Sen. Sherwin ‘Win’ Gatchalian said on Saturday that he believes Senate President Vicente ‘Tito’ Sotto III’s leadership is ‘very stable.’
This came following Sen. JV Ejercito’s recent remark that he, along with four other senators, planned to leave the majority bloc after several former and incumbent senators were tagged as being involved in anomalous flood control projects being investigated by the Senate blue ribbon committee ‘First of all, I see that Senator Sotto’s leadership is stable,’ Gatchalian, speaking in Filipino, said in a radio interview over DWIZ’s ‘Usapang Senado’ on Saturday.
‘In fact, it was from him that this suggestion came, ‘Oh, let’s just amend on the floor to be transparent,” he noted.
Gatchalian, chair of the Senate Committee on Finance, likewise mentioned that they have already agreed not to implement the Certificate of Urgency on the government’s budget.
‘If you remember, second and third readings, only one day, no time to review. Nothing like that anymore. So when we approve on second reading, we will give the senators three days to review one final time before approving the third reading. So Senator Sotto agreed to that suggestion, our President agreed. So that is also a reform to make budget deliberation more transparent,’ the senator explained. ‘For me, the leadership of the Senate [President] is very stable.,’ he reiterated.
When asked if Ejercito or other senators talked to him about the plan of leaving the Senate majority, Gatchalian refused to comment. Will stay with Sotto’s leadership
When asked if he will be staying in the majority, Gatchalian said, ‘Yes, definitely. Will stay with Sen. Sotto.’
Gatchalian affirmed that he talked with Ejercito but refused to give details on what they discussed, saying that he is currently concentrated on the 2026 national budget deliberation and assisting victims of the Cebu quake and the recent cyclone.
‘We talked, but I’m not going to talk about what we talked about or what my feelings are. For me, it’s important that this 2026 budget is done properly, and what’s important to me is how to help those who were hit by the earthquake and cyclone,’ he said.