Palace: Coalition bets to give us comfortable majority

Communication Secretary Ricky Carandang. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—Malacañang expects the senators who ran and won under the administration’s Team PNoy coalition to support President Aquino’s big-ticket legislation like the organic law for the Bangsamoro autonomous region that will seal the government’s peace deal with the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

According to Communications Secretary Ricky Carandang, the administration wants “a more comfortable majority,” which it did not have when the Senate and the House of Representatives were intensely deliberating the contentious sin tax reform and reproductive health bills.

“We could have lost those bills by a margin of one or two votes. And it was there that we realized that it’s safer, it’s more comfortable for us if we have a bigger majority in the Senate,” said Carandang as he spoke to reporters at Team PNoy headquarters in Makati.

“You know more than I do that it could have gone either way at some point. For us to be able to continue with reforms, we would be more comfortable with a bigger majority in the Senate,” he said.

Carandang indicated that the Aquino administration would be proposing more reform measures in the final three years of the President’s term.

One measure that would need the support of a much bigger majority in the Senate will be the Bangsamoro organic law that a transition council is now drafting.

“We respect the fact that the Senate has always been composed of independent-minded people and we don’t expect the Team PNoy senators to vote for every single issue but we do hope that when it comes to the big issues they will be on board with us,” Carandang said.

For instance, he said, Malacañang will be presenting to Congress this year the Bangsamoro organic law once a peace agreement is completed with the Muslim insurgents.

“That’s a big issue for us and we’re hoping that with a solid majority in the Senate, it will be easier for us to pass legislation like that,” he added.

Carandang stressed the administration respected the Senate as an independent institution.

“The Senate is an independent body, we’re not saying that we want a rubber-stamp Senate,” he said.

“We’re just saying that when it comes to the things that are important to the administration, to the President, we want to be able to count on the majority in the Senate to support important measures that we need to pass moving forward,” he said.