New Lacson-Angara confrontation expected today

Another confrontation may take place today between feuding opposition Senators Edgardo Angara and Panfilo Lacson.

Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. said yesterday he is calling his opposition colleagues to a caucus at 2 p.m. today and one of the topics to be discussed is the exchange of "harsh rhetoric" last week between Angara and Lacson.

"We will discuss this. My interest as the leader of the minority is to keep them both with us because we need them both," he said.

The two feuding opposition senators had their first confrontation Monday last week during a caucus of the minority.

According to some minority members, the two had a heated exchange, with Angara leveling several charges against Lacson and the latter denying them. Pimentel, however, denied no such heated confrontation ever took place.

Among other charges, Angara, who heads the Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino (LDP) and is Lacson’s former party boss, accused the former Philippine National Police chief of having allegedly been paid by the Arroyo administration to divide the opposition.

Lacson has denied all of Angara’s charges. During the recent three-month presidential election campaign, the former PNP chief accused his party boss then of being a Malacañang agent out to divide the opposition. The LDP boss denied the accusation.

Last Thursday, after the Senate-sponsored necrological service for the late Sen. Arturo Tolentino, Angara repeated his charges against Lacson in an interview with journalists.

Lacson refused to further tangle with him, saying, "He (Angara) is not worth my time."

Despite their intense dislike for each other, the quarreling minority members will continue to cross each other’s path.

Pimentel said both Angara and Lacson want to sit in the powerful Commission on Appointments, the body that wields the power of life and death over Cabinet appointments and major promotions in the military and the diplomatic service.

"We will try to accommodate them both," he said.

He said most likely, the minority, with its nine members, would have five representatives in the appointments body, with the majority taking seven seats in the 25-member commission.

The majority, led by Senate President Franklin Drilon, the commission’s presiding officer, has 14 members.

Pimentel said besides the seats for the minority in the appointments commission, committee assignments would also be taken in today’s caucus.