SENATOR Aquilino Pimentel III said Friday he intended to to run for president of the Senate in the coming 17th Congress.
“As president of the party, I will aspire to be Senate president so that the agenda of the party and the president can be shepherded through the Senate,” Pimentel told reporters before his political group, PDP-Laban, signed a coalition agreement with the Nationalist People’s Coalition.
Pimentel is president of PDP-Laban while presumptive President-elect Rodrigo Duterte is its national chairman.
Pimentel, the only PDP-Laban member in the Senate, was the first senator to announce his plan to seek the position now occupied by Franklin Drilon, the vice chairman of the Liberal Party.
He said Duterte had been informed by his party mates about his decision to join the fight for the highest post in the Senate.
He has yet to receive Duterte’s blessings, but Pimentel said he had already received the blessings of his party mates in PDP-Laban. He said this was the reason he is aspiring for the position.
Pimentel said he was ready to slug it out with Senator Alan Peter Cayetano, Duterte’s defeated running mate.
Senator Vicente Sotto III has also expressed interest in the post, claiming 11 colleagues are pushing him to run for the Senate presidency.
Cayetano belongs to the Nacionalista Party, which signed an alliance with PDP-Laban last Monday to support the Duterte administration.
Sotto is a member of the NPC, which forged a coalition agreement with the PDP-Laban on Friday. The NPC is the country’s second biggest political party.
Pimentel thanked the NPC for the coalition and for its commitment to help the Duterte administration. He noted that the deal with the NPC “was not a cosmetic agreement but based on substance.”
Pimentel said he would engage Cayetano in a “friendly competition” since they belonged to one group that rallied behind Duterte.
But he dismissed the idea of term-sharing.
“I don’t believe in term-sharing. Once we pick the Senate president, let him finish the three years or the six years,” said Pimentel whose father and namesake also served as Senate president.
Pimentel said he and Cayetano would likely sit down to discuss who had the majority votes, and they could consolidate their numbers to clinch the Senate leadership.
A senator needs 13 votes from his colleagues in the Senate to become Senate president.
Sotto said he was interested in the Senate presidency after learning that some of his party mates in the NPC had expressed support for Duterte’s chosen candidate for it.
“I suggest they should not meddle with the Senate leadership,” Sotto said.
“NPC or not, they shouldn’t meddle because they will support the president’s choice, and what if that’s not what we want?”
He also threatened to leave the NPC if his party mates failed to back his run for the Senate presidency.