speech of senate president juan ponce enrile_06june2013
TRANSCRIPT
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Speech of Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile
My colleagues, the officers and employees of the Philippine Senate, my countrymen:
The COMELEC has proclaimed the 12 winners of the senatorial race in the elections held last
May 13.
From the slate called Team PNoy, nine have been proclaimed; and of the nine candidates of
the United Nationalist Alliance or UNA, three have made it and survived the administrations
formidable political machinery.
Even as serious questions and issues continue to hound the integrity of the conduct and results
of the last automated electoral exercise, it may be gainsaid that the game is over as far as the
senatorial contest is concerned.
We must all move forward because the country needs us to move forward.
I am glad that Senator Koko Pimentel has placed all these festering questions and doubts on the
last automated elections on top of his agenda for electoral reform. I believe that we CAN, in fact,
we MUST resolve these issues. As a democracy, we canno t afford to lose the peoples faith in
our electoral system.
My own son, the candidate Jack Enrile, has taken and accepted this setback in his political
career with all good wisdom, humility and most of all, an undefeated spirit.
A first senatorial run is a tough hurdle in itself. But Jack knew from the beginning that the fight
would be many times more difficult for him- this, by the fact alone that he is the son of Juan
Ponce Enrile.
The common analysis of political observers was that my sons candidacy suffered from the fall-
out of the bitter criticisms and accusations hurled against me by some people in this Chamber
who I had displeased, just as we were entering the political campaign season.
The enmity that marked the ending of our session days last January and early February was
carried well into the campaign. This was helped in no small measure by the virulent personal
attacks against me by a non-candidate Senator who fashions herself as my nemesis and who
evidently delights in doing the job. There were, of course, many others who had their own
reasons for ensuring that I was ruined, and that, consequently, my sons candidacy was ruined.
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Yet Jack forged on, plodded and toiled on his own. He braved the storm and took on all the
brickbats and accusations, both old and new. He squarely faced the issues against him and
submitted himself to the judgment of the electorate without uttering a word against his detractors.
As a father, I endured in silence the pain of seeing my son suffer because of me. He carried on
his shoulders the weight of all the mud thrown against me. As I stayed and watched quietly by
the side lines, my heart bled for him.
In spite of all these, I heard Jack say that I am his hero and that he was my hero. I was deeply
touched by that, and I could not ask for anything more from my son. He has truly made me even
more proud to be his Dad.
In the aftermath of the elections, the air is thick with talk about the changes that would occur as a
consequence of the new composition of the Senate in the 16th Congress.
Even as millions of votes were still unaccounted for, Budget Secretary Florencio Abad already
foresaw the outcome. He was quoted as saying that the first order of the day when Congress
opens in July is to replace me as Senate President and to re-elect Speaker Belmonte as Speaker
of the House.
That statement did not surprise me at all. I am sure that those who are eager to replace me have
been assembling and gathering the numbers, if they havent already sealed the deal, so tospeak. As a politician, that is all par for the course for me.
Old age may have physically impaired my vision. But let me assure all of you: I can still see and
read clearly the handwriting on the wall. I need not be told by anyone when it is time for me to go.
Based on the so-called official results, one Senator who had openly accused me of anomalies
and venalities in running the Senate, and another young Senator who said that Juan Ponce
Enrile has not done anything good for this country, have both earned a fresh mandate to serve
in this Chamber. I respect that mandate as all of us should.
With the cloud of doubt and suspicion that my adversaries have successfully foisted upon my
person, my honor and my leadership, it is not far-fetched for them to make the people believe
that I will expend the resources of the Senate, the peoples money no less, and use the powers
of the Senate Presidency just to hold on to this position.
I say successfully because no matter how baseless and malicious those accusations are or
were, the issues hurled at me and their implications not only on my own, but on the Senates
integrity, were never resolved with clarity. These were quickly overtaken by the campaign fever.
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The TRUTH OR FALSITY of these accusations were lost and muddled in the wild frenzy of
election rhetoric and propaganda.
Indeed, so successful they were, such that the much-publicized surveys portrayed me as having
suffered the biggest decline in terms of the publics trust as head of this institution and as the 3rd
highest official of the land.
I took all of these as part of the burden of leadership.
As your leader, I never shirked from the responsibility to defend my actions and decisions, the
honor of the Senate and that of my colleagues.
I carried the whole brunt of the publics ire over the infamous one-page certification- the
prevailing system of liquidation of our operating budgets as Senators-which was neither my
creation nor invention.I carried the brunt of four of my colleagues anger and displeasure over not receiving what they
felt they were entitled to as their share of the savings of the Senate.
No one bothered nor cared that I, too, did not receive the same amount that I had approved for
the rest.
I suffered the anger of the public as the media branded all that I had authorized for release to the
Senators offices last December as my personal CASH GIFTS no matter how hard I tried to
explain the nature of these disbursements from the Senates coffers and my own offices savings.
Senator Lacson, as Chairman of the Committee on Accounts, and I took the position that if wewere to be sensitive to the public pulse, and with the agreement of both houses of Congress, we
should revert to the old system of liquidating and accounting for each centavo of public money
entrusted to us.
Save for a few, my colleagues chose to keep their distance and silence as I was publicly pilloried
and crucified.
But in the privacy of our caucuses, in hushed tones or whispers, many of them expressed grave
concern about the repercussions of these developments on the operations of their own offices
and their own budgetary allocations.
The controversy did not end with the MOOE or the budget of the Office of the Senate President.
The publics attention turned to the huge budget allocated for the numerous congressional
oversight committees which were also not my own creation or invention. They were created
either by law or by resolution. The budgets for these committees are charged against the
Senates budget, but the truth is that these committees operate and spend funds autonomously.
Yet, I was left all alone to explain as the Minority Floor Leader questioned the increasing budget
of the Senate from the time I assumed the Senate Presidency in November 2008.
Senator Drilon, as Chairman of the Finance Committee, knows only too well how the
apportionment of the chairmanships over these oversight committees can be a real headache for
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any Senate President. He was the first one to call my attention to it at the beginning of this
Congress.
Next was Senator Pia Cayetano who offered to review and study the rationalization of these
preponderant oversight committees. I welcomed her offer to help but I did not get any
recommendation from her.
I placed Senators Drilon and Lacson in charge of the review because of all the numerous
requests for budget augmentation that I was receiving. With the way the Senators now view the
chairmanships over these oversight committees as a form of entitlement, it was impossible for
me to satisfy everyone.
Perhaps, in due time, Senator Drilon will finally find a solution that will adequately satisfy the
members of this Chamber. More importantly, I hope that such a solution will correct a rather
unwieldy situation that has earned the criticism and disgust of the people.
As I said when I made a motion to declare this position vacant a few months ago, I did not wishto endanger the trust that the public has reposed upon the Senate as an institution just because
of the viciousness and self-righteousness of some people. They were only against me, after all.
But in their desire to undermine me, they invariably brought the other members of the Senate
and the image of the Senate itself to disrepute.
After all that howl and rage, I now ask: Must all these issues of propriety, transparency and
accountability be forgotten?
Have all these issues suddenly become irrelevant?
Can we just move on as they say, and just bury these issues in the dustbin of the PhilippineSenates history?
My answer is NO.
NO. The Senate neither begins nor ends with Juan Ponce Enrile. This Chamber has its own
honor to uphold, and its institutional integrity in the end means more to the people than all of us
combined.
My entire record as a public servant, my performance as a Senator of the Republic, and my
conduct as Senate President is all up for the nation to judge, whether fairly or unfairly.
But now that the election noise has quieted down, I lay claim to nothing more than the right to
vindicate my sullied name.
I will leave each of my colleagues to explain directly to the people who elected them their
respective positions on these issues and to account for their own budgets, as I have always been
ready to account for my own. I can no longer speak for them.
I refuse to be anyones scapegoat and everyones whipping boy.
I refuse to let any Senator drag my name down the gutter with her.
I refuse to stand idly by when no less than the son of my former partner, the late Senator Renato
L. Cayetano, would dare accuse me of being a thief or a scoundrel.
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I refuse to lend my hard-earned name as a convenient refuge to those who cannot face the
public and defend their own honor.
I refuse to allow any body, whether in or outside the halls of this Chamber, to just freely trample
upon the name that my late father, Alfonso Ponce Enrile, had so kindly allowed me to carry with
pride.
I do not need nor intend to use the powers, perquisites and trappings of the Senate Presidency
just to cling to it or to secure this position for myself when the 16th Congress opens in July.
Neither do I intend to use this position to influence or impede in any way the conduct by the COA
of a no-holds barred audit of the Senates and the Senators budgets and expenditures.
Let us all be men and women worthy of being called Honorable Senators. And let the chips fall
where they may.
AND SO, AS A MATTER OF PERSONAL HONOR AND DIGNITY, I HEREBY IRREVOCABLY
RESIGN AS SENATE PRESIDENT.With the constantly shifting political tides, to muster the support of the majority of your
colleagues, and to maintain that support long enough to achieve something for the people who
elected us into office, is quite a feat in itself.
Thus, I owe a deep debt of gratitude to my colleagues who, at the most crucial hour, managed to
rise above selfish interest and ambition to help me steer the Senate through rough waters in the
last four and a half years that I served as Senate President.
Thank you, my colleagues, for your forbearance.
May God bless you all and may God bless the Senate!Above all, may God bless our country and our people!