Alvarez: Senate making excuses in defending work record

MANILA, Philippines — Senate President Aquilino Pimentel was just making excuses when he defended the Senate from criticisms over the few number of bills it had passed the past year, according to Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez.

Despite his public and open criticism of an equal body, Alvarez stressed that there was nothing personal in his tirades against the senators and that he was simply appealing for the Senate to work harder and pass important legislative measures in the agenda of President Rodrigo Duterte.

Alvarez also underscored that he and Pimentel were friends despite his critical comments on the performance of the Senate president.

"We are friends. For me, this is just work. All this is just work," said Alvarez, who is the secretary general of the ruling PDP-Laban while Pimentel serves as its president.

Pimentel defended the Senate's record in passing legislative measures after Alvarez criticized them as the "slow chamber" anew in a television interview on Wednesday.

The leader of the Senate said that his chamber's performance should not be judged by the number of laws it had passed.

“Let us not judge lawmaking in terms of number of laws passed but in terms of the laws we pass [to] improve the quality of life on Earth in general and the quality of life of Filipinos in particular,” Pimentel said.

The Senate president added that it was natural for the House to pass more proposed laws as it was the source of "local bills" including those renaming or merging schools and increasing hospital beds, among others.

Pimentel also underlined that the Senate is a "critical chamber" which thoroughly studies measures pending before it.

Alvarez, however, would not accept this explanation.

"You know, what they are saying, it just their way of defending themselves. Their study is taking a long time. Nothing will happen if we will just study the whole time. Our terms will end with us still studying," Alvarez said.

The speaker said the Senate should just face the reality and admit its shortcomings, citing the case of the death penalty bill the House passed in March 2016 but is still pending in the upper chamber.

"We are working very hard at the House of Representatives. Some are going beyond office hours just to pass the proposed laws. These laws are delayed upon reaching the Senate. Look at what happened to the death penalty bill. It's now gathering dust," Alvarez said.

Alvarez used the supposed slow progress of measures in the Senate as a way to push for a shift to federalism, which he said could address these inefficiencies.

"If this is the case, let's just push for the revision of the Constitution to hasten processes in our country," the speaker said.

Alvarez has earlier said he would talk to Pimentel as soon as Congress resumes its session on January 15 to initiate the process of convening the Senate and the House into a constituent assembly and to prepare a new Constitution.

The possible shift to federalism and the restoration of the death penalty are some of the priority legislative measures of Duterte's administration as it believes these would solve many of the country's problems.