Aquino’s legislative liaison sees better links with Senate under Drilon

Manuel Mamba PHOTO FROM CONGRESS.GOV.PH

MANILA, Philippines – After being virtually “banned” in the Senate, President Benigno Aquino III’s liaison officer Manuel N. Mamba sees smoother relations with senators under a new leadership in the 16th Congress.

Largely blamed for the President’s recent veto of several pieces of key legislation, Mamba admitted he made himself scarce in the Senate because Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile didn’t want to see his face there.

Mamba and Enrile, both from Cagayan province, are at political odds.

Mamba, a former three-term House representative, said he and Enrile were allies during the Marcos regime and both took part in the February 1986 people’s revolt that catapulted Corazon C. Aquino to power. He said they parted ways when Enrile plotted to mount a coup against then President Aquino. In the 2010 elections, he ran for governor of Cagayan under the administration-backed Liberal Party but was defeated by an Enrile-backed candidate. Mamba was later appointed by President Aquino as chief of the Presidential Legislative Liaison Office.

“I’d go to the Senate once or twice a month. But I was at the House every day. So everyone knew I was posted at the House,” said Mamba, who at one point was called a “phantom’’ liaison officer by a senator.

In a phone interview with the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Mamba indicated that all this would change upon the opening of the 16th Congress on July 22 under a new set of officers.

Sen. Franklin Drilon, backed by the President and a bigger majority of allies, is poised to take over the leadership and succeed Enrile, who stepped down at the close of the 15th Congress last week, hurting from the backlash of his colleagues’ criticisms that may have led to his son’s defeat in the senate race last month.

“It will be easier if it’s Drilon,” Mamba said. “He was the President’s point-man as far as priority measures were concerned.”

Mamba described his working relations with Drilon as good. Both men are with the Liberal party and Drilon was a principal sponsor at his wedding.

“I can go straight to him, and he can call me anytime. There’s no need for an emissary or go-between. He can reprimand me since he’s my ninong (godfather),” he said, chuckling.

Even before the opening of the 16th Congress, Mamba said he met with Drilon and Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr. to consult them on the priority bills that could be passed during the last two session days of the 15th Congress last Wednesday and Thursday.

He will be consulting them again once the list of 51 priority bills prepared by departments and Cabinet clusters is trimmed down for presentation to the Legislative Executive Development Advisory Council (LEDAC).

Mamba said he would be ditching the old set-up where he held office at the House of Representatives, while PLLO Undersecretary Antonio Gallardo was posted in the Senate.

“This won’t work anymore,” he said, vowing to go to the Senate more often during the 16th Congress.

The PLLO chief had come under fire after the President vetoed the proposed Centenarian Act offering incentives for the estimated 7,000 centenarians, and the Rights of Internally Displaced Persons Act of 2013 protecting the rights of internal refugees, and last month, the proposed Magna Carta of the Poor.

“We were able to pass 400 bills. Of these 71 were vetoed; 60 were local bills, including 55 that dealt with road conversions. If I get blamed, shouldn’t I also get credit for the bills that were passed?” he said.

Mamba said that Enrile indicated early on that he didn’t want to see the PLLO chief in the Senate.

Enrile rejected Mamba’s request to pay a courtesy call on him after his appointment in February 2012. When Mamba attended the hearing on PLLO’s 2013 budget, he was politely told to leave at Enrile’s request, leaving Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa Jr. to defend the budget, Mamba said.

To avoid any further animosity with Enrile, the President suggested that Mamba focus on the House of Representatives, and send PLLO Undersecretary Gallardo to deal with the senators, Mamba said.

In the elections just past, Mamba claimed that Enrile’s Team Cagayan allies fired at a car he was riding in as it passed through Alcala town.