Press Release - Transcript of Senator Pia Cayetano's co-sponsorship speech commending Secretary Sonny Angara

Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President, I filed Senate Resolution 1094, all the accomplishments of Senator Angara are already there, I will not repeat it. We are all very proud of his accomplishments. The older ones here have been his classmates in the Lower House. Many of the bills that our colleague, Senator Angara, sponsored when he was in the House, I co-sponsored when I was in the Senate. And then, a few years later, after his father retired, we worked together on many education bills. Like I said those are all in the resolutions that many of us have filed.

I'd like to take a minute or two, I've asked our colleagues to indulge me, sumingit po ako sa apat sa kanila. Senator Angara will be truly missed. This is not an easy job. Many of us have worked together for 9, 12, some longer, because of the time they've spent in the House. And it is not easy to disagree with your friends. It is not easy to argue with your friends, it is not easy to try to convince your friends of positions that you hold that may be different from theirs.

I can honestly say I did not really encounter much difficulty working with Senator Angara. He is usually quite easy to deal with. But I know when he's firm, and I never tried to bother changing his mind if he was already decided about something. But I have had the pleasure of knowing him since he was two years old. He was a cute little toddler, yeah he was two. Our fathers were colleagues in the law office. And then I never saw him again. So I had this memory of him, two years old, and then suddenly, he is a grown man. Mukha naman intelligent nung naririnig ko sa House, I didn't get a chance to work with him yet at that time, graduate naman sa kilalang university sa Amerika and then graduate ng aming alma mater, isang abogado from UP, so I was looking forward to working with him in the Senate. And I just have to say, he did not disappoint. It's been a pleasure working with Senator Angara.

Usually, we don't get a chance to say to the face of our colleagues that it was a pleasure working with them, because the time that we stand up here to honor them, they are dead. And so we are grateful that Senator Angara is not dead and he is alive