MANILA, Philippines — Despite missing out on a fourth consecutive perfect attendance at the Senate in the first regular session of the 18th Congress, Sen. Panfilo Lacson can still joke about it.
“I didn’t make the list this time. I had to attend my brother’s 3 p.m. funeral on a session day. Next time, I swear I won’t attend my own funeral to maintain my perfect attendance,” Lacson said in reply to Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian’s tweet about the Senate’s perfect attendance citation.
I didn’t make the list this time. I had to attend my brother’s 3pm funeral on a session day. Next time, I swear I won’t attend my own funeral to maintain my perfect attendance.
— PING LACSON (@iampinglacson) August 19, 2020
Gatchalian was cited for perfect attendance in the first regular session — along with Senate President Vicente Sotto III and Senators Juan Miguel Zubiri, Franklin Drilon, Nancy Binay, Ronald dela Rosa, Risa Hontiveros, and Joel Villanueva.
All eight were present in all the 67 plenary sessions from July 22, 2019 to June 4, 2020. However, only Sotto and Zubiri responded to all roll calls and arrived on time for all sessions.
Lacson, a former chief of the Philippine National Police, was cited along with Sotto in 2019 for having perfect attendance in all three regular sessions of the 17th Congress, which ran from 2016 to 2019.
[atm]