This year’s Senate election is particularly important because of the scheduled post-election impeachment trial of Vice-President Sara Duterte.
How is the Senate of the incoming 20th Congress likely to look?
We already know how one-half of it will look. It will be composed of the twelve senators whose terms will not expire on June 30, 2025. They are Senators Allan Peter Cayetano, J.V. Ejercito, Francis Escudero, Jinggoy Estrada, Sherwin Gatchalian, Risa Hontiveros, Loren Legarda, Robin Padilla, Raffy Tulfo, Mark Villar, Joel Villanueva and Miguel Zubiri.
The rest of the membership of the 20th Congress’s Senate will be supplied by the Magic 12 winners in the May 12, 2025 elections.
The non-reelectionist members of the present Senate includes two lawyers (Francis Escudero and Allan Peter Cayetano), four mass media/show business personalities (Jinggoy Estrada, Loren Legarda, Robin Padilla and Raffy Tulfo), two members of leading business families (Mark Villar and Sherwin Gatchalian), a son of a religious group leader (Joel Villanueva) and a women’s rights advocate (Risa Hontiveros).
Who among the candidates are likely to make up the rest of the 20th Congress’s Senate? The leading opinion survey firms have been tracking the 2025 Senate race – particularly the Magic 12 – for many months, and as May 12, 2025 draws closer, the surveys have become more frequent. It is probably correct to say that the candidates who are in the survey firms’ Magic 12 at this point in the campaign are the men and women who likely will be members of the 20th Congress’s Senate.
The latest (March 15 to 20) survey, conducted by one of the leading survey firms, has produced a Magic 12 composed of Sen. Christopher Go, Erwin Tulfo, Tito Sotto, Lito Lapid, Bong Revilla, Manny Pacquiao, Pia Cayetano, Ping Lacson, Ronald de la Rosa, Abigail Binay, Willie Revillame and Camille Villar. With the exception of Go, De la Rosa and Revillame, all the Magic 12 candidates belong to the Alyansa Para sa Bagong Pilipinas.
Pia Cayetano, Go, de la Rosa and Lapid are incumbent Senators. Sotto, Pacquiao and Lacson are former senators. Revilla, Lapid, Revillame and the Tulfo brothers are show business/broadcast industry figures. Before she became the chief executive of her city, Binay represented one of Makati City’s two Congressional districts. Villar is a member of the political/business family headed by former Senate president Manuel Villar.
Opinion survey, not being an exact science, may see changes in the composition of the Magic 12 between now and Election Day. Well-known candidates like Chel Diokno, Kiko Pangilinan, Leila de Lima, Heidi Mendoza and Neri Colmenares could manage to get into the Magic 12 in the weeks remaining before May 12, 2025.
If it turns out that the March 15-20 surveyor got it right and there is no change in the composition of its Magic 12 list, what will the Senate of the 20th Congress’s look like?
The Senate that will come into being on July 1, 2025 will likely be composed of two lawyers, nine show business/broadcast industry personalities, five re-elected senators, two returning senators, a former mayor, two members of leading business families, a son of a religious group leader and a women’s rights advocate.
Elections for the Senate are important not only because senators are elected nationally but also because they perform certain functions reserved for them by the Constitution. One of these functions is the review and approval or rejection of treaties and international agreements entered into by the Executive Department. Another is to sit as a court to try cases against government officials deemed by the Constitution to be removable from office only by impeachment.
This year’s Senate election is particularly important because of the scheduled post-election impeachment trial of Vice-President Sara Duterte. The votes of two-thirds of the membership of the incoming Senate, or 16 senators, will be needed to convict this country’s second highest official.
Alyansa is campaigning hard to ensure that in the wake of the election, there will be at least 16 pro-conviction votes in the new Senate. The opposition is campaigning hard to prevent that election outcome from happening.
(llagasjessa@yahoo.com)