Sotto expects ‘cooperative’ Senate, House

MANILA, Philippines — Senate President Vicente Sotto III is expecting a “very cooperative” relationship between the Senate and the House of Representatives during the 18th Congress, as he is poised to retain his post in the upper chamber.

Sotto is counting on presumptive speaker Alan Peter Cayetano to promote the cooperation post, as the former senator had worked with them in the past.

“I think it’s good that the Senate and the House are very cooperative with each other because Alan came from us. He knows how we move there,” Sotto said in Filipino, in an interview over radio station dzBB.

“He is our friend, and our incoming ways and means chair is his sister, to whom, I think, explaining things would be easy,” he added, referring to Sen. Pia Cayetano.

Aside from the Senate ways and means committee, Sotto said the female Cayetano would also head the newly created sustainable development committee to work on measures that will promote the country’s sustainable development.

“That’s the committee we want to create, because the Senate doesn’t have it yet,” Sotto in a separate interview over radio station dwIZ.

“(Sen. Cayetano) best fits being its chair, where goals and programs cover not only education but also higher technology,” he added.

The Senate president had said earlier that the education committee has been divided into two groups – elementary and high school levels, to be headed by Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian, and the tertiary and technical-vocational level, to be chaired by Sen. Joel Villanueva.

“(Sen. Cayetano’s) concern is the overall objective goals of education in the Philippines, not just the basic,” Sotto said.

Even Sen. Cynthia Villar, who was urged by neophyte Sen. Francis Tolentino to challenge the leadership of Sotto, had said earlier that the Senate president would keep his post, which he has held since May last year.

“Yes, no one’s thinking that it won’t happen. We just want our fellow senators to have their committees that are acceptable to them,” Villar said in Filipino, in an interview over dwIZ on Saturday.