THE new Senate leadership on Wednesday announced more changes in permanent committee chairmanships, including the influential Blue-Ribbon panel, which Sen. Panfilo Lacson yielded to Sen. Pia Cayetano-contrary to speculations it would go back to Lacson’s antagonist, Sen. Rodante Marcoleta.
Marcoleta, however, was named the Senate’s representative to the Judicial and Bar Council (JBC), replacing Sen. Francis Pangilinan.
With the Blue-Ribbon panel, Sen. Pia Cayetano now holds three key committees under the term of her brother Alan Peter Cayetano, elected in a coup last March 11.
Sen. Imelda Josefa Remedios Marcos, the President’s estranged sister, got back her post as chairman of the Foreign Relations committee, replacing Sen. Erwin Tulfo, one of the nine senators in the minority.
Sen. Camille Villar, who with her brother Sen. Mark Villar bolted to the Cayetano camp to oust Vicente Sotto III as Senate President, keeps the Committee on the Environment, Natural Resources and Climate Change.
Camille got a new committee to lead: that of Government Corporations and Public Enterprises, vice Mark Villar.
Sen. Robinhood Padilla is the new chief of the Committee on Constitutional Amendments, vice Sen. Francis Pangilinan. Padilla has become the subject of calls to be charged with obstruction of justicefor helping Sen. Ronald dela Rosa escape from the Senate premises at dawn of March 14, to avoid a warrant of arrest from the International Criminal Court (ICC), where he is tagged as co-conspirator in the crimes against humanity case of former President Rodrigo Duterte.
Dela Rosa, missing since May 14, was the chief enforcer of Duterte’s dirty war on drugs that was marred by thousands of extra-judicial killings.