Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile is apparently resigned to losing his hold on the Senate leadership and sliding into a minority role when a new Congress convenes in July, even as his presumptive successor has begun wooing his closest allies in the chamber’s so-called macho bloc.
According to Sen. Franklin Drilon, the new majority’s supposed candidate for Senate President, Enrile has committed the United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) to take on the role of a constructive opposition in the 16th Congress.
“We will not be obstructionist,” Drilon quoted Enrile as saying.
The outgoing Senate President did not seem to mind his attempts to solicit support from Enrile’s allies in his bid for the Senate leadership, said Drilon, President Aquino’s party mate in the ruling Liberal Party.
“Senator Enrile expressed no objection to my seeking the support of senators presently identified with him, or the so-called macho bloc, so that we can all work together on measures that can improve the lives of our people,” he said in a statement.
Drilon, who said he and Enrile met in a Makati hotel last Thursday, quoted Enrile as saying that he and other UNA senators will actively engage the LP-led majority coalition in policy debates but will not get in the way of important legislation such as those dealing with poverty alleviation and jobs.
Sen. Jinggoy Estrada, the Senate President Pro Tempore, said Enrile already told him of the meeting with Drilon.
“[What Senator Drilon] said was correct. Senate President Enrile said that if he could convince senators, individual members of the UNA and the macho bloc, then it’s OK,” Estrada said in a telephone interview.
Sticking it out with Enrile
But Drilon has yet to talk to him about it, he said. And even if he were to do so, Estrada said he would stick it out with Enrile, even if they move to the minority.
“I have already given my word to Senate President Enrile. If the Senate President will go down, I will go down with him,” Estrada said.
“Besides, I have already been in the minority,” he added. Interestingly, Drilon was the Senate President when Estrada began his first term during the Arroyo administration in 2004.
However, Estrada said he could not speak for the other members of the Enrile bloc on the issue of sticking it out with a minority-leader Enrile.
‘Macho’ bloc
Enrile’s so-called “macho” bloc is composed of Estrada, Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III and the recently reelected Gregorio Honasan. Another member of the bloc is outgoing Sen. Panfilo Lacson.
Enrile and Estrada are members of the UNA. Although he ran under the UNA coalition in the May elections, Honasan is an independent. Sotto is a member of the Nationalist People’s Coalition (NPC).
The recent elections added two more UNA members to the Senate roster. They are Senators-elect JV Ejercito, the son of Manila Mayor Joseph Estrada and Jinggoy Estrada’s half-brother, and Nancy Binay, Vice President Jejomar Binay’s daughter.
Hard-headed
Estrada and Sotto said the members of the macho bloc will be meeting after the “lame duck” sessions next week to discuss how they would proceed if and when Drilon and the new majority come knocking at their door to ask for their support.
“I will consult JPE [Enrile] and Greg [Honasan] if ever Frank talks to us,” Sotto said.
“Our friendship knows no bounds whether I or any one of us is in the majority or minority. Same with Senator Drilon and I,” Sotto added.
Asked how the group came by the name, Sotto said, “it was the media that coined the term.”
“We’re all hard-headed and poised to fight,” he said.
“We’re also survivors… [we’re] still alive,” he added.
NP support sealed
Drilon last week secured the support of the Nacionalista Party, the party with the most Senate members at five—reelected Senators Alan Peter Cayetano and Antonio Trillanes IV, Senator-elect Cynthia Villar and incumbents Pia Cayetano and Ferdinand Marcos Jr.
“Senator Villar assured us that the NP will continue to support the President and his legislative agenda in the Senate and that there will be a common candidate of the coalition in the Senate,” Drilon told a news forum.
“The people sent a clear message with this election: Let’s continue with what the President started three years ago,” he added.
According to Drilon, among the important measures to be tackled in the next Congress are the proposed new charter to replace the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), the rationalization of the government fiscal incentive program, and a mining law.
Drilon was the campaign manager of the administration’s Team PNoy coalition.
Its senatorial ticket was made up of the President’s handpicked candidates from the LP, the NP, the NPC, the Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino, the PDP-Laban and the Akbayan party-list group.
The coalition won nine of the 12 senatorial seats being contested, securing for the administration a strong majority in the new Congress.