Palpable agenda in 2022

In three weeks time, the 18th Congress formally convenes its first regular sessions. But as of this writing, it seems it is only the new Senate that is ready to hit the ground running. Much earlier, incumbent Senate president Vicente “Tito” Sotto III has secured his leadership when they convene starting July 22.

The Senate chief has more or less settled already the remaining kinks in the equitable distribution of the various Senate committee chairmanships. Even in the filing of pet bills, Sotto implemented a peaceful system that respects seniority among the incumbent, come-backing, and newly elected Senators who won in the last May 13 mid-term elections.

It is a different story at the House of Representatives where newly elected members have yet to settle the hotly contested Speakership post. At least, over the weekend, presidential son, newly elected Davao City Rep. Paolo Duterte officially announced withdrawal of his earlier threats to run for Speaker amid intense jockeying among the contenders.

With none of the rest backing out from the Speakership race, President Duterte faces the prospects of what could be a repeat of his previous year’s state of the nation address (SONA). President Duterte was literally made to cool his heels at the lounge of the Batasan Pambansa in Quezon City to wait for the cue to deliver his SONA marking the traditional joint opening session of Congress to start.

While then newly installed Speaker Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo tried to bring order among Congressmen still supportive of ousted Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez, the House mace – symbol of authority in the Lower Chamber – could not be found. A replica was brought in if only to finally start the sessions with Sotto and Mrs.Arroyo jointly presiding the third and last regular sessions of the 17th Congress.

As later events turned out, the presidential daughter, Davao City Mayor Sara Duterte was largely behind the ouster of Alvarez. President Duterte himself repeatedly confirms up to now Sara’s role in installing Mrs.Arroyo as the new Speaker. And the rest, as we say, is history.

Ominous of things to follow, the proposed 2019 budget bill and several other urgent administration bills of President Duterte fell victim to the in-fighting among legislators during the 17th Congress. Certainly, a fractious Congress won’t augur well for the legislative agenda of President Duterte for the remaining half of his six-year term.

The Chief Executive of course does not relish the thoughts of history repeating itself when he delivers his latest SONA to spell out his priority bills for the 18th Congress. With the next presidential elections taking place in May, 2022 just around the corner, the Duterte administration could ill afford to be sidetracked by the early posturing of aspirants to become the new occupant of Malacanang.

While their House colleagues could not get their acts together, Sotto has already laid down the order of business for the Senators. Malacanang now has the triumvirate of erstwhile Duterte Cabinet members in the Senate – former Special Assistant to the President Christopher “Bong” Go and ex-presidential political adviser Francis Tolentino – and retired PNP chief Ronaldo “Bato” dela Rosa. It looks like a much more smooth sailing for the legislative priorities of President Duterte to neutralize the so-called individual “republics” at the new Senate.

With the backing of the three new Duterte Senators, Sotto would not have much problem with shepherding difficult and controversial administration bills to get passed by the Senate. The three Duterte Senators could become formidable powerhouse bloc to break or ram through these bills in the Upper Chamber.

So far, the sitting Senate president is proving himself a reliable ally of President Duterte. But it comes with a burden.

Arch critics and other anti-administration groups went on high drive in social media attacking Sotto after he agreed with President Duterte that the June 9 incident in Recto Bank was just a “small maritime accident.” It involved 22 Filipino fishermen from Mindoro who were abandoned in a hit-and-sail by a Chinese fishing vessel that struck their decrepit fishing boat.

The Senate chief though received unsolicited good words from former ambassador Alberto Encomienda – the real expert on the South China Sea – who declared Sotto is right. Encomienda is one of our country’s foremost minds in maritime and ocean matters, having spent over a decade of his diplomatic career on legal studies of our Philippine claims at South China Sea. Formerly our ambassador at one time to Greece; Malaysia; and Singapore, he pursued advance studies on Ocean Law and Policy from London and Columbia University. He was also formerly the secretary general of the Maritime and Ocean Affairs Center.

“He (Sotto) might be getting bashed by a lot of know-it-all netizens but the truth of the matter is he is right. Can anyone really have exclusive claim over the fishes in the ocean?” Encomienda rhetorically asked. “Fishing and territory are two different issues. No one wants dispute or war just because they needed to bring home all the fish their sea vessel can carry,” he stressed.

Encomienda was our guest during our Kapihan sa Manila Bay last June 19 when he himself first cited fishes “can not determine borders. And another way of saying it, fish they do not have passport.” This was more or less the same context of Sotto’s comment that fishes in the West Philippine Sea might have come from China.

“Mocking the man is a true reflection on how shallow our understanding of EEZ (exclusive economic zone), its rights and privileges. Our fishermen often find themselves threading on a different territory. All because that (China’s nine) dash line is invincible to the naked eye,” Encomienda pointed out.

As the country’s treaty-ratifying body, the Recto Bank accident would continue to be the apple of discord in the new Senate. After all, the Senate nurtures most of the presidential wannabes whose agenda in 2022 elections are already palpable.