Senators Loren Legarda, Panfilo Lacson and Francis Escudero vote to
retain Juan Ponce Enrile (shown in file photo inset) as Senate president after
the seat was declared vacant yesterday. Senators Aquilino Pimentel III and
Antonio Trillanes IV voted to replace Enrile. –Philstar.compic
MANILA: Faced with an ethics complaint and rumors of his ouster, Juan
Ponce Enrile declared the Senate presidency vacant yesterday, but was retained
in his post by 11 senators’ vote of confidence.
Only Senators Antonio Trillanes IV and Aquilino Pimentel III voted to replace
him. The third vote was cast by Enrile himself.
Two senators abstained, while others were absent, including Sen. Miriam
Defensor-Santiago, who disclosed that Enrile had gifted his supportive
colleagues with P1.6 million each and four critics including herself with
P250,000.
Unfazed, Trillanes said efforts to replace Enrile would continue,
adding this would be possible with the support of Liberal Party (LP) senators.
As lawmakers returned to work yesterday after a month-long holiday
break, Enrile immediately addressed the issue.
“As I have repeatedly said in the past, I serve at the pleasure of the
majority of my
colleagues. I claim no vested right to this position,” he said.
He was declaring his post vacant, he said, “to pave the way for anyone
who may be interested, whether secretly or not, to get the position through a
majority vote".
Trillanes and Sen. Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III voted to replace
Enrile. Senators Joker Arroyo and Ferdinand Marcos Jr. abstained.
Voting to retain Enrile were Senators Vicente Sotto III, Franklin
Drilon, Jinggoy Ejercito, Francis Escudero, TG Guingona, Gregorio Honasan,
Panfilo Lacson, Loren Legarda, Lito Lapid, Ralph Recto and Ramon Revilla.
Absent were Senators Edgardo Angara, siblings Alan Peter and Pia
Cayetano, Sergio Osmeña III, Francis Pangilinan and Manuel Villar. Angara was
attending to a brother who died, while Pangilinan is in Geneva.
In interviews before yesterday’s plenary session, Trillanes said his
group was close to getting the required number of votes to replace Enrile.
“There are senators who are ready for a change in leadership. We are
just waiting for the senators of the LP,” said Trillanes, who has waged a campaign
for several months now to engineer a change of leadership in the chamber.
Drilon, however, denied that there were talks within the LP to oust
Enrile. Drilon is the highest ranking LP senator.
Recto, also of the LP, said he believed “that the leadership is doing
very well".
Sotto, for his part, criticized Trillanes for dragging the LP into the
fray.
Lacson, an Enrile ally, conceded that if the LP senators support the
ouster move, Trillanes could have 12 votes and getting a 13th would not be
difficult.
“A leader must not be blind, deaf when the institution he serves and
its members are dragged into the mud with him,” Enrile said yesterday.
“Let’s
not allow ourselves to be further derailed, distracted. Let’s settle this one
and for all, with few remaining days left. Time is of the essence and we owe it
to people to perform our duty.”
Santiago had returned the P250,000, informing Enrile’s office that it
must have been wrongly sent. She accused Enrile of using public funds to buy
senators’ loyalty.
Enrile has said the P1.6 million given to his colleagues were from
savings in his office and meant for additional maintenance and other operating
expenses (MOOE).
He described the fund release in the final days of the year as
“lambing” to colleagues – a description that his critics said bolstered claims
that the money was a gift.
The anti-crime group Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption filed a
complaint against Enrile yesterday before the ethics committee in connection
with the fund release.
Lacson, for his part, said he would file a complaint against Santiago
before the Commission on Audit (COA) once she returns to work from sick leave.
“I never bribed anyone to gain support for myself, much less with the
money of the people. The very thought that this position is for sale repulses
me truly,” Enrile bristled yesterday.
“The Senate need not, should not suffer
the venom which is aimed solely at me.”
He said whether in the majority or minority, he always did his best to
serve and perform his job well.
Both Enrile and his chief of staff, Gigi Reyes, called his enemies
“cowards and hypocrites.”
Last week, Santiago burst a vein in her eye and landed in a hospital.
Enrile wished for her recovery.
Yesterday, however, he said that when Santiago’s integrity was
challenged, “it seems that alone was enough to cause a danger to her own
health".
Santiago has asked the COA to look into the practice of realigning
Senate savings to the operating expenses of senators in the final days of the
year.
The COA is waiting for Lacson to submit proof that one of his
colleagues allegedly misused public funds for groceries, rent for a satellite
office, and even the salaries of household helpers.
COA chief Ma. Grace Pulido Tan said state auditors were willing to look
into allegations that MOOE was being spent for personal needs.
She stressed that the COA audits government expenditures “on the basis
of evidence.”
Tan refused to use the word “investigation” in looking into Enrile’s
release of his office savings to his colleagues.
“If we find, on the basis of what they give us, that we need to do a
little more, then that’s probably the time that we will make a decision on
whether to do a special audit or not. But right now I don’t think there is any
need,” Tan said.
She said liquidation of MOOE funds is done by lawmakers by issuing
certifications instead of receipts and similar documents.
A certification, she said, is “a piece of paper that says I certify
that the X amount that is received for MOOE, for example, was spent for the
following.
"Congress, being a branch of government, there is no reason for us to
doubt their certifications. They certify it on their honor,” Tan said.
With Lacson’s story, however, Tan said the COA may have to dig deeper
into the way some lawmakers are spending their MOOE.
She said senators would also want to set an example in fiscal
responsibility. – Philstar.com
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