Senate
President Franklin M. Drilon today chided Oriental Mindoro Representative
Reynaldo Umali for interfering in the internal affairs of the Senate.
Drilon’s
statement came after Umali proposed a major overhaul of the Senate committees
once Senators Grace Poe and Francis Escudero choose to run for a higher office
in 2016.
Drilon,
also the Liberal Party’s vice chairman, said his partymate Umali’s statements
“constitute a serious breach in the long-standing tradition of
inter-parliamentary courtesy.”
Drilon
said that Umali, as a fellow member of Congress, would do well to stop meddling
on the internal matters of the Senate."
“I
strongly urge my partymate Umali to observe inter-parliamentary courtesy and
mind his own business. I am sure that my partymate knows better than to act
like a blabbermouth,” said Drilon.
“We
must refrain from making statements which do not help the already toxic
political environment,” he added.
Drilon
said he is strongly opposed to Umali’s assertion that prospective candidates in
the 2016 presidential elections Poe and Escudero should be stripped of their
respective chairmanships of Senate committees.
“Our
legislative work in the Senate is immune from partisanship, and I will see to
it that it stays that way,” Drilon stressed.
“His
suggestion is simply absurd, given that we still have to finish a lot of our
legislative priorities in the 16th Congress. We have a close and
healthy working relationship in the Senate as evident from a number of measures
the chamber has continuously passed,” said Drilon.
The
Senate chief said that with less than a year left, he still expects the
senators and their respective committees to continue working on pending reform
measures of national importance that the Senate has promised the public.
The
Senate leader said that regardless of their political plans, he is confident
that Poe and Escudero will continue to effectively man their posts, given the
crucial functions these committees to public interests.
Poe
chairs three Senate committees—public information and mass media; public order
and dangerous drugs; and the joint committee on the Human Security Act, while
Escudero, is at the helm of three Senate committees—environment and natural
resources, and joint committees on the Clean Water Act and Chainsaw Act. - END
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