Press Release
August 2, 2007

ABOLITION OF BLUE RIBBON PANEL
WILL ONLY BENEFIT SCOUNDRELS

Minority Leader Aquilino "Nene" Q. Pimentel, Jr. (PDP-Laban) today urged the Senate leadership to resolve the issue of chairmanship of the blue ribbon committee in conformity with the popular mandate, as manifested in the last elections, and in fulfillment of the role of the legislative chamber to promote good governance and maintain a system of checks and balance among the independent branches of government.

Pimentel rejected an outlandish proposal of Sen. Joker Arroyo to scrap the blue ribbon committee as an option to settle the row.

"The move to abolish the blue ribbon committee is retrogressive and will encourage corruption and wrongdoing and will only protect scoundrels in government," he said.

Pimentel said in his dialogue with Senate President Manuel Villar on the apportionment of the standing committees, he presented the basic premise of the solid eight-man minority bloc that the blue ribbon committee should be handled by an opposition senator since its main function is to ferret out wrongdoing in government.

"It looks like from my initial conversation with Manny Villar that he is amenable to that proposition," he said.

Pimentel said the minority senators are also of the position that the certain committees, including the blue ribbon, should be given to the opposition bloc and they will decide among themselves to whom to assign them.

"If they want a smoother working relationship, our suggestion is they should also listen to the opposition bloc and try to figure out what committees we can share without giving the impression that only leftovers will be given to us," he said.

Pimentel said they have adopted this new tack because of the mandate of the people in the last elections that the Senate, as much as possible, should be controlled by the opposition members.

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