Koko Pimentel set to open Senate session once denied him

WHEN he bangs the gavel today, Sen. Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel takes the helm of the Senate—an ascent to power that may have been a long shot for someone who once had to fight for his place in the chamber.

The beginning of the 17th Congress brings Pimentel, President Duterte’s lone party mate in the Senate, to what could so far be regarded as his political peak.

“It feels good. But these are two independent matters. It is already a big honor just to be elected senator. But to be chosen by colleagues and friends to be their leader in the chamber is an additional honor,” Pimentel said in a radio interview yesterday.

It had taken an electoral protest for the lawmaker to assume the 12th and final Senate seat from the 2007 elections, assuming the seat only in 2011 when then Sen. Juan Miguel Zubiri, now also back in the upper  chamber, was forced to resign even as he denied cheating allegations.

Missing the first three years of his term meant losing the chance to serve in the Senate alongside his father, former Senate President Aquilino “Nene” Pimentel Jr., whose last term in the chamber ended in 2010.

“Perhaps history is making up because I wasn’t able to serve with my father in the Senate. This is like history making up to me,” the younger Pimentel said.

The 52-year-old Pimentel, the lone member of PDP-Laban, received the numbers to head a “supermajority” in the Senate by forging an alliance with the bloc of former Senate president Franklin Drilon of the Liberal Party and that of Sen. Vicente “Tito” Sotto III of the Nationalist People’s Alliance.

The struggle was against Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano, President Duterte’s runningmate and a member of the Nacionalista Party, who did not muster enough support.

The multi-party majority supports the expectation that the Senate will remain independent.

“We will not be a rubber stamp because my colleagues in the Senate have different personalities. They have strong personalities and each has his or her own ideas. We are reasonable people,” Pimentel said.

“We will be cooperative, but we will maintain our independence and objectivity. Even with the attitude of the President, he won’t make us a rubber stamp,” he said.