{"id":77096,"date":"2016-06-09T02:30:05","date_gmt":"2016-06-09T06:30:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=77096"},"modified":"2016-06-09T02:30:05","modified_gmt":"2016-06-09T06:30:05","slug":"escudero-trillanes-join-minority-bloc-senate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2016\/06\/09\/escudero-trillanes-join-minority-bloc-senate\/","title":{"rendered":"Escudero, Trillanes to join minority bloc in Senate"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Both<\/a>
Both Escudero (right) and Trillanes (left) ran but lost in the vice presidential election in the last May 9 polls. (Facebook photos)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MANILA\u2014Senators Francis “Chiz” Escudero III and Antonio Trillanes IV have opted to join the minority bloc of the Philippine Senate.<\/p>\n

This after six Liberal Party (LP) senators including Senate President Franklin Drilon coalesced with another group led by incumbent deputy minority leader Vicente Sotto III agreed to give Senate presidency to President-elect Rodrigo Duterte\u2019s ally Senator Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III.<\/p>\n

Escudero said he already informed Pimentel about his decision not to join the majority bloc in the incoming 17th Congress.<\/p>\n

\u201dAs a matter of personal principle and belief, I would rather be in the minority in the Senate,\u201d Escudero said in a text message to the Senate media.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, Trillanes congratulated Pimentel, president of the Partido Demokratikong Pilipino-Laban ng Bayan (PDP-Laban).<\/p>\n

\u201dI am confident that under his watch the Senate\u2019s integrity and independence won\u2019t be compromised,\u201d Trillanes said.<\/p>\n

\u201dHaving said that, I would be joining the minority in order to freely pursue my advocacies,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Both Escudero and Trillanes ran but lost in the vice presidential election in the last May 9 polls.<\/p>\n

Escudero was the running mate of Senator Grace Poe while Trillanes also supported the candidacy of Poe.<\/p>\n

Trillanes exposed the alleged ill-gotten wealth of Duterte at the height of the campaign period.<\/p>\n

The expose hardly affected the candidacy of Duterte as the Davao City mayor garnered almost 16 million votes to become the country\u2019s 16th President.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Pimentel said he will convince the group of incumbent Senate Majority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano and other Nacionalista Party (NP) senators to join the new majority bloc.<\/p>\n

\u201dThe group of Alan is not included yet but I will invite them later,\u201d Pimentel said.<\/p>\n

Cayetano, who is also eyeing Senate presidency, has already the support of Senators Cynthia Villar, Richard Gordon, Juan Miguel Zubiri and Joseph Victor Ejercito.<\/p>\n

\u201dIf the group of Alan will join us, I expect five so 17 plus 5 is 22. I will have to stop at 22 because there should be minority,\u201d Pimentel explained.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MANILA\u2014Senators Francis “Chiz” Escudero III and Antonio Trillanes IV have opted to join the minority bloc of the Philippine Senate. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":77097,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1145,16,95],"tags":[8055,11134,11129,3251,7613],"class_list":["post-77096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headline","category-news","category-news-ph","tag-escudero","tag-minority-block","tag-philippine-senate","tag-senate","tag-trillanes","mauthors-jelly-f-musico","mauthors-philippine-news-agency"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77096","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=77096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77096\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}