| President of the Senate of the Philippines | |
|---|---|
| Pangulo ng Senado ng Pilipinas | |
 Flag of the Senate President | |
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| Senate of the Philippines | |
| Style |
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| Member of | Senate of the Philippines National Security Council Commission on Appointments |
| Seat | GSIS Building,Pasay |
| Appointer | Senate |
| Term length | At the Senate's pleasure; elected at the beginning of the new Congress by a majority of the senators-elect, and upon a vacancy during a Congress. |
| Inaugural holder | Manuel L. Quezon |
| Formation | October 16, 1916; 109 years ago (1916-10-16) |
| Succession | Second |
| Deputy | President pro tempore of the Senate |
| Salary | Vary from ₱325,807 to ₱374,678 monthly[1] |
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 Philippines portal |
President of the Senate of the Philippines (Filipino:Pangulo ng Senado ng Pilipinas),[2] commonly referred to asSenate President, is the title of the presiding officer and the highest-ranking official of theSenate of the Philippines, and third highest and most powerful official in the government of the Philippines. They are elected by the entire body to be their leader. The Senate president is second in theline of succession to the presidency, behind only thevice president and ahead of thespeaker of the House of Representatives.[3]
The incumbent Senate president isTito Sotto of theNationalist People's Coalition.[4]
The Senate president is elected by the majority of the members of the Senate from among themselves.[5] Since there are 24 senators, 13 votes are needed to win the Senate presidency, including any vacant seats or senators not attending the session. Although Senate presidents are elected at the start of each Congress, there had been numerous instances of Senate coups in which a sitting Senate president is unseated in the middle of session.[6][7] Term-sharing agreements among senators who are both eyeing the position of the Senate president also played a role in changing the leadership of the Senate, but in a smooth manner, through thepeaceful transition of power. Three known instances were in 1999, 2006, and 2018.[8][9]
Unlike most Senate presidents that are the symbolic presiding officers of the upper house, the Senate president of the Philippines wields considerate power by influencing the legislative agenda and has the ability to vote not just in order to break ties, although the Senate president is traditionally the last senator to vote. A tied vote, therefore, means that the motion is lost, and that the Senate president cannotcast a tie-breaking vote since that would mean that the presiding officer would have had voted twice.
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The position was established upon the inauguration of the Senate of the Philippines in 1916, replacing thePhilippine Commission as the upper house of thePhilippine Legislature. The first Senate president,Manuel L. Quezon, was elected on October 16, 1916 by unanimous acclamation.[10][11] He served until 1935 when he was sworn in as the first president of theCommonwealth of the Philippines.
The next officeholder wasManuel Roxas, who served from after the bicameralCongress was restored in 1945 until his election as president the following year.[12] Control of the Senate actively shifted betweenNacionalistas andLiberals from then until 1972 under atwo-party system, resulting in various presiding officers from both parties in a single Congress.
The first known ouster of a president of the Senate of the Philippines occurred in 1949, whenLiberal Party senators supporting presidentElpidio Quirino’s bid for reelection joined forces with senators from theNacionalista Party to unseatJosé Avelino, a fellow Liberal, as Senate president. The move stemmed from the rivalry between Quirino and Avelino over who would become the party’s standard-bearer in the upcomingpresidential election.[13] Quirino and Avelino ultimately ran for the presidency under separate Liberal Party factions, with Quirino defeating Avelino by receiving more than 50% of the votes.[14]Mariano Jesús Cuenco was elected to replace Avelino and retained the position despite Avelino’s subsequent attempt to reclaim the Senate presidency during theSecond Congress.[15]
This Congress also saw the greatest number of changes in the Senate presidency.Quintín Paredes succeeded Cuenco in March 1952, but was replaced by Nacionalista senatorCamilo Osías in mid-April. Osías was later unseated byEulogio Rodriguez, who served as Senate president for a year before Osías regained the position in April 1953. In May 1953, Liberal senatorJose Zulueta was elected Senate president, serving until Rodriguez was reelected to the position in November of the same year.[16] Rodriguez went on to serve as Senate president for ten consecutive years.[17]
His successor,Ferdinand Marcos, was the only pre-martial law Senate president who switched parties in the middle of his tenure, when he left the Liberal Party after failing to gain its nomination as their presidential candidate for the1965 elections and ran under the Nacionalista ticket.[18]
Gil Puyat served as the last president of the Senate before his and other senators' terms were cut short after Marcos declared martial law.[19] The bicameral Congress was eventually abolished upon the ratification of the1973 Constitution,[20] providing for a unicameral legislature, which would be later convened as theBatasang Pambansa.
The1987 Constitution restored the Senate and theHouse of Representatives as the two houses of Congress under the presidency ofCorazon Aquino, a year after Marcos was ousted by thePeople Power Revolution.Jovito Salonga, who previously served as senator from 1965 to 1972, was the first president elected by the reestablished Senate in the8th Congress.[21] He was ousted upon the election ofNeptali Gonzales as Senate president, after a rump session was held by only 13 senators, enough to constitute aquorum, while senators supporting Salonga boycotted the session.[22] The ouster was primarily attributed to declining public approval of the Senate’s leadership, as Salonga was one of the candidates in the1992 presidential election, and many senators felt that a presidential candidate should not preside over ajoint session of Congress that would canvass the election returns.[23] Salonga questioned the legality of Gonzales’s election, as the officialmace of the Senate was not present in the session hall when an aide from the Office of theSergeant-at-Arms seized it. A makeshift mace was instead used (a framedseal of the Senate tied byErnesto Maceda to the mace of the1986 Constitutional Commission).[24] For a brief period, the Senate had two presidents sworn into office, until Salonga relinquished his position to Gonzales after the session resumed in January 1992.
Gonzales stepped down on January 18, 1993, after fellow senators fromLaban ng Demokratikong Pilipino and two senators from other rival parties votedEdgardo Angara into the Senate presidency. Angara was reelected when the10th Congress first convened, only to be replaced by Gonzales in August 1995. Gonzales resigned the presidency of the chamber for a second time on October 10, 1996 after a coup staged by 16 senators.Ernesto Maceda of theNationalist People's Coalition was installed in his place and served until January 1998.[25] Neptali Gonzales then assumed the Senate presidency for a final, third time, serving until the end of his senatorial term on June 30 of the same year.
Marcelo Fernan was elected overFrancisco Tatad on July 27, 1998, and served until his resignation on June 28, 1999 due to failing health; he died two weeks later.[26]President pro temporeBlas Ople acted as presiding officer until he was formally elected Senate president on July 26, 1999.
Ople resigned the Senate presidency on July 12, 2000, honoring a term-sharing deal withFranklin Drilon,[8] who succeeded him, with the former assuming the post ofpresident pro tempore. Drilon was then replaced byAquilino Pimentel Jr. on November 14, 2000, after 13 senators voted Drilon out following his decision to break away from theLapian ng Masang Pilipino, the ruling coalition led by presidentJoseph Estrada, whom he called on to resign, to join the opposition supporting then–vice presidentGloria Macapagal Arroyo in light of Estrada being impeached by the House of Representatives.[27] Pimentel himself resigned at the height of the controversialtrial of Estrada when 11 out of the 21 senators present voted not to open the second envelope containing crucial evidence that could prove acts of corruption committed by the president.[28]
The Senate had its first president from the Nacionalista Party since 1972, withManny Villar assuming the position on July 24, 2006 after agreeing to a term-sharing arrangement with Drilon two years earlier.[29]Juan Ponce Enrile was unanimously elected to replace Villar on November 17, 2008,[30] serving until his resignation in 2013 following criticisms of mishandling Senate funds, particularly the disparity in the distribution of his so-called "cash gifts," with 18 senators receiving ₱1.6 million each and six receiving only ₱250,000 each.[31]
Franklin Drilon served a third term as chief of the Senate during the16th Congress.[32]Koko Pimentel, a member of the ruling partyPDP–Laban, was elected in 2016[33] and remained Senate president until May 21, 2018, when he resigned in favor of, and nominated,Tito Sotto as his successor.[9] Sotto, who was term-limited, was reelected in 2019 and led the Senate throughout theCOVID-19 pandemic until 2022.[34]
Juan Miguel Zubiri was elected on July 25, 2022, at the start of the19th Congress.[35] He resigned the Senate presidency in May 2024 following criticisms from both supporters of presidentBongbong Marcos and former presidentRodrigo Duterte over investigations conducted by theSenate Committee on Public Order and Dangerous Drugs linking alleged leaked documents of thePhilippine Drug Enforcement Agency to Marcos for illegal drug use, and due to his opposition to moves calling forcharter change throughpeople's initiative.[36][37]
On May 20, 2024,Francis Escudero was elected Senate president, with 15 senators voting in favor, following a resolution signed by 13 senators circulating to oust Zubiri.[38][39] Escudero defended his seat at the opening of the20th Congress againstTito Sotto, winning with 19 votes to remain president of the Senate.[40] However, on September 8, 2025, during a plenary session of the Senate, Sotto replaced Escudero as Senate president, on his second term as such, as the sole nominee for the position.[41]
To date, no woman has been elected president of the Senate. Prior to the opening of the 19th Congress,Cynthia Villar was reported to be vying for the position.[42] However, she later withdrew from the race and supported the bid of Juan Miguel Zubiri for Senate president.[43]
In 2026, speculation arose regarding a possible coup in the Senate leadership.[44] Reports stated that several minority members urgedLoren Legarda to accept the position of Senate president to unseat incumbent Tito Sotto, following alleged dissatisfaction among some senators over an unofficial, partialBlue Ribbon Committee report recommending the filing of charges against SenatorsJoel Villanueva,Jinggoy Estrada, and Francis Escudero regarding their involvement in thescandals on anomalous flood control projects.[45]
According to Sotto, an attempt to install Legarda as Senate president was averted by the majority bloc on February 4, 2026.[46] He also confirmed that no term-sharing arrangements were in place, and that there have been discussions within the majority regarding the possible election of Legarda as the first female president of the Senate before the end of her term in 2028, following deliberations on the 2027 national budget.[47]
According to the Rule III, Section 3 of the Rules of the Senate, the Senate president has the following powers and duties:[5]
The Senate president is also theex officio chairman of theCommission on Appointments, a constitutional body within the Congress that has the sole power to confirm all appointments made by thepresident of the Philippines. Under Section 3 of Chapter II of the Rules of the Commission on Appointments, the powers and duties of the Senate president as itsex officio chairman are as follows:[48]
The Senate president also supervises the committees and attended its hearings and meetings if necessary and such committee reports are being submitted to their office.
Injoint sessions of Congress, the Senate president presides on behalf of the upper chamber, such as duringState of the Nation Addresses, where they traditionally sit to the left of the president on the rostrum.
The Senate president does not have an official residence inMetro Manila where the Senate is holding its sessions but it maintains a residence (cottage) in Romulo Drive,Baguio City.[49]
During the absence of the Senate president, the rules of the chamber provide that thepresident pro tempore presides over Senate sessions as part of discharging his duties.[50] However, on five separate occasions in which the Senate president was absent for an extended period (such as during official travel abroad) or had resigned, the Senate designated acting presiding officers to conduct its legislative business.
Since 1930, five senators, including four who were serving as the incumbent president pro tempore,[a] have acted as president of the Senate:
According to Article XI, Section 3, Paragraph 6 of the1987 Constitution, the Senate has the sole power to try and decide all cases ofimpeachment.[57] It provides that when thepresident of the Philippines, after being impeached by theHouse of Representatives, is on trial and the articles of impeachment have been transmitted to the Senate, thechief justice of theSupreme Court shall preside over the Senate convened as an impeachment court. If an impeachable officer other than the president is on trial, the president of the Senate serves as the presiding officer and casts the last vote on the judgment in accordance with the Senate Rules of Procedure in Impeachment Trials.[58]
Chief justiceHilario Davide Jr. presided over the trial of presidentJoseph Estrada from December 7, 2000,[59] until January 16, 2001, when several senators voted not to open an envelope containing a letter purportedly proving Estrada's guilt on the charges against him. During the trial of chief justiceRenato Corona in 2012,Juan Ponce Enrile served as the presiding officer of the impeachment court, becoming the first president of the Senate to serve in such capacity.[60]
After lengthy debates on the constitutionality of the articles of impeachment filed by the House of Representatives against vice presidentSara Duterte, Senate president Francis Escudero was sworn in as presiding officer of the Senate impeachment court on June 9, 2025.[61] However, this occurred prior to a formal trial, as a majority of senators in the19th Congress voted the following day to remand the articles to the House, effectively halting the proceedings.[62] The Supreme Court later unanimously nullified the complaint against Duterte for violating the “one-year bar rule” in the Constitution regarding the filing of cases against impeachable officers.[63] The Senate subsequently adopted a resolution clarifying that the case was not being closed but merely set aside pending the Court’s resolution of the motion for reconsideration filed by the House.[64] A trial in the Senate would only proceed if the Court reverses its decision, directs the Senate to conduct one, and the chamber votes to retrieve the case from the archives and act upon it.[65]
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