Pangilinan: Honeymoon over for LP, admin

MANILA, Philippines — Sen. Francis Pangilinan declared on Wednesday that the Liberal Party’s honeymoon period with the administration of President Rodrigo Duterte was over as he sought to pivot from being part of the majority to being the main opposition party.

"Consumatum est. [It is finished.] Now we are in the minority," Pangilinan, party president, said.

The senator said that the party initially tried to cooperate with the administration to help it succeed.

Pangilinan however said that such an arrangement became untenable following clashes between them and other majority senators over a host of contentious issues such as the government’s war on drugs and the reinvestigation of the chamber into the existence of the Davao Death Squad.

“After less than seven months, it was coming to a point wherein a number of events made it untenable and unacceptable for us to stay with the supermajority in the Senate,” Pangilinan said. “The writing was on the wall. It was just a matter of time and the time did come. Hence when we are asked to leave the supermajority, we did not resist and did so willingly and without debate.”

Senators Pangilinan, Franklin Drilon and Bam Aquino and Sen. Risa Hontiveros of allied Akbayan party were booted out of the majority at the Senate on Monday. Drilon was removed as Senate president pro tempore while Pangilinan, Aquino and Hontiveros were deposed as committee chairpersons following a motion by Sen. Manny Pacquiao.

Senate President Aquilino Pimentel III said the move was necessary because of the blurring of lines between the majority and the minority had been hampering work in the chamber, a point that Pangilinan disputed.

In a statement, Pangilinan clarified that the main reason for Monday’s shakeup was meant to ensure that the chamber would toe the administration’s line on issues that might negatively affect it.

“It is therefore inaccurate and factually erroneous to say that the reorganization was due to hampered work,” Pangilinan said.

The LP president said that during the months when they were part of the majority they opposed policies and pronouncements that they thought were detrimental to national interest. Some of these were the excesses of the war on drugs and extrajudicial killings, the surreptitious burial of dictator Ferdinand Marcos at the Libingan ng mga Bayani, corruption in the Bureau of Immigrations, the return of the death penalty and the lowering of the age of criminal liability of minors.

Pangilinan also defended their record when they were still part of the Senate majority.

“In the seven months that we were in the majority coalition we shepherded bills in the respective committees we chaired to the best of our abilities,” Pangilinan said. “In fact the record will show that of the 29 bills/committee reports being tackled on 2nd reading on the floor at the time of the reorganization, 20 or over two thirds were bills being defended by the LP, Senator Trillanes and Senator Hontiveros.”

Pangilinan said that LP decided to offer the administration a helping hand because it wanted the new government to succeed.

“Every incoming president deserves a chance to prove himself or herself and also deserves to be supported at the beginning of his or her term because if he or she succeeds in fulfilling what is required in the oath of office then his or her success will be our success as a nation,” he said.

Pangilinan added: “We set aside our differences, sought unity with our adversaries and offered a helping hand for the sake of the nation's interest. In modern democracies bi partisan or multi-partisan coalitions are cobbled together as a means of helping lead governments and nations.”

LP lawmakers at the House of Representatives are staying with the supermajoirty there and will decide on what to do next after voting on a bill to reimpose the death penalty is done.