Enrile threatens to quit Senate post

SENATOR Juan Ponce Enrile yesterday threatened to resign as Senate president after l2 senators signed a resolution seeking the dismissal of the ethics complaint against Senator Manuel Villar in connection with the scandal over the C-5 road extension project.

He described the resolution as premature and discourteous to the Senate leadership because it had the effect of preempting the report on the complaint by the Committee of the Whole, led by him, which was still being drafted.

“I don’t want to sit in this chair if you don’t want me,” Enrile told the senators who signed the resolution during the plenary session.

“You have given me a responsibility to perform, and as gentlemen on this house, you should have at least accorded respect to the chair of this house before you filed this resolution.”

Panfilo Lacson, the senator who exposed the alleged double-financing for the C-5 road project in the 2008 national budget, said Enrile announced his intention to quit in a caucus of majority senators held shortly before the start of the session.

He said the resolution was a slap to the face of the chairman of the Committee of the Whole.

Enrile at first denied that he had threatened to resign when asked by newsmen, saying the signatories’ stand on the resolution did not necessarily reflect their confidence—or lack of it, on the Senate president.

“I have told them before, if this is your appreciation of the evidence, it is up to you,” he said.

“I am only the presiding officer of the Committee of the Whole. I cannot impose my will on any of them. I have no reason to condemn anybody.”

Minority Leader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. said he respected Enrile’s desire to quit.

“That’s good. It’s time that he should [quit] if he can’t bring the Senate to support a supposedly very serious thing,” he told reporters.

The l2 senators who signed the resolution were Pimentel, Villar, Alan Peter Cayetano, Pia Cayetano, Lito Lapid, Gregorio Honasan, Joker Arroyo, Miriam Defensor Santiago, Ramon Revilla Jr., Jinggoy Estrada, Loren Legarda and Francis Pangilinan.

They argued that the charges raised by Senator Jamby Madrigal against Villar were not substantiated by the testimonies of witnesses and documentary evidence presented to the investigating committee during the hearings. Fel V. Maragay


Source: http://www.manilastandardtoday.com/insideNews.htm?f=/2009/november/18/news6.isx&d=/2009/november/18