Senate President Enrile’s exit seen with Team PNoy win
Hello, Frank. Ta-ta, Johnny.
With Team PNoy steamroller barreling into the Senate in nearly complete victory after Monday’s elections, Sen. Franklin Drilon, the team’s campaign manager, now has his eyes on the Senate leadership.
Only three United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) candidates appear to be finishing the race as winners so Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile should have no objection to Drilon’s taking it a second time.
Drilon served as Senate President from 2001 to 2006.
Backing him is Malacañang, which on Tuesday described Team PNoy’s “overwhelming victory” as a “resounding endorsement” by the Filipinos of President Aquino’s good government program.
Presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda did not name him outright, though, just telling reporters that since the administration was getting a new Senate majority, there is a “need for a new Senate President.”
But after Team PNoy wrapped up its campaign in Quezon City on Friday, reelectionist Senators Alan Peter Cayetano and Aquilino Pimentel III began talking about Drilon as the new Senate President.
With the entire team grateful to him for a campaign so well oiled and run, Drilon will almost certainly be elected Senate President when the 16th Congress opens in July.
New majority
The nine reelected and new senators from Team PNoy will easily bring to 16 the new majority in the Senate.
Currently, there are three Liberal Party (LP) members in the Senate (Ralph Recto, Teofisto Guingona III and Drilon), with President Aquino also counting Senators Sergio Osmeña, Miriam Defensor-Santiago, Pia Cayetano and Lito Lapid as allies.
But UNA reelectionist Sen. Gregorio Honasan, still in the race for the Senate by hanging on to the 12th and last place in the partial count of the Commission on Elections (Comelec) and in the unofficial count of its citizen arm Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting (PPCRV), does not see the coming of a new, LP-led majority as the end of the political road for Enrile.
Swing vote
Going by those results on Tuesday, Honasan said Enrile would still have a solid, seven-member bloc in the Senate. This group, he said, could deliver a “swing vote” during the selection of a new leader for the chamber.
“It’s a strong group. If either side comes up with a clear choice, then no problem. But if not, they will have to talk to us and we could provide the swing vote,” Honasan said in an interview with the Inquirer.
Besides Enrile, the bloc is made up of senior Senators Jinggoy Estrada, Vicente Sotto III, Ramon Revilla Jr. and Honasan and incoming junior Senators JV Ejercito and Nancy Binay.
Binay, daughter of Vice President Jejomar Binay, one of the three leaders of UNA, said Tuesday that “the alliances in the Senate could still change.”
Lone Liberal
“Note that there is only one Liberal Party candidate (in the Top 12),” she said in a news conference, referring to the President’s cousin, Paolo Benigno “Bam” Aquino.
Of the nine administration candidates in the Top 12, three are from the Nacionalista Party (Cayetano, Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV and Las Piñas Rep. Cynthia Villar), one is from the Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino (Aurora Rep. Juan Edgardo Angara), one is a member of PDP-Laban (Pimentel), one belongs to the Nationalist People’ Coalition (Sen. Loren Legarda) and two are independents (Grace Poe and Sen. Francis Escudero).
Independent Senate
Honasan does not see Team PNoy’s 9-3 advantage as translating into an Aquino-controlled Senate.
“Historically, the Senate has been independent,” he said. “The configuration could still change. But we don’t know yet how the dynamics in the 16th Congress would play out.”
For Malacañang, it should play out in favor of the administration.
Lacierda said Team PNoy’s victory meant a fresh mandate for President Aquino’s good government program and the continuation of his reforms.
He said the administration was satisfied with the conduct of the elections, noting that only 200 to 300, or less than 1 percent, of the 78,000 ballot scanners malfunctioned, a “marked improvement” on the first automated elections in 2010.
Lacierda said everyone should respect the “will of the majority” that the people “expressed through the ballot” and welcome the change of leadership happening throughout the country as a result of the elections.
