Pimentel: Why is Ermita heading baseline bills group?

MANILA, Philippines – Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. asked the Senate committee on foreign relations yesterday to reconsider the designation of Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita as chairman of the congressional technical working group (TWG) that will consolidate the various bills delineating the country’s archipelagic baselines filed with Congress.

Pimentel said that since the consolidation of bills into one substitute measure is essentially a legislative function, it is inappropriate for an official from the executive branch like Secretary Ermita to head the TWG.

He supported the view of Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV that Ermita’s chairmanship of the TWG undermines the independence of Congress and therefore he should be replaced to conform with the basic rule that the research, study and drafting of bills are undertaken under the jurisdiction and control of the concerned Senate committee.

“This is the basic question: Why should an executive official be allowed to handle the running of a technical working group of the committee that tackles the archipelagic baselines of the country?” Pimentel said in a statement.

However, Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago, chairman of the Senate committee on foreign relations, defended Ermita’s appointment to the TWG on the Baselines Bill.

“Normally, the TWG of any Senate committee is always headed by somebody from the executive branch whether he is the head of the Cabinet department himself – normally that’s not the case – or the head of the division concerned with that particular topic, and Secretary Ermita is the chairperson of the committee on maritime and ocean affairs of Malacañang so he could either appoint his representative – which is the normal procedure – or he himself could head it,” Santiago explained.

Santiago said there is no law that disqualifies an executive official from working with the Senate.

She said Trillanes can raise ethical or moral questions but there is no formal legal basis for his objection.

Pimentel is asking what factors were considered in choosing Ermita as head of the TWG aside from the fact that he is the chairman of the Commission on Maritime and Ocean Affairs under the Office of the President.