Senate President Alan Peter Cayetano on Wednesday debunked claims that the Senate is causing delays in the priority bills of Malacañang.

In a short Facebook livestream before June 3’s plenary session, Cayetano revealed it was the Palace that had repeatedly failed to push through with meetings of the Legislative-Executive Development Advisory Council (LEDAC) to discuss its supposed priority measures.

“At least twice naming ipinaabot sa Malacañang na ‘pag ready y’ung bills nila, anytime [ready din] kami,” Cayetano said.

“In fact, may LEDAC dapat two weeks ago. Tinawagan pa ako ng head ng LEDAC kung tuloy. Sinabi ko, anytime [I’m ready]. Sila po ang hindi nagtuloy,” he added.

Cayetano said the Palace itself told him that “hindi pa handa y’ung mga bills na ilalabas nila.”

“And assuming they have bills, those will first come out through the [UPLIFT] committee,” he said.

Cayetano made the statement following the Palace’s claims that recent developments in the Senate have allegedly delayed measures related to the Unified Package for Livelihoods, Industry, Food, and Transport (UPLIFT) Committee.

Malacañang created the UPLIFT Committee in March to implement the Executive branch’s response to the oil crisis. This came days after then-Minority Leader Cayetano filed a Senate resolution urging the Executive to craft a national contingency plan and spearheaded the creation of the Senate’s ad hoc panel to tackle the crisis.

The Senate President earlier said the chamber will soon be informing the public of the important Senate-authored bills set to be tackled by its committees.

“In the next few days, we will be announcing to you the hard work that we’re going to do in the different committees to help address inflation, problems in agricultural production, people who have no money for medical treatment, the problems of K to 12, and the livelihood of our fellow Filipinos in the Middle East,” he said yesterday.

Later that day, after Cayetano’s livestream, 12 senators appeared in session and moved to declare all Senate positions vacant in an attempt to oust him as Senate President and regain chairmanships of Senate committees.

However, the move was invalid under Senate Rules as there was no legitimate presiding officer. Cayetano remains the duly elected Senate President.###