MANILA, Philippines – Senators belonging to the minority are leaving it up to Senate President Manuel Villar Jr. to steer the chamber into passing necessary measures and treaties amid the controversies hounding him.
Senate Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. and Sen. Manuel Roxas II stressed that Villar must prove that he could still lead the chamber even as he himself would have to face an investigation over the alleged budget double entry on the C-5 Road Extension Project.
At the same time, Pimentel said the current issues would test the mettle of the presidential wannabes in the Senate, specifically Villar who has declared his intention to run in 2010.
“It will test, first of all, their maturity,” Pimentel said in an interview.
Pimentel said Villar would stay on as Senate president “as long as he has the numbers” and the presumption of innocence and “unless the investigation proves otherwise.”
Asked to rate Villar as Senate president, Pimentel, who himself once headed the chamber, said “he is no better or worse than his predecessors.”
Villar’s allies in the Senate insist the Senate chief still has the backing of the majority and that it will not be helpful for the institution to change its leader at this time.
Villar also denied any wrongdoing and rejected calls for him to step down.
The investigation into the alleged double appropriation for the C-5 project in the 2008 national budget will begin on Monday. Villar is accused of conflict of interest and violation of other laws governing public officials because he allegedly sought additional funding for a project that would benefit his real estate company through right of way payments and increase in market value of his land with the road improvement project that would cut across his property.
Roxas said the Senate leadership must show the public that despite the current troubles, the chamber is still prepared to pass necessary bills and treaties, such as the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement.
The debates on the JPEPA and other proposed measures have been sidetracked by debates on the double appropriation and budget insertions.
The minority senators earlier accused Villar’s allies of trying to block an investigation of the controversy and of trying to prevent Senators Panfilo Lacson and Jamby Madrigal from delivering privilege speeches unfavorable to Villar.
On the other hand, the majority said minority senators were derailing the passage of vital measures and treaties by either walking out of the session or staging a boycott by being absent all at the same time. The walkout and boycott were apparently meant to protest the tyranny of numbers when Madrigal was not able to interpellate Lacson because the majority voted to let Senators Alan Peter Cayetano and Joker Arroyo speak in defense of Villar and themselves when they were implicated in the speech of Lacson.
No foul language please
Administration Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago cautioned her colleagues against using foul language during plenary debates.
Santiago’s appeal came in the wake of a verbal tussle between Cayetano and Madrigal over who benefited from the budget double entry issue.
Santiago said a complaint may be filed before the Senate committee on ethics, but the body still has no chairman as nobody wants to take the post.
“But as you know, there is no chair of that committee, nobody wants to accept the post and generally, even if there is a chair the committee tries to evade the responsibility,” Santiago said.
“So it will just have to take place by self-inhibition. We will just have gentle diplomatic campaign that the parties involved should inhibit themselves from too much impassioned language,” Santiago said.
Sen. Rodolfo Biazon also said senators should practice self-restraint during debates.
Madrigal called Cayetano and Arroyo “attack dogs” of the Senate president.
Biazon said it was their first time to hear an exchange of personal insults among senators.
Meanwhile, Arroyo believes the Senate squabble has diminished the opposition’s chances of winning the presidential elections in 2010.
“The principal casualty of this fight between Senate President Villar and Senator Lacson is not the two. You keep on asking whether Mr. Villar will be unseated. That is not really the problem. The problem is that the opposition can never be the same again,” Sen. Arroyo said.
He said the opposition should unite if it wants to field one strong candidate in 2010.
He recalled that even the political machinery of the dictator Marcos succumbed to a unified opposition led by Corazon Aquino in 1986.
But Lacson accused Arroyo of reducing the issue to a mere showdown among presidential hopefuls.
“Sen. Arroyo is conveniently singing an old tune, but refuses to face the real music. This is not about politics, this is not about presidentiables, this is not about 2010, but this is about corruption,” he said.
Criminal raps for Villar eyed
Villar may face a criminal case in connection with his admission that he made the controversial P200-million budget insertion.
Lawyer Harry Roque told the Serye Café news forum in Quezon City that his law office is now studying the double appropriation controversy involving Villar in preparation for filing a case with the Office of the Ombudsman against him.
He said his lawyers would determine whether the beleaguered Senate boss violated the Anti-Graft Law and the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees.
“There is also the constitutional provision prohibiting lawmakers from benefiting financially from their actions and decisions,” he said.
Roque also revealed that he would file a case against Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap in connection with new fund irregularities uncovered by the Commission on Audit.
Budget Secretary Rolando Andaya Jr. has referred to the second appropriation as a “congressional insertion” without saying who was its author.
Villar later admitted it was he who initiated the insertion, but he denied that his real estate firms profited from his initiative.
Roque was given pertinent documents yesterday by a budget watchdog.
The documents include copies of two pages of the three-inch-thick Republic Act 9498 or the General Appropriations Act of 2008 showing the two P200-million entries for the same Parañaque road project.
The original P200-million appropriation is found on page 563. It is for “Construction of President Garcia Ave. Ext, from SLEX (South Luzon Expressway) to Sucat Road, including ROW (right of way).”
The second appropriation is on page 646. The project is described as “Construction of C-5 Road Ext., from SLEX to Sucat Road, including ROW.”
Albay Rep. Edcel Lagman, who was House appropriations committee chairman when Congress approved the 2008 outlay, has said Villar apparently intended to augment the P200-million original appropriation contained in President Arroyo’s 2008 budget proposal.
“But he should just have doubled it instead of creating a new item. The addition will still be counted as his congressional initiative. It now appears that there are double entries in the budget for the same road project,” he said. – With Christina Mendez and Jess Diaz