Aquino didn’t dangle pork–Enrile

Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile on Thursday bristled at insinuations that President Benigno Aquino III had dangled the “pork barrel” before the senators to get their approval of the Malacañang-proposed bill deferring the elections in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) for 2013.

“That’s a canard. That’s a falsity. Whoever said that is a liar. If they can show me P1 million or P2 million, I’ll give it to him,” Enrile told a Senate press forum.

“It’s unfair to us. Do you think that anyone of us is that bad? That we’ve reached that level of badness that we barter our honor for money?” he added.

Ex-Sen. Aquilino Pimentel Jr. said in a statement that he didn’t want to entertain the idea that “pork barrel pressure” was behind the approval of the bill, but he said this was the sentiment in ARMM and the rest of Mindanao.

The senators voted 13 to 7 on Monday night to approve the bill postponing the Aug. 8 ARMM election and synchronizing it with the May 2013 mid-term elections. The House of Representatives decided to adopt the Senate bill on Tuesday, precluding the need for a bicameral conference committee to reconcile the two chambers’ versions.

President Aquino had certified the bill as urgent, saying it was necessary to postpone the elections so reforms could be instituted in the ARMM. This is being opposed by many sectors, the objections focusing mainly on the grant of authority to the President to appoint ARMM officers in charge.

Opposition legislators, including Sen. Juan Miguel Zubiri and House Minority Leader Edcel Lagman, as well as various lawyers’ and Muslim groups, have said they would challenge the constitutionality of the bill once it is signed into law by Mr. Aquino.

Enrile admitted having met with the President, but said this did not mean that he was beholden to him.

A matter of courtesy

“When we are invited by a President, it’s a matter of courtesy that we respond to him and go to him and talk to him. It doesn’t mean that we’re going to make a deal,” he said.

Enrile said it was mere coincidence that his position on the ARMM polls was similar to Mr. Aquino’s.

“Whether the president is President Aquino, or Arroyo, or Estrada, or Cory, or Ramos, or Marcos, or Gibo (Gilbert Teodoro) or whoever, my position would still have been the same. It was my independent judgment,” he said.

He admitted that several Muslim leaders had approached him to change his position and oppose the postponement. He said he rebuffed them.

“Once I have taken a position in a given issue, I stick by it. Sink or swim, I stick by it. That’s what I am. No ifs and buts about it,” he said.

Enrile expressed confidence that the Senate approval of the bill would be sustained by the Supreme Court should this be questioned.

“We did not diminish and we did not erase the autonomy. We did not modify any power of autonomy contrary to the position of these people who muddle the issue,” he said.

Autonomy for Muslims

Enrile also said it would be more prudent if Mr. Aquino appointed Muslims as officers in charge in ARMM.

“Autonomy is for the Muslims, not for the Christians,” he said.

Sen. Jinggoy Estrada denied Malacañang had promised P100 million in additional pork barrel allocations in exchange for a favorable vote on the measure.

He said Mr. Aquino had telephoned him right after the Senate voted to pass the measure to thank him for his vote.

House leaders on Thursday defended the decision not to convene a bicameral conference committee for the poll postponement bill which the Senate and the House approved in plenary without sending to the conference committee to reconcile differing versions.

Follows Constitution

Speaker Feliciano Belmonte told a press conference the postponement bill complied with the constitutional rule on synchronization.

“Anybody can go to the Supreme Court but good lawyers and constitutionalists are saying it’s OK (to postpone),” Belmonte said in a press conference.

“In fact, one of the arguments was that the Constitution itself calls for synchronization and as it happened the past laws which synchronized the elections were never questioned,” he said.

Majority Leader Neptali Gonzales II said a bicameral meeting was not indispensable.

Avoiding bicam

“We need not worry that it did not pass through a bicam because we have situations for us to avoid the bicam,” Gonzales said.

He said the House can always adopt the Senate version and vice versa as an amendment if there are disagreeing provisions to avoid a conference committee.

He said the fact that the final version was ratified in the plenary of both houses of Congress was better than sending a group of congressmen and senators to iron out the differing versions.

The bill will be forwarded to the President for his signature as the 15th Congress adjourned its first session on Wednesday. It will convene its second session in late July for the President’s State of the Nation Address. With a report from Nancy C. Carvajal