Senate leadership change won't derail legislative agenda

The change in Senate leadership is not likely to derail the administration's legislative agenda, President Marcos said yesterday.

- HELEN FLORES

With 15 votes, Sen. Vicente Sotto III on Monday replaced Francis Escudero as Senate president.

"That remains to be seen. But 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," the President said at a press conference in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

"And if Senator Sotto is now the SP again, then I do not see that it will change very much from what our agenda - that we had agreed upon when Senator Chiz was SP," he said.

Marcos said reports about the looming change in the Senate presidency had been going on for at least a month.

The last meeting of the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council (LEDAC) was on May 29.

Meanwhile, Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano will be leading the Duterte-allied senators of the chamber in the new minority bloc.