Alvarez tells Pimentel: Admit Senate’s failing

Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III and Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez —INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

Face reality and admit the Senate’s shortcomings, House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez told Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III on Thursday, a day after the two officials traded barbs over the performance of the two chambers.

Alvarez had described the Senate as a “slow chamber” and said its leaders should be “a bit more active so they can pass more bills.”

Pimentel countered that the Senate was a “thinking chamber” that should not be judged on the number of laws passed, but on “how the laws it passed had improved the quality of life of Filipinos.”

“You know, what (Pimentel was) saying is just a defense (mechanism) … Nothing will happen to us if we just keep studying the bills. Our terms would end and we’d still be studying them,” Alvarez said in Filipino.

Despite their verbal tussle, Alvarez said he had no personal rift with Pimentel.

“We are friends. This is (just part of our) work,” Alvarez said in a statement.

Alvarez and Pimentel both belong to President Duterte’s Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban) party, with Alvarez serving as its secretary general and Pimentel its president.

On Wednesday, the Speaker gave the performance of the House a score of 8 out of 10, but took a swipe at the Senate, calling it a “slow chamber” for not acting fast enough on bills churned out by his chamber.

Death penalty

“We work so hard in the House of Representatives. Our congressmen even work overtime just to pass laws. But when it comes to the Senate, (the measures) just languish there. Just look at the death penalty. Up to now it is still pending with them and growing mold,” Alvarez said.

Restoring the death penalty was one of the legislative priorities identified by the Duterte administration when it came to power in 2016.

Quality than quantity

In response, Pimentel said Filipinos should be more concerned with the quality of legislation than its quantity.

Alvarez said the slow passage of important legislation could be addressed through a shift to a federal form of government, which Congress would prioritize this year.

“Let us advance the revision of the Constitution so we can speed up the process [of legislation] here in our country,” he said.