Seniority rules in Senate chairmanships — Drilon

Senate Minority Leader Franklin M. Drilon. (Screen grab/Senate PRIB)

Outgoing Sen. Franklin Drilon on Friday said seniority would be given “heavier” consideration in selecting the chair of a major committee in the Senate.

According to Drilon, while “everybody is qualified” to chair a major committee, he said the “senior ones would be given priority” as a matter of tradition.

“The tradition in the Senate is that seniority is given weight and recognition. Of course, everything is a matter of compromise, but certainly being a topnotcher is a factor in your favor, but as far as I recall, seniority is a determining factor or is a weighty consideration or a heavier consideration rather than your rank in the election,” Drilon said at a virtual interview.

He said the blue ribbon committee, the ways and means committee, and the finance committee, which handles the national budget, were among the major panels in the Senate.

The Senate blue ribbon committee, which investigates government irregularities, is chaired by Sen. Richard Gordon, who was not reelected.

Incumbent Sen. Juan Edgardo Angara chairs the finance committee while Sen. Pia Cayetano heads the ways and means committee.

Angara earlier said he was “open” to giving up the chairmanship of the committee on finance, even to Sen. Imee Marcos, the older sister of presumptive president Ferdinand Marcos Jr.

Actor Robin Padilla, the No. 1 senator in the May 9 elections, said he wanted to head the committee on constitutional amendments to push for Charter change.

No other senators have so far signified their interest to chair the other major committees.

“I don’t remember or I don’t recall any neophyte senator getting the committee on finance or the committee on ways and means or the blue ribbon committee,” Drilon said.

He admitted he was “criticized” for getting the chairmanship of the powerful blue ribbon committee when he was a newbie senator in 1995.

“I was criticized for accepting it—not in public but within the Senate—because I was a neophyte senator, so there are certain traditions which we observe,” he said.

READ: Senior senators get dibs on major panel chairmanships — Drilon