Senate President Vicente Sotto III on Wednesday stressed the “equity of the incumbent” rule should prevail following the new senators’ plan to grab the chairmanship of some Senate committees.
He said they would exert all efforts to explain to the neophyte senators the equity of the incumbent rule being observed in the Senate.
Under the rule, the present chairman of the committee is the one to decide whether he will retain it or let it go and choose another panel to lead.
“We will try hard to make them realize that when 2022 comes, they will then be the seniors. They would not want that what they will do will be done to them,” he said.
But Sotto said he was confident the conflict over the chairmanship of Senate committees would be resolved when the incumbents and neophytes meet, probably next week.
“The committee chairmanships, after all, would be decided and elected on the Senate floor,” said Sotto.
He said the Senate President could only get a consensus if there were conflicts among senators.
But as much as possible, he said the conflicts on the chairmanships were being settled before bringing them to the plenary.
In an interview over radio dzMM, Sotto said there were returning senators who wanted to get back the committees they previously chaired and there were also incoming senators who wanted to get the chairmanships from incumbent senators.
He said an incumbent senator might hand over committee chairmanship to neophytes only if they voluntarily let go of them.
He added those who would not get the committee could always choose other panels. The Senate has at least 40 committees and oversight panels.
Senator Manny Pacquiao, who belongs to the ruling PDP-Laban, earlier divulged the looming rifts over the committee chairmanship.