Legarda set to make history as first woman Senate president but…

National

SENATOR Loren Legarda is poised to become the country’s first woman Senate president. But it will be a brief one.

Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri confirmed on Thursday, Feb. 5, that there was an “understanding” of electing the first woman Senate president in the history of Congress.

“It’s not official, but the understanding was in the latter part of [Sen. Vicente “Tito” Sotto III’s] term as Senate president of the 20th Congress … we will elect the first woman Senate president in the history of Congress,” Zubiri said in an Inquirer.net report.

Sotto revealed in an interview earlier that day that it was Zubiri who proposed the idea of Legarda taking over in the final months of Sotto’s term.

The Senate leader disclosed that he and his allies had attempted to “thwart” his position, saying some members of the minority opted to push for Legarda’s installation. Despite this, 15 senators still supported Sotto.

Moreover, Zubiri made it clear that the plan was not under a “term-sharing” scheme in contrast to what Sotto had initially described.

“We have an agreement that there will be a change in leadership within the majority members, if we still have the support of all the majority members,” Zubiri explained.

He added that Legarda knew about the plan as she was present during the lounge meeting where the idea was raised, alongside Senators Panfilo Lacson, JV Ejercito, Sherwin Gatchalian, Francis Pangilinan, Risa Hontiveros, and Bam Aquino.

Legarda later asked him if the agreement was just a joke.

“And I said, I don’t think it’s a joke. I think we mean it and I think the members of the majority who were there did not object. There was no objectable language, no resistance,” according to Zubiri.

Zubiri mentioned to Legarda that the Senate president was “seriously looking into that possibility” and congratulated her in hopes as the potential candidate for the first female Senate president of the Philippines.

The potential election of Legarda as Senate President is slated to coincide when the chamber moves to the new facility in Taguig by year-end of 2027.(Rocelle S. Caparro, BiPSU Comm Intern)