Sen. Erwin Tulfo is the acting chairman of the Senate Blue Ribbon panel at present, said Senate President Vicente Sotto III.
Sotto confirmed the matter to reporters in an ambush interview on Wednesday following an hour-long caucus with the majority bloc.
The Senate president said Senators JV Ejercito, Risa Hontiveros, Pia Cayetano, Raffy Tulfo, and Francis Pangilinan all declined to head the committee.
‘None of the five wants it now. As of now, acting chairman is Sen. Erwin Tulfo. When he comes back, we are going to conduct a blue ribbon meeting,’ said Sotto.
The Senate chief explained that the five declined because they want to focus on their committees.
Tulfo, meanwhile, is the vice chairperson of the powerful blue ribbon committee.
Sotto earlier said that if none of the five senators accept their offer to chair the panel, Tulfo would automatically be named as its head, being the current committee vice chairman.
According to Sotto, committee hearings in the chamber will continue despite the Senate’s scheduled session adjournment on Friday.
‘Just because we’re on break or some are out of town, it doesn’t mean that the Senate will not proceed,’ said Sotto. ‘The reason why we have this break [is] so that the committee hearings continue.’
‘There will be continuous hearings of different committees, most especially the committee on finance,’ he noted.
But now that Tulfo has been designated the acting chairperson of the Blue Ribbon panel, will he become permanent in his post? Sotto said it would be decided upon by Tulfo and the majority.
For now, the Senate president said Tulfo accepted the post: ‘He accepted. He said: ‘Just acting in the meantime, right?”
The search for the next blue ribbon panel head started after Senate President Pro Tempore Panfilo Lacson resigned.
In a resignation letter, dated Oct. 7 and addressed to Sotto, Lacson explained how a number of their colleagues have expressed disappointment with the ‘direction’ of the blue ribbon committee hearings regarding the anomalous flood control projects.
‘Some senators publicly and secretly pursue the narrative that I am zeroing in on several of my colleagues while purportedly protecting those members of the Lower House perceived to be the principal actors in the budget anomalies related to the substandard and ghost flood control projects,’ said Lacson.
But according to him, nothing could be further from the truth.
‘This narrative is categorically false. These misrepresentations are being floated mostly by critics opposed to our efforts to get to the bottom of the flood control anomalies,’ he said. /apl