Marcos not surprised by Senate leadership change

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. seems to have anticipated the change in Senate leadership on Monday.

At a press conference on Tuesday, the last of his three-day state visit to Cambodia, Marcos said that throughout the previous month, there had been movements that led to Senator Vicente "Tito" Sotto III retaking the Senate presidency from Senator Francis "Chiz" Escudero. 

“I mean, you have all been reporting on this at alam naman ninyo na mayroong talagang galaw (you know that there's a real movement) that has been going on for at least a month —that would bring us to this change of leadership,” he said. 

Marcos, a former senator, said that the leadership change in the Senate was an internal issue, expressing confidence that the senators would be able to organize themselves effectively.

“The change of leadership is an internal matter between the senators. I am confident… The Senate knows how to organize itself; the Senate also knows how to do the work,” he added.

The Senate’s new leadership under Sotto will not affect the administration’s legislative agenda for the 20th Congress, Marcos said.

"I do not actually see any problem in terms of the legislative agenda that the executive and the legislature have agreed to undertake for the next Congress. If Senator Sotto is now the SP again, then I do not see that it will change very much from our agenda that we had agreed upon when Senator Chiz was SP," he said.

Following the leadership change, Senator Panfilo ''Ping'' Lacson was elected as the new Senate President Pro Tempore, replacing Senator Jinggoy Estrada. 

Meanwhile, Senator Juan Miguel Zubiri was named as the new Senate Majority Leader, replacing Senator Joel Villanueva. 

Lacson earlier said that the former five-man Senate minority bloc was behind the move to replace Escudero as head of the upper chamber.

He said that the former minority bloc composed of himself and Senators Sotto, Risa Hontiveros, Loren Legarda, and Zubiri had a meeting last Friday to discuss the ouster of Escudero. 

Then over the weekend, he said they started asking fellow senators to support Sotto. — with Anna Felicia Bajo/VBL, GMA Integrated News