SENATE President Franklin Drilon on Thursday castigated Rep. Reynaldo Umali in a bid to get Senator Grace Poe to agree to be Interior Secretary Manuel Roxas II’s running mate in the 2016 elections.
Umali is deputy spokesman of the Liberal Party’s National Political Council, but on Thursday Drilon, his colleague in the party, urged him to stop meddling in the Senate’s internal affairs.
“Don’t interfere in the affairs of the Senate,” Drilon told Umali.
Drilon is the national chairman of the ruling Liberal Party, which is still wooing Poe to run as Roxas’ vice president.
Roxas has formally made an offer to Poe to be his running mate in the 2016 elections.
President Benigno Aquino III, the LP’s honorary national chairman, has met with Poe on five occasions but they have failed to reach any agreement.
While Aquino has not made any offer to Poe, Poe has said she feels Aquino wants her to be Roxas’ vice presidential bet. But she has said that she will be an independent candidate should she decide to seek a higher office in 2016.
Drilon’s statement came in the wake of Umali’s proposal for a major overhaul of the Senate committees in case Poe and Senator Francis Escudero choose to run for a higher office in 2016.
Poe and Escudero, who both ran as independents in the last elections, are perceived as front runners in the coming elections.
Drilon said Umali’s statements “constitute a serious breach in the long-standing tradition of inter-parliamentary courtesy.”
“I strongly urge my party mate Umali to observe inter-parliamentary courtesy and mind his own business. I am sure that my party mate knows better than to act like a blabbermouth,” Drilon said.
“We must refrain from making statements which do not help the already toxic political environment.”
Drilon said he was strongly opposed to Umali’s assertion that Poe and Escudero, two prospective candidates in the 2016 presidential elections, should be stripped of their respective chairmanships of the Senate committees.
“Our legislative work in the Senate is immune from partisanship, and I will see to it that it stays that way,” Drilon said.
He said Umali’s suggestion was “simply absurd” since they still had plenty of work to do in the 16th Congress.
“We have a close and healthy working relationship in the Senate as evidenced by a number of measures the chamber has continuously passed,” Drilon said.
