APPEARING for the last time in the Senate that marked the end of the 16th Congress, the 92-year-old Senator Juan Ponce Enrile said Monday old politicians never die, they just fade away.
“Like what MacArthur said, old soldiers never die, they just fade away. I’d say today, my last appearance in this chamber, old politicians never die, they will just fade away,” Enrile said.
“When we adjourn at midnight today, I shall have closed my public service to the nation, a service that spanned more than half a century when I began to work for the government in January 1966.”
Enrile made his statement even as the House of Representatives adjourned sine die without overriding President Benigno Aquino III’s veto on the proposed 2,000-peso increase in the pensions of retired members of the Social Security System.
House Minority Leader Neri Colmenares insisted on a motion to act on overriding Aquino’s veto to House Bill 5842 even if the Senate had already adjourned sine die.
But House majority leader and Mandaluyong Rep. Neptali Gonzales Jr. said it would be “an exercise in futility” even if the Lower House was able to decide on the matter.
Enrile recalled the years that he had spent in government service since January 1966.
The oldest member of Congress said he served more than 20 years in the executive department in various capacities.
Enrile said he handled the country’s financial system and justice system at a time when all the courts below the Supreme Court were under the Secretary of Justice where he had been assigned.
Enrile’s term will expire on June 30 and a new Congress will open on July 25.
“All those years, Mr. President, I tried my best to serve the people because I thought that it was a mission for me to do,” Enrile said.
He thanked the people who supported and helped him in the chamber. He likewise sought for understanding from those whom he had hurt unwittingly during the heated debates.
Graduating Senator Pia Cayetano also thanked the people in the Senate whom she had served for 12 years.
The elder sister of Senate Majority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano won the lone congressional seat in Taguig City to replace her brother Lino.
The Senate expressed gratitude and appreciation to nine outgoing senators as it approved separate resolutions on the matter.
In nine Senate resolutions, the chamber commended Enrile, Cayetano, Miriam Defensor Santiago, Jinggoy Estrada, Ramon Revilla Jr., Lito Lapid, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., Teofisto Guingona III and Sergio Osmeña.
Guingona and Osmeña are leaving the Senate after failing to win in their reelection bid.
Of the nine, only Enrile, Cayetano, and Osmeña showed up as Congress adjourned sine die.
Estrada and Revilla spent their supposed last day in the Senate at their detention cell in Camp Crame, where they have been detained over the pork barrel scam. Santiago is currently confined at the Makati Medical Center due to pneumonia and lung cancer.
In his closing speech, Senate President Franklin Drilon highlighted the chamber’s accomplishments for the past three years.
He presented to the public what he called the Senate’s “present to the future” in the form of the laws that he said benefited the Filipino people.