Following his remarks on senators resorting to discussions over coffee rather than open debate in the current Senate, former Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile says he finds “something lacking” in the way the present members of the Upper House tackles issues of national and international concern.
“In my opinion, there is something lacking in the treatment of issues and problems that are coming up in that forum of the people. Mind you, the House of Representatives and the Senate, in a democracy, are not just making laws,” said Enrile.
“They are the forums where you discuss national issues that impinge on the lives of the people that are governed,” said Enrile, who is running as a senatorial candidate in the 2019 midterm elections.
For the former Senate President, this is the reason why voters must look at the experience and expertise of those being elected into the lawmaking body.
“You must have people there who have enough sense, enough experience, enough understanding of the national issues that they are tackling. I’m not saying that [present senators] don’t have that,” Enrile added.
Unfortunately, he said, the breadth and the width and depth of their experience were not enough.
He explained that open debate could lead to pivotal laws of national concern that could change the course of the country’s history.
Using an anecdote from his first term as senator from 1987-1992 as an example, Enrile said, “We were able to discuss all the problems of the country, so much so that the once very sacred treaty that we have with America—the military bases agreement—was up for revision and extension.”
“There was only one among 23 other senators that was against it. I was the 2nd one who was against it,” he added, saying:
“Bobby Tañada and I were able to convince 10 others to go along with our position and that is why we knocked out the extension of the military bases of the United States.”
The historic vote of the “Magnificent 12” rejected the proposed 1991 “RP-US Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Peace” that would have given the United States 10 more years to operate military bases in the Philippines.
Citing endangerment to the Philippines’ sovereignty and rejecting the meager compensation of $203 million a year offered by the US government, then Senators Enrile, Tanada, Agapito Aquino, Joseph Estrada, Teofisto Guingona Jr., Sotero Laurel, Orlando Mercado, Ernesto Maceda, Aquilino Pimentel Jr., Victor Ziga, Rene Saguisag, and former Senate President Jovito Salonga put an end to the Military Bases Agreement signed in 1947.
Enrile, who is now seeking a comeback to the Senate floor, further said he was running to help revitalize the Senate as a forum for debate.
“I must tell you that the 23 senators representing the political interests of the administration at that time were composed of men of experience and learning. And I was able to handle them, 23 of them. I would like to go back to the Senate at this time to do the same thing,” the former senator said.
Enrile’s statements followed dismissals by Senate President Vicente Sotto III and Senator Panfilo Lacson hitting out at Enrile’s assertion that the current batch of Senators prefer to talk over coffee than debate at the chamber.
Enrile earlier said a Senate must be “a deliberative assembly of the people’s representatives” where “issues are subject to intellectual dissection.””‹