Transcript of interview with Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago

On the committee assignments

The Senate President has announced that it will take him three weeks to reconcile all the conflicting claims so that the committee chairmanships can already be released. My suggestion is that those [committees] which are not being contended by the opposition should already be released, while those under contention, notably the Blue Ribbon Committee, should be held under advisement, that way at least the Senate can go immediately to work. We should all go back to work by naming the chairs of the committees because we actually cannot work unless there are committee chairs, and the only way to do that is to set aside these controversial items like the Blue Ribbon, or any other position where the majority and the minority are deadlocked, and just release those to which the majority does not object. Remember that the Villar majority includes opposition members. If these opposition members will accept the arrangement of the committee chairmanships it will be difficult for their colleagues in the opposition to object to the assignment of committees.

But I think it would be fruitless for the opposition to hope that they can convince the Senate President during these three weeks to ship his "Villar Six" to the Opposition Eight to constitute a new Senate Majority, in which case I will belong to the new minority. There are many reasons militating against that hope: in the first place, I think that Senator Villar, who is admittedly a presidential candidate for 2010, will not ally himself with the opposition in the Senate because most, if not all, of his potential rivals are members of the opposition. So if he allies himself with them, he is then given an opportunity for his potential rivals to become prominent on the national stage. They would form part of the Senate majority. On the other hand, certain of his potential rivals within the opposition will not want him either as Senate President because they would rather have anyone except him. These are the reasons why I am confident that there will be no amendments of the present Villar majority.

On possibly retaining the Committees on Foreign Relations and on Energy

One must have knowledge in international law, especially during the sponsorship stage, when there is a debate. So unless the person has a grasp of international law, he's going to have a rough time, so nobody is really interested [in being the Chair of the Committee on Foreign Relations]. Plus there is always a backlog of treaties, and first of them is the JPEPA, which is highly technical and controversial. So I don't think anyone else is interested; so far no one has expressed interest.

Energy is the sameit is so highly technical. As I've said, it took me three years to qualify myself as adequate to deal with it. It is a powerful committee in a sense that many companies and firms in the power sector are ready to spend hundreds of millions on the Energy Chair, because the Energy Chair would automatically be chair of the bicameral oversight committee, and there are billion peso contracts in the power sector. But even if it is potentially lucrative, senators are not particularly interested because it calls for very complex understanding of energy law, which is a new field of law that I never studied in law school. It is very complicated because it involves accounting and the rules of accounting, particularly in public bidding, and so on.

On the Santiago resolution (P.S.R. No. 29) on the alleged use of gas ration privileges by retired members of the AFP and the PNP.

The thing is they could have stopped when they left the active military service. Right there in itself is already a major anomaly. Why do they keep on getting these gasoline rations? This anomaly is staring us at the face. There is no question about its illegality and its criminality. The question is "Why is it allowed to fester like this for so long?" What is it, forever? Until death? That's how it sounds.

On the Senate Committee on Defense

Sen. Villar told me that many senators are interested in defense, and he couldn't make up his mind. Besides, I could not longer take interest in it because I am supposed to stay with the two major committees (foreign relations and energy).