Senate President Manuel Villar Jr. yesterday defended his and five other senators’ participation in the 117th Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) in Geneva, Switzerland, saying it was “significant” in the Upper Chamber’s legislative agenda.
The senators have been criticized by leaders of the House of Representatives for cutting the session short by more than a week to attend to other matters, including the trip to Geneva.
In a statement, Villar said he only left last Saturday after “successfully steering the passage of nine vital bills on social justice,” an “early accomplishment on the part of the Senate in the first regular session (of the 14th Congress).”
Villar, member of the IPU Governing Council and president of the Philippine IPU National Group, is leading the Senate delegation to the IPU conference that began yesterday.
He is accompanied by colleagues Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr., Senators Pia Cayetano and her brother, Alan Peter, Jamby Madrigal and Loren Legarda.
Villar said the participation of the Senate is important since the Senate’s priority legislations were human-rights oriented: the creation of the Commission on Missing Persons that will address situations like the disappearance of activist Jonas Burgos; the establishment of the framework of International Humanitarian Laws in the Philippines; and a revitalized Commission on Human Rights.
The agenda of the IPU assembly includes the role of parliaments in striking a balance between national security, human security and individual freedoms, and in averting the threat to democracy; parliamentary oversight of state policies on foreign aid; and migrant workers, people trafficking, xenophobia and human rights.
Villar, also the president of the Nacionalista Party, mentioned last Friday that his party would have a convention in Egypt after the IPU.
But House leaders said Villar would treat more than 20 members of his Nacionalista Party and their families to a 10-day cruise on the Nile in Egypt. This is reportedly an annual treat for Villar’s NP loyalists.