The Senate may soon have a Blue Ribbon Committee chair once more-in the form of its old one.
Senate President Pro Tempore is mulling a return as the committee chair, according to Senate President Tito Sotto.
Lacson resigned as the Blue Ribbon Committee chair during the Senate’s probe into the flood control corruption mess. The probe became heated as more and more senators were tagged by former Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) officials in corruption schemes.
The Senate president previously said that his longtime ally was likely frustrated with how the investigations were going in the Senate, with their own colleagues interrupting the proceedings. Lacson said that he resigned after some of his colleagues in the majority disagreed with how he was handling the probe.
In an interview on One PH’s One Balita Pilipinas on Tuesday, Sotto said that there was a high chance that Lacson would now return as the Blue Ribbon chair.
‘I think it’s very positive at this point,’ said Sotto in the media interview.
Later asked by reporters to further confirm this, Sotto did not give an explicit yes, saying that it was a ‘long story.’
‘In the course of our many conversations, it has come to his (Sen Ping) attention [regarding the] clamor of some of our colleagues and the public that he retake the [commission],’ Sotto told the media.
In the course of Lacson’s probe, several senators were tagged in the flood control corruption mess, namely former Senate President Chiz Escudero, Sen. Joel Villanueva and Sen. Jinggoy Estrada.
Former senators Bong Revilla and current Mankato Mayor Nancy Binay were also tagged in kickback schemes by retired DPWH Undersecretary Roberto Bernardo. Many of the senators have already denied the allegations.
It was also during Lacson’s stint as Blue Ribbon Committee chair that sacked DPWH engineer Brice Hernandez admitted to inflating the prices of materials to get kickback money.
Billions of pesos are suspected to have been stolen in the flood control corruption schemes as activists and civil society groups continue to call for corruption.