Senate sessions suspended until Dec. 9

Sessions in the Senate will be suspended until December 9 in anticipation of an upcoming holiday and road closures in Pasay City for the 30th Southeast Asian Games (SEAG), as well as the bicameral conference committee meetings on the proposed 2020 national budget.

Senate Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri said the Upper Chamber decided to hold off its afternoon sessions next week due to the special non-working holiday in Pasay City Monday, December 2, for the celebration of the city's foundation day.

Several roads going to the Senate will also be closed in the next few days for SEAG events in the World Trade Center, Philippine International Convention Center, and SM Mall of Asia.

Majority of the senators will also be attending the bicameral conference committee meeting to thresh out with their counterparts in the House of Representatives the differing provisions of their versions of the R4.1-trillion General Appropriations Bill.

"The bicam members from the Senate [panel] are 15, so if they would attend the bicam, we won't have quorum,"

Zubiri told reporters.

"That is why leadership decided that we just adjourn till the 9th," he said.

The 15-man Senate panel to the bicameral conference committee is led by Senator Juan Edgardo M. Angara, chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance. Members of the Senate panel are Senate President Pro Tempore Ralph Recto, Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon, Senators Panfilo Lacson, Cynthia Villar, Pia Cayetano, Christopher Lawrence Go, Richard Gordon, Imee Marcos, Joel Villanueva, Risa Hontiveros, Nancy Binay, Grace Poe, and Francis Pangilinan.