Senate completes committee memberships

It seems everybody’s happy in the Senate as far as committee chairmanships are concerned.

Though they belong to different political parties, senators – both old timers and neophytes – appeared to have gotten their preferred committees given their respective backgrounds and advocacies.

There was talk that Sen. Cynthia Villar wanted the committee on agriculture and food but she gave in to Sen. Francis Pangilinan of the Liberal Party, the ruling party in the previous administration.

Villar is from the Naciona- lista Party that has declared support for President Duterte and coalesced with PDP-Laban, under whose banner he ran during the last elections. Villar will head the environment and natural resources committee as well as that of social justice, welfare and rural development.

Sen. Leila de Lima, former justice secretary who also ran under LP, was chosen to head the justice and human rights committee. De Lima is seeking an investigation into the incidents of apparent extrajudicial killings being perpetrated in the course of the Duterte administration’s war on drugs.

De Lima, formerly an election lawyer, likewise got the electoral reforms and people’s participation committee.

Sen. Panfilo Lacson, an independent, will head the public order and dangerous drugs as well as the games and amusement committees.

Filipino boxing champion and former Sarangani representative Sen. Manny Pacquiao will chair the sports panel as well as public works.

Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano, who is said to be eyeing either the foreign affairs or justice portfolio after the one-year ban on losing candidates in the last elections to be appointed to an executive position, got the foreign affairs committee.

Sen. Loren Legarda will head the climate change and finance committees while neophyte Sen. Risa Hontiveros, also of the LP, will chair the health and demography committee as well as women, children, family relations and gender equality.

Sen. Richard Gordon, who ran as guest candidate of the United Nationalist Alliance headed by former vice president and defeated presidential candidate Jejomar Binay, got the accountability of public officers and investigations or Blue Ribbon as well as the government corporations and public enterprises committees.

Former Technical Education and Skills Development Authority director general Joel Villanueva, who was also an LP senatorial bet, got the labor, employment and human resources development as well as youth committees.

In the election of their leaders for the 17th Congress, senators crossed party lines and installed Aquilino Pimentel III as Senate president.

As of last Wednesday, 37 of 40 committees now have their respective chairpersons.

Based on the rules of the Senate, Pimentel and Minority Leader Ralph Recto will not head any committee but are members in all of them.

The majority leader, Vicente Sotto III, heads the committee on rules.