FIRST SAY:
“We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here.We privileged few, who won the lottery of birth against all odds, how dare we whine at our inevitable return to that prior state from which the vast majority have never stirred?”
― Richard Dawkins, Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder
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Senate President Francis Escudero’s mission for the upper chamber during the final regular session of the 19th Congress is to maintain its independence, remove the opportunities for non-productive work, and deliver only on the needed legislation of the Filipino people.
We take this to mean that however much the members of the House of Representatives wanted the senator to go with their flow of amending the Constitution, this will have rough sailing in the Senate.
Chiz reasons that the new policy under his leadership is to “set aside items which merely dissipate our energy and divide the public. For this same reason, pending bills on Charter Change will be placed on the back burner and will follow the ordinary and regular process of legislation, if at all.”
The fate of any measure on Constitutional amendment or revision that will need the concurrence of the Senate, at least while Escudero calls the shots in the chamber, has been decided by the Senate leadership right at the start—it won’t be a priority.
The lawmakers in the House of Representatives can dance around with friendly requests or raise their fists in protest against the Senate’s obvious gesture of non-cooperation, but the upper chamber will not be moved. Or so SP Escudero declared during the opening of session and at his press conference after.
Escudero said the Senate should focus instead on bills that are part of the common executive and legislative agenda.
“In its stead, bills which can effect the same result – but without the needless political noise and bickering – will be prioritized. This will allow us to focus our energy on measures which the people truly need,” Escudero said.
“It’s not a priority for me. Since it was not mentioned in the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council, I don’t think it’s a priority of the LEDAC or the executive either,” Escudero said.
Escudero said it is a time-honored tradition in the Senate to scrutinize proposed measures instead of serving as the administration’s rubber stamp.
Critical cooperation with the Marcos administration is what we are seeing with the way Escudero describes the coming legislative days under his leadership.
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Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA) chief Suharto Mangudadatu will resign from his post effective July 31, to prepare for the first parliamentary elections in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM).
Mangudadatu has announced that he would participate in the BARMM elections in May 2025, but he did not say which position he is running for. He said he and his family remain committed to President Marcos and his administration to ensure peace, prosperity and stability in Mindanao.
“This commitment is rooted in our shared belief in the vision of a united and prosperous Philippines,” Mangudadatu said in a statement.
“We commit our support to the leadership of President Marcos, Speaker Martin Romualdez, the entire Marcos administration, and we continue to do so in any capacity we can for our country,” he added.
Mangudadatu was appointed TESDA chief in June 2023. He is part of the Bangsamoro Grand Coalition, a political party posing to challenge the current BARMM leadership.
Mangudadatu was governor of Sultan Kudarat from 2019 to 2022 before he was succeeded by his son, Gov. Pax Ali Mangudadatu. He was mayor of Lutayan town in Sultan Kudarat for two terms from 1998 to 2004.
“I am grateful for the trust and confidence that President Marcos and the Filipino people have placed in me as secretary of TESDA. I am proud of the agency’s achievements and I am confident it will continue to make a positive impact on the lives of the Filipinos,” he said.
It is best that Suharto resign from TESDA and seek an elective position in the BARMM, where he really belongs.
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