MANILA - Senator-elect Imee Marcos is supposedly "interested" in the chairmanship of the Senate ways and means committee, the leader of the upper chamber of Congress said Wednesday.

The 63-year-old daughter of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos won a Senate seat for the first time in the May polls, enjoying the endorsement of administration-backed regional party, Hugpong ng Pagbabago.

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"I heard it, that Imee Marcos is interested in the ways and means committee," Senate President Tito Sotto told ANC.

The Senate ways and means committee is in charge of "all matters relating to revenue generally; taxes and fees; tariffs; loans and other sources and forms of revenue," according to law.

During the campaign, Marcos sought for the removal of value-added tax in some basic goods and urged the government to add safeguards for farmers in light of the signing of the law that would allow unimpeded rice importation.

However, Marcos herself is facing graft charges after the House of Representatives recommended that she be held accountable for alleged misuse of her province's tobacco excise taxes in July 2018.

The Senate ways and means is currently headed by Sen. Sonny Angara, who won a fresh mandate in the midterm elections.

Angara, author of the tax reform law, will be elected to the finance committee "whether he likes it or not," said Sotto.

Aside from Marcos, first-time senators who were proclaimed this month were former national police chief Ronald "Bato" Dela Rosa, President Rodrigo Duterte's former aide Christopher "Bong" Go, and former adviser Francis Tolentino.

Dela Rosa "is interested in the committee on illegal drugs," currently chaired by Sen. Panfilo Lacson, who " is willing to give it" to the Senate newcomer, Sotto said.

- ANC, May 29, 2019

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