Senate President Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III on Sunday took a swipe at Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon for telling him to defend the Senate against the attacks of House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez.
“I have already defended the Senate by responding to what the Speaker has said,” stressed Pimentel.
“Does he want me to continue the word war with the speaker? He belongs to Liberal Party (LP) while the speaker and I belong to PDP. Hence, why should I do that?” asked Pimentel.
Pimentel is the national president of the ruling PDP- Laban while Alvarez is the party’s secretary general.
Reacting to Alvarez’s criticism on “slow Senate” under the leadership of Pimentel, the latter exhorted his colleagues to focus on quality instead of the quantity of legislative performance in Congress.
“We must all change our mindset – from quantity to “quality,” said Pimentel.
Pimentel told Alvarez not to judge lawmaking in terms of the number of laws passed but in terms of how the laws improve the quality of life on earth in general and the quality of life of Filipinos in particular.
“AgainI say: change mindset. QUALITY not quantity,” stressed Pimentel, also president of the ruling Partido ng Demokratikong Pilipino (PDP-Laban).
Alvarez sits as the secretary-general of PDP-Laban whose national chairman is President Rodrigo Duterte.
In a text message to reporters, the Senate leader emphasized that quality over quantity has always been the mindset of the Senate when it comes to the deliberation and approval of proposed measures.
“All bills renaming and or merging schools, increasing hospital beds and the like must and do come from the House,” said Pimentel
Data from the Legislative Bills and Index Service as of December 13 showed there there were 1,636 bills filed at the Senate, only nine of which were enacted into law.
However, the list does not include yet the 2018 budget and the first package of the tax reform program signed by the President last December 19.
Of the number, 365 bills were acted upon by the Senate, 67 are pending second reading approval, while 1,262 are pending before the respective committees.
Some 575 Senate resolutions have also been filed both in the first and second regular sessions of the present 17th Congress.
To bolster his claim on the slow Senate action, Alvarez cited the passage of the tax reform measure, which he said, was approved early by the House but stalled in the upper chamber.
