President of the Senate of the Philippines
President of the Senate of the Philippines, commonly referred to as Senate President, is the title of the presiding officer and the highest-ranking official of the Senate 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 the line of succession to the presidency, behind only the vice president and ahead of the speaker of the House of Representatives.
The incumbent Senate president is Tito Sotto of the Nationalist People's Coalition.
Election
The Senate president is elected by the majority of the members of the Senate from among themselves. 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. 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 the peaceful transition of power. Three known instances were in 1999, 2006, and 2018.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 cannot cast a tie-breaking vote since that would mean that the presiding officer would have had voted twice.
History
20th century
The position was established upon the inauguration of the Senate of the Philippines in 1916, replacing the Philippine Commission as the upper house of the Philippine Legislature. The first Senate president, Manuel L. Quezon, was elected on October 16, 1916 by unanimous acclamation. He served until 1935 when he was sworn in as the first president of the Commonwealth of the Philippines.The next officeholder was Manuel Roxas, who served from after the bicameral Congress was restored in 1945 until his election as president the following year. Control of the Senate actively shifted between Nacionalistas and Liberals from then until 1972 under a two-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, when Liberal Party senators supporting president Elpidio Quirino’s bid for reelection joined forces with senators from the Nacionalista Party to unseat José 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 upcoming presidential election. 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. Mariano Jesús Cuenco was elected to replace Avelino and retained the position despite Avelino’s subsequent attempt to reclaim the Senate presidency during the Second Congress.
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 senator Camilo Osías in mid-April. Osías was later unseated by Eulogio Rodriguez, who served as Senate president for a year before Osías regained the position in April 1953. In May 1953, Liberal senator Jose Zulueta was elected Senate president, serving until Rodriguez was reelected to the position in November of the same year. Rodriguez went on to serve as Senate president for ten consecutive years.
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 the 1965 elections and ran under the Nacionalista ticket.
Gil Puyat served as the last president of the Senate before his and other senators' terms were cut short after Marcos declared martial law. The bicameral Congress was eventually abolished upon the ratification of the 1973 Constitution, providing for a unicameral legislature, which would be later convened as the Batasang Pambansa.
The 1987 Constitution restored the Senate and the House of Representatives as the two houses of Congress under the presidency of Corazon Aquino, a year after Marcos was ousted by the People Power Revolution. Jovito Salonga, who previously served as senator from 1965 to 1972, was the first president elected by the reestablished Senate in the 8th Congress. He was ousted upon the election of Neptali Gonzales as Senate president, after a rump session was held by only 13 senators, enough to constitute a quorum, while senators supporting Salonga boycotted the session. The ouster was primarily attributed to declining public approval of the Senate’s leadership, as Salonga was one of the candidates in the 1992 presidential election, and many senators felt that a presidential candidate should not preside over a joint session of Congress that would canvass the election returns. Salonga questioned the legality of Gonzales’s election, as the official mace of the Senate was not present in the session hall when an aide from the Office of the Sergeant-at-Arms seized it. A makeshift mace was instead used. 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 from Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino and two senators from other rival parties voted Edgardo Angara into the Senate presidency. Angara was reelected when the 10th 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 the Nationalist People's Coalition was installed in his place and served until January 1998. 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 over Francisco Tatad on July 27, 1998, and served until his resignation on June 28, 1999 due to failing health; he died two weeks later. President pro tempore Blas Ople acted as presiding officer until he was formally elected Senate president on July 26, 1999.
21st century
Ople resigned the Senate presidency on July 12, 2000, honoring a term-sharing deal with Franklin Drilon, who succeeded him, with the former assuming the post of president pro tempore. Drilon was then replaced by Aquilino Pimentel Jr. on November 14, 2000, after 13 senators voted Drilon out following his decision to break away from the Lapian ng Masang Pilipino, the ruling coalition led by president Joseph Estrada, whom he called on to resign, to join the opposition supporting then–vice president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo in light of Estrada being impeached by the House of Representatives. Pimentel himself resigned at the height of the controversial trial 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.The Senate had its first president from the Nacionalista Party since 1972, with Manny Villar assuming the position on July 24, 2006 after agreeing to a term-sharing arrangement with Drilon two years earlier. Juan Ponce Enrile was unanimously elected to replace Villar on November 17, 2008, 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.
Franklin Drilon served a third term as chief of the Senate during the 16th Congress. Koko Pimentel, a member of the ruling party PDP–Laban, was elected in 2016 and remained Senate president until May 21, 2018, when he resigned in favor of, and nominated, Tito Sotto as his successor. Sotto, who was term-limited, was reelected in 2019 and led the Senate throughout the COVID-19 pandemic until 2022.
Juan Miguel Zubiri was elected on July 25, 2022, at the start of the 19th Congress. He resigned the Senate presidency in May 2024 following criticisms from both supporters of president Bongbong Marcos and former president Rodrigo Duterte over investigations conducted by the Senate Committee on Public Order and Dangerous Drugs linking alleged leaked documents of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency to Marcos for illegal drug use, and due to his opposition to moves calling for charter change through people's initiative.
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. Escudero defended his seat at the opening of the 20th Congress against Tito Sotto, winning with 19 votes to remain president of the Senate. 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.
Powers and duties
According to the Rule III, Section 3 of the Rules of the Senate, the Senate president has the following powers and duties:- To preside over the sessions of the Senate on the days and at the hours designated by it; to call the Senate to order and, if there is a quorum, to order the reading of the Journal of the preceding session and, after the Senate shall have acted upon it, to dispose of the matters appearing in the Order of Business in accordance with the Rules;
- To decide all points of order;
- To sign all measures, memorials, joint and concurrent resolutions; issue warrants, orders of arrest, subpoena and subpoena duces tecum;
- To see to it that all resolutions of the Senate are complied with;
- To have general control over the session hall, the antechambers, corridors and offices of the Senate;
- To maintain order in the session hall, the antechambers, corridors and in the offices of the Senate, and whenever there is disorder, to take appropriate measures to quell it;
- To designate an acting sergeant-at-arms, if the sergeant-at-arms resigns, is replaced or becomes incapacitated;
- To appoint the subordinate personnel of the Senate in conformity with the provisions of the General Appropriations Act;
- To dismiss any employee for cause, which dismissal in the case of permanent and classified employees shall be in conformity with the Civil Service Law; and
- To diminish or increase the number of authorized personnel by consolidating or separating positions or items whenever the General Appropriations Act so authorizes and the total amount of salaries or allocations does not exceed the amount earmarked therein.
- to issue calls for the meetings of the commission;
- to preside at the meetings of the commission;
- to preserve order and decorum during the session and, for that purpose, to take such steps as may be convenient or as the commission may direct;
- to pass upon all questions of order, but from his decision, any member may appeal to the commission; and,
- to execute such decisions, orders, and resolutions as may have been approved by the commission.
In joint sessions of Congress, the Senate president presides on behalf of the upper chamber, such as during State of the Nation Addresses, where they traditionally sit to the left of the president on the rostrum.