Veteran meets also-ran

At 95 years old, former Senate President Juan Ponce-Enrile is seeking a fifth term as senator in the upcoming May midterm elections.

Dousing fears from critics because of his advanced age, Enrile stressed the Senate is the chamber where he would wrestle mentally not physically, through debates, with other lawmakers.

Recently, he criticized the current Senate as a “coffee-table Senate” wherein laws are discussed over cups of coffee. He vowed to bring back intense debates in Senate halls if given another chance.

A top-notch lawyer before joining government, Enrile earned his Master of Laws degree at Harvard Law School.

He served twice as Senate President — during the 14th and 15th Congresses. He was first elected as senator in 1987 — serving as the lone minority in the 8th Congress.

As a four-term senator, Enrile headed key committees in the Senate, among these were the National Defense and Security and Banks, Currencies and Financial Institutions and Finance Committee of the powerful Commission on Appointments.

He served as a member of 15 other standing committees, including Foreign Relations, Blue Ribbon, Constitutional Amendments, Revision of Codes and Laws, Public Order and Illegal Drugs.

He either filed, authored or sponsored hundreds of resolutions and bills throughout his long tenure as lawmaker. Among the landmark legislations he authored is the Anti-Terrorism Bill he filed originally in 1995, but was only signed into law as the Human Security Act in 2007, the Comprehensive Tax Reform Law or Republic Act 8424 and the amendments to the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA) to protect consumers from unreasonable power rates.

Under Enrile’s leadership, the Senate passed vital pieces of legislation such as the CARP Extension, Anti-Torture Act, Expanded Senior Citizens Act, Anti-Child Pornography Act, National Heritage Conservation Act and Real Estate Investment Act.

Institutional reforms were also implemented within the Senate to improve the daily conduct of business by the institution, as well as improve the welfare of its officers and employees.

Also under him, the Senate collaborated with the House of Representatives on two crucial issues which are now considered historical milestones. First was in December 2009 to take up Proclamation 1959 of the Arroyo administration, declaring a state of martial law and suspending the writ of habeas corpus in the province of Maguindanao, while the second occasion was in May 2010, when Congress convened to constitute itself as the national canvassing board to canvass the votes for president and vice president and thereafter proclaim the winners.

As Senate President, Enrile also presided over the impeachment proceedings against the late Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona.

However, while sitting as a senator, he was slapped with plunder in connection to the multibillion-peso Priority Development Assistance Fund scam and was ordered arrested in July 2014. He was allowed to post bail the following year for humanitarian reason — with his advancing age.

He packaged himself as a reluctant politician, but those who proved hard to convince are the voters in embracing him as a leader.

Former Sen. Manuel “Mar” Roxas II could have peaked in his political career during the 2010 presidential polls but several blunders along the way led to his weak pre-poll showing. This forced the Liberal Party (LP) to look elsewhere for a standard bearer and found then Sen. Benigno Simeon “Noynoy” Aquino III, who was the beneficiary of the euphoria over the death of former President Cory Aquino in August 2009 that directed the public’s attention to her son.

As an LP stalwart, Roxas was groomed to be the torch bearer of the party, but he was “forced” to slide down to the vice presidency to take advantage of the emotional surge in favor of Noynoy’s presidential run.

The result of the national elections became devastating for Roxas as he lost to former Makati City Mayor Jejomar Binay in the vice-presidential race despite Noynoy’s victory.

As a consolation from Aquino, Roxas was named initially as secretary of the Department of Transportation and Communications, but later on transferred to the Department of Interior and Local Government.

In 2016, Roxas revived his presidential ambition only to lose to another mayor, this time to Davao City’s Rodrigo Duterte, who is now President.

Currently, Roxas is seeking a return to the Senate, where he served from 2004 to 2010, apparently to revive his political career.

As a lawmaker, Roxas advocated for the welfare of Filipino workers, education, trade and information technology.

He served as chairman of the Senate Committees on Trade and Commerce and on Economic Affairs and as co-chairman of the Congressional Oversight Committee on the Electronic Commerce Law.

The Senate website states that among the legislations Roxas pursued were the Pre-Need Act of 2015 and the amendment of the Intellectual Property Code of the Philippines that sought to lower the cost of medicines.

He also advocated measures aimed at protecting consumers from defective and substandard products — initiating Senate inquiries, with the end in view of strengthening the Consumer Code of the Philippines, on such legislative proposals as the “Lemon Law,” proper labeling of milk, toys and food products containing genetically modified organisms and stronger safeguards against pyramiding and other similar scams.

As congressman, Roxas authored Republic Act (RA) 8759 which established in all municipalities a Public Employment Service Office, which serves as employment facilitation and information center and links all job opportunities within the region; RA 8748, which amended the Special Economic Zone Act by directly allocating to the municipality or city 2 percent of the 5 percent gross tax to be collected from the establishments operating in the ecozone and providing for disturbance compensation for persons to be displaced or evicted by publicly-owned ecozones; and RA 8756 that gave incentives for the establishment of regional headquarters to encourage investment and operation of multinational companies in the country and to generate more jobs.