Joker keeps Blue Ribbon committee

Maverick Sen. Joker Arroyo will keep the chairmanship of the powerful Senate Blue Ribbon Committee despite reports that Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago was eyeing his post.

The majority bloc led by Senate President Franklin Drilon agreed in principle in a closed-door caucus yesterday on who would head several important committees. Twelve senators attended the caucus. Santiago and Rodolfo Biazon were absent.

Drilon said the committee assignments were still tentative and would be finalized next week in consultation with Santiago and Biazon.

Based on what the Senate boss described as the majority’s "emerging consensus," Sen. Manuel Villar Jr. will continue to head the finance committee, the panel that scrutinizes the annual budget.

Sen. Ralph Recto will keep the chairmanship of the ways and means committee, which has jurisdiction over tax measures.

Majority Leader Francis Pangilinan heads the rules committee, while Senate President Pro-Tempore Juan Flavier will take the education committee.

Sen. Ramon Magsaysay Jr. will continue to chair the committee on agriculture and food.

Five neophyte senators were given committee chairmanships. Manuel Roxas II, a former trade and industry secretary, will take the committee on commerce and industry.

Richard Gordon, a former tourism secretary, will head the tourism committee, while actor Lito Lapid will chair the committee on games and amusement.

Ramon Revilla Jr. will inherit the public works committee, which his father headed in the last Congress. Pia Cayetano will chair the committee on health.

Pangilinan said Santiago has expressed to him her desire to be part of the majority despite the fact that she voted for opposition Sen. Aquilino Pimentel Jr. in the fight for the Senate presidency.

Pimentel became the minority leader. By tradition, any senator who votes for the opposition candidate for Senate president is part of the minority.

Santiago has been criticizing the term-sharing agreement reached last week between Drilon and Villar. Both Drilon and Santiago come from Iloilo.

Besides Arroyo’s Blue Ribbon panel, Santiago is reportedly eyeing the chairmanship of the foreign relations committee, which Villar now holds, and that of the committee on constitutional amendments, which is headed by opposition Sen. Edgardo Angara.

Drilon said another issue that the majority would resolve next week is whether to continue the tradition of sharing committees with the minority.

"There was a suggestion that we continue it, but this will be discussed further. Anyway, there are enough committees to go around," he said.

One important panel that is with the minority is the committee on banks and financial institutions, which is chaired by Sen. Sergio Osmeña III.

Meanwhile, Santiago called on the Senate leadership to reveal to the public exactly how much money each senator receives as total monthly income.

"What gives members of Congress the right to spend huge sums of money when they do not even have effective auditing devices?" Santiago said in a statement released yesterday, in obvious reference to the pork barrel funds allocated for senators and congressmen.

Santiago noted that at present, senators receive a monthly legal income of P41,000.

"There seems to something very wrong in such statistics, because according to the Senate secretariat, each senator can pay his or her chief of staff as much as P51,000," the feisty senator from Iloilo stressed.

Santiago asked the Senate leadership to clarify once and for all the amount of money allotted to each senator to show everyone that it adheres to the age-old, yet often violated, principles of transparency and accountability.

"We have no right to preach to other government offices what we do not practice ourselves. Before reforming the entire bureaucracy, change must begin in our very own backyard," she said. — With Jose Rodel Clapano