Senate President Vicente Sotto III on Tuesday, March 8 said it is incumbent upon him to convene the Senate if President Duterte calls for a special session in connection with the runaway fuel prices.
‘’Its part of our work,’’ said Sotto who, along with presidential candidate Senator Panfilo Lacson, has been busy on the campaign trail. Sotto is Lacson’s vice presidential candidate.
There are suggestions that the President should call Congress to a special session to declare a State of Economic Emergency in order to address rising pump fuel prices triggered by the increases in the price of imported crude oil.
‘’If the president calls for a special session of Congress, we must comply,’’ Lacson said.
‘’Whether or not I will support the declaration of a State of Economic eEergency will depend on the proposal to be submitted by Malacañang,’’ he added.
In a related development, Lacson is supporting the recommendation of the economic managers to shift the entire country to Alert Level 1 as well as prepare for the transition from a pandemic to endemic.
‘’Our economy has taken a bad beating from the lockdowns and imposed alert levels over the past two years and needs to recover - especially at this time,’’ he said.
‘’That said, our government authorities must also be prepared for the next pandemic or any variant that might again endanger the health situation in the country,’’ he noted.
‘’As I always say, there is no trade-off between health and economy. We must always be prepared to confront the problems affecting both. We cannot afford a repeat of 2020 when the government was caught unprepared,’’ added the presidential aspirant.