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SENATE
President Manuel Villar brushed aside threats by
disgruntled proadministration senators to oust him over
disagreements involving coveted committee chairmanships.
“I am
not afraid of it,” Villar said, referring to threats
aired by pro-Palace members of the majority bloc, led by
Sen. Miriam Santiago, who insisted that the blue-ribbon
committee should be chaired by a proadministration
senator, preferably its incumbent chairman, Sen. Joker
Aroyo, despite calls by Villar’s allies in the minority
that the post be assigned to an opposition member.
Villar
asserted he is “not beleaguered” by the reported ouster
threat against him, saying he is still talking with
other senators about resolving the competing claims over
committee chairmanships and is looking to settle the
matter and announce the final assignments this week.
In a
separate interview, proadministration Sen. Miguel Zubiri
confirmed that nine members of the pro-Malacañang
majority, including Sens. Richard Gordon, Edgardo Angara,
Bong Revilla, Lito Lapid, Juan Ponce Enrile, Gregorio
Honasan, Joker Arroyo,
Santiago and Zubiri, have agreed to “vote as one” if the chairmanship
issue is put to a showdown voting on the Senate floor.
But
Zubiri downplayed speculations that the conflicts over
the committee assignments could lead to a breakup of the
existing majority that would result in Villar’s ouster
and election of a new Senate President, saying he is
confident Villar could balance the interests of members
vying for choice committee posts.
Villar
himself believes that the 15-7 vote that formally
reinstalled him to the Senate presidency when Congress
opened last week makes it more difficult for any
power-grab plot from either the administration or
opposition blocs to topple him from the coveted post,
second only to the Vice President in the line of
succession to the presidency.
“They
would need [a new set of] 13 votes to replace me,”
Villar told BusinessMirror last week.
A
veteran senator who requested anonymity owing to the
sensitivity of the subject admitted that the root of a
potential plot to oust Villar and install a new Senate
President could come from any number of reasons, but
previous power shifts in the 24-member chamber, he
recalled, were triggered by disagreements over choice
committee assignments.
He
explained that this was why Villar is taking time to
carefully balance competing claims of his
proadministration and opposition allies vying for
chairmanships of key committees—finance, ways and means,
justice and blue ribbon among them.
“I’ve
asked the senators for more time to complete the
committee assignments,” Villar said, adding they have
decided to fill up the chairmanships of all 36 Senate
committees at the same time, and not piecemeal as was
done in the past, saying there was no reason to rush it
without a clear consensus among members.
But
already, some senators are echoing the not-so-subtle
threat aired by Santiago to oust Villar if he does not
agree to let an administration-allied senator chair the
blue-ribbon committee, which is tasked to investigate
government anomalies.
After
Congress convened sessions last week, the talk was that
Sen. Joker Arroyo was “definitely out” of the
blue-ribbon committee chairmanship and that he would be
replaced by Sen. Alan Cayetano, a partymate of Villar in
the Nacionalista Party. Cayetano, in fact, had already
tapped GO campaign spokesman Adel Tamano to serve as
blue-ribbon committee counsel.
But even
before the weekend, negotiations among the majority
senators collapsed after the administration bloc
objected to replacing Arroyo and giving the blue-ribbon
committee chairmanship to Cayetano, who catapulted to
national prominence as the congressman who accused
President Arroyo’s husband of stashing millions of
dollars in secret bank accounts abroad.
Santiago
indicated to reporters that her group may move against
Villar and form a new majority bloc if Arroyo were
removed as blue-ribbon committee chairman. Arroyo,
however, admitted to reporters in separate interviews
that he is no longer interested in chairing the
blue-ribbon committee or any other committee. |
