagreement may trigger another deadlock that could once more put the chamber into a paralysis.

Arroyo maintained that the Senate and the House of Representatives both declared sine die adjournment on June 3, hence any sessions after that date could not be recognized as valid and legal.

He proposed that the June 3 sine die adjournment be submitted to a vote.

Pangilinan said they will hold a caucus to arrive at a decision on the proposed voting. "We have to thresh things out."

In a bid to break the impasse last Monday, July 29, Pimentel moved to put the issue to a vote, but the administration coalition rejected the idea since they were outnumbered.

The disagreement set off a standoff between the two camps that lasted up to the wee hours of Tuesday morning.

The administration senators did not budge on their seats fearing that the minority would hold another rump session.

For their part, the minority senators also refused to leave because they did not recognize the adjournment declared by Senate President Franklin Drilon.

The senators still have to settle their differences on the chairmanship of the various standing committees which were reshuffled by the minority during the June 3 to 6 sessions.

Angara admitted in a speech last July 31 that no settlement has been reached as they merely side-stepped the controversy.

"But we did so, indirectly only by recognizing the four bills that we passed. We thought that that was a more diplomatic and courteous way of resolving our dispute," Angara said.

Nene to yield minority post

The minority bloc will formally tackle in a caucus today Pimentel’s offer to relinquish his position as Senate minority leader to Sen. Sotto who is assistant minority leader.

A highly placed source who spoke on condition of anonymity told The STAR that Pimentel bared his plan to give up the minority seat as early as July 22 when the 12th Congress opened its Second Regular Session.

In a letter sent late last week to Angara, Pimentel reiterated his bid, citing as reason his desire to concentrate on his bill amending the Local Government Code.

A salient point of the proposed amendments was the return of supervision and control over the police to local government units, specifically to city and municipal mayors.

Opposition sources played down Pimentel’s move by saying it was "routine" event that has nothing to do with the leadership crisis in the chamber.

In another development, two Lakas-NUCD stalwarts in the House of Representatives backed a challenge by Sen. Robert Barbers for all senators to resign early next year "as a courageous act of patriotism and statesmanship" that could open the door for the creation of what he called a "common legislature."

Isabela Rep. Rodolfo Albano and Davao City Rep. Prospero Nograles said Barbers’ call "reflects a growing public sentiment and deepening dissatisfaction" with the senators following almost two months of stalemate that plunged the chamber into a limbo.

"The sordid Senate spectacle is the strongest argument why we should make the transition now towards a common legislature. The passage of vital reform laws cannot be held hostage by rival Senate blocs fighting to gain power over the other at the expense of the public good," Nograles said in a statement.

He said the senators’ resignation by January would expedite proposals for the "creation of a unicameral legislature that will put an end to gridlock and paralysis and put Congress back to work."

Nograles also said the Senate standoff was bound to recur and all solutions would be mere stop-gap measures and will not end political gridlock "unless we move judiciously towards a single legislature."

Barbers, also a Lakas stalwart, dared last week his colleagues to step down even as he asked them to pass all priority economic and political bills within the next four months.

"The senators have done practically nothing for the nation. It is best that the Senate is abolished and we create a unicameral legislature which would eliminate the politics of gridlock and enable us to pass laws expeditiously," Albano said.

Several congressmen, among the Deputy Minority Leader Constantino Jaraulla, have filed resolutions calling for a shift to parliamentary government and a unicameral legislature.

During a summit of political parties last May, political leaders also adopted a manifesto endorsing a proposal to amend the Constitution and identified major principles on economic, political, social, electoral and judicial reforms.