Sotto leads Senate as it resumes session

May 19, 2021 06:44 PM

Senate President Vicente “Tito” Sotto III continues to lead the Senate as Congress resumes session today (May 17).

Senate President Vicente “Tito” Sotto III announced that priority bills will be tackled by Congress as it resumes session today, since it only has less than three weeks to approve measures in the plenary before the scheduled sine die adjournment.

The priority measures to be undertaken by Congress include the creation of a department for overseas Filipinos, the Retail Trade Act, and the Public Service Act.

To ensure that the Senate can accomplish its tasks within the given time, Sotto proposed to have more session days, including Thursdays, to have 12 days instead of nine. Currently, the Senate only holds plenary sessions from Monday to Wednesday. 

Sotto has had nearly 25 years of experience as a public servant, most of which, spent in the upper house. A likely candidate for vice president, the present Senate chief's impressive track record includes several notable laws passed in recent years. 

To name a few, the law establishing the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) was crafted by Sotto. He was also the brains behind the absentee voting law (allowing Filipinos abroad to vote), and responsible for filing Bayanihan 1 and 2 to address the COVID pandemic. Likewise, he also spearheaded the passage of the medical scholarship act with a return service program for deserving students who aspire to become doctors. 

Sotto is currently in his fourth term in the Senate. He served consecutive terms from 1992 to 2004, and was re-elected in 2010. 

Before joining Congress, however, Sotto began public service as a vice mayor of Quezon City from 1988 to 1992.