{"id":77079,"date":"2016-06-08T23:01:14","date_gmt":"2016-06-09T03:01:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=77079"},"modified":"2016-06-08T23:01:14","modified_gmt":"2016-06-09T03:01:14","slug":"pimentel-will-incoming-senate-president-drilon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2016\/06\/08\/pimentel-will-incoming-senate-president-drilon\/","title":{"rendered":"Pimentel will be the incoming Senate President\u2013Drilon"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Pimentel<\/a>
Pimentel (in photo) is the only senator of the Partido Demokratikong Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban) which is the national political party of Duterte. (Photo: Koko Pimentel\/Facebook<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA\u2014Senate President Franklin Drilon ended on Wednesday weeks of speculations about his successor in the 17th Congress, saying at least 17 senators from two groups have agreed to make Senator Aquilino Pimentel Jr. as the next Senate President.<\/p>\n

\u201dThe President of the incoming Senate will be Senator Aquilino Pimentel. I will be Senate President Pro-Tempore and Senator (Vicente) Sotto will be majority leader,\u201d Drilon announced at the Kapihan sa Manila Bay media forum.<\/p>\n

Drilon said the agreement was reached between the Liberal Party (LP) and the Nationalist People\u2019s Coalition (NPC) led by Sotto.<\/p>\n

\u201dThese two groupings: we led the one group, while Senator Sotto led the other group. Between the two of us, we have the support of 16 or 17 senators. Last night, we met and had the agreement,\u201d Drilon told the media.<\/p>\n

Drilon, however, clarified there was no formal coalition between the LP and Sotto\u2019s group.<\/p>\n

\u201dWe have six LPs in the Senate out of 24, so we have other allies like Senator Risa Hontiveros with us. With us also is Senator (Juan Edgardo) Angara. There is no written coalition as in the House,\u201d Drilon said.<\/p>\n

Drilon said the agreement of the super majority to endorse Pimentel as the next Senate President is to show that the Senate is willing to support the legislative agenda of President-elect Rodrigo Duterte.<\/p>\n

\u201dWe maintain the independence of the Senate but at the same time, we will support, in general, the legislative agenda of President Duterte. We recognize that they have the mandate of the people,\u201d Drilon said.<\/p>\n

Pimentel is the only senator of the Partido Demokratikong Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban) which is the national political party of Duterte.<\/p>\n

\u201dAs you notice, Senator Koko Pimentel is the only PDP-Laban senator but yet, he will be the Senate President. This is an unusual\u2026 Certainly in the recent memory I do not recall of a similar setup,\u201d Drilon said.<\/p>\n

Drilon, vice chairman of the LP, said the assignment of the Senate committees will be discussed later.<\/p>\n

Aside from Drilon, other LP senators include: Ralph Recto and Paolo Benigno \u2018Bam\u2019 Aquino IV and incoming Senators Joel Villanueva, Leila de Lima and Francis \u2018Kiko\u2019 Pangilinan.<\/p>\n

The legislative priorities of the Duterte administration include shift to federalism, restoration of death penalty and amending the Juvenile Delinquency Act to raise the age of discernment.<\/p>\n

On the shift to federalism, Drilon said it can be done only through a Constitutional Convention (ConCon) where the entire Constitution will be reviewed.<\/p>\n

\u201dI think we can see an emerging consensus in the Senate that we need to review our Constitution, amend the Constitution,\u201d Drilon said.<\/p>\n

On Duterte\u2019s proposal to revive death penalty, Drilon said he is against the reimposition of death penalty, \u201cbut I am willing to listen.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u2014Senate President Franklin Drilon ended on Wednesday weeks of speculations about his successor in the 17th Congress, saying at least …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":77080,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,16,95],"tags":[4772,3447,1146,10126,11129,3251,11130],"class_list":["post-77079","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news","category-news-ph","tag-drilon","tag-koko-pimentel","tag-liberal-party","tag-pdp-laban","tag-philippine-senate","tag-senate","tag-senate-president","mauthors-jelly-f-musico","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77079","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77079"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77079\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77080"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77079"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77079"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77079"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}