Transcript of Interview of SP Enrile

On the seemingly delayed action at the House of Representatives on Senator Trillanes' amnesty

Palagay ko matatapos din 'yan. Well, dapat pag- aralan but I think we should respect the policy established by the President. If we ( House of Representatives & Senate) do not concur, nothing will happen to the amnesty of Senator Trillanes. But, what for? Ang ating gobiyerno ay nakikipag- negotiate sa MILF, sa NDF, sa CPP- NPA. Bakit naman 'yung mga tao na nagserbisyo sa bayan, in a moment of weakness, you will punish them forever? We have to use an even playing field in enforcing the laws of the land.

On fast tracking Trillanes' amnesty

The requirement is for Congress to concur. I cannot dictate to the other Chamber what they do, neither can I dictate on the members of the Senate. Each one of us will have to make a decision. I will respect House Speaker Belmonte's leadership. We have to bear in mind that the majority of the House is allied to the President, and the President has issued a proclamation. It will be impolitic for his allies in the House to reject his proposal because that could mean that you reject him as a leader. I believe that in the end, they will have to approve it. Also, their invitation of Senator Trillanes to appear in the House is not unparliamentary. It is within the prerogative of the House. They're asking him to go there as a grantee of an amnesty, not necessarily as a senator. There's always a process for granting an amnesty. If I had the choice, I would like him to join us in the session today- kulang kami ng tao. But it's quite very hard to do that.

On fast tracking the passage of the Reproductive Health Bill

We are not going to be rushed to approve a bill as sensitive as the RH Bill without studying it. We know that our growth rate is a certainty and that there's an alternative. We also have to increase our economic pace and our economic fund, increase the growth rate of our economy more than the growth rate of our population. That's one alternative. We are now talking of a 6.8 growth, and probably it will go up to more than 7. Some are even predicting that we might grow as high as 8. Our economy is growing that fast, but we have to see to it that the population rate will also go down. It is an anti-poverty policy to reduce poverty in the country and the norm should be to increase the tempo of the economy. Open the country to more investment opportunities by removing the roadblocks in investments. We should not just adopt policies that will favor a certain sector or for the economy to grow to the detriment of other people.