Bam Aquino

Romualdez attended today's proceedings via videoconference from the New Quezon City Jail Infirmary in Payatas.

The hypothetical tandem of Vice President Sara Duterte and Senator Robin Hood Padilla still leads the tandem of former Vice President and current Naga City Mayor Lenny Robredo and Senator Bam Aquino.

That's according to the latest survey by Okta Research.

Duterte and Padilla lead by 12 percentage points over Robredo and Aquino.

The defense team of Vice President Sara Duterte signaled that it may bring to the Supreme Court the issue of the voting threshold in her impeachment trial after the Senate Impeachment Court voted to adjust the number of votes required to convict her.

The development followed Senator Judge Bam Aquino's question to both the defense and prosecution on whether they would seek Supreme Court intervention if the Impeachment Court's ruling on the required voting threshold did not favor their respective sides.

Defense counsel Michael POA said the possibility of elevating the matter to the Supreme Court remained open.

"Definitely, there's a possibility that we will be raising this to the Supreme Court," POA said.

Can that partly explain why it's the smallest faction of the three? There's no clear center of gravity or identification? I think you're right.

Just to answer the question, pro-Duterte, the question is, do you support the Dutertes? Pro-Marcos, the question is, do you support the Marcoses? When we ask if they support the opposition, we have to name Lenny Robredo, Senator Bam Aquino, Senator Isa Ontiveros, the different polar leaders of the broad opposition.

So it might also be your right to say, This is a bit confusing.

There are a lot of choices.

It's a situation where the old is dying but the new is yet to be born.

What do I mean by that? The legacy rules, legacy institutions, legacy communities as well, There are challenges, crises, crumbling, but we still haven't figured out what should replace it.

So in that manner, imagine Senator Bam Aquino doing a live show.

What would his own supporters say? It's so cheap! Why would he do a Facebook live? But that's how it takes to be present in the public conversations now.

Following these considerations, he grouped the senator-judges into categories.

Hard Conviction, 7, Risa Ontiveros, Bam Aquino, Francis Kiko Pangilion, Vicente Tito Sato III, Ponfilo Pinglikson, and brothers Erwin and Rafi Tulfo.

Soft Conviction, 4, Lito Lapid, Subiri, J. V.

A. Hercito, Sherwin Gate Chalian, hard acquittal, 9, siblings Alan Peter and Pia Cayetano, Emy Marcos, Bong Go, Robin Padilla, Mark Villar, Estrada, Marcoletta, and De La Rosa, soft acquittal, 1, Camille Villar, and moderate, 3, Loren Legarda, Joel Villanueva, Escudero.

The president also said the Department of Science and Technology's Science Education Institute increased the number of undergraduate scholars from around 45,000 scholars in school year 2022 to 2023 to 48,520 in school year 2025 to 2026.

Sen. Bam Aquino welcomed the enactment of amendments to the country's free college law, particularly provisions providing financial assistance to nursing and allied health sciences students facing costly on-the-job training requirements.

Aquino said R.A. 12,325 would strengthen government support for students who need financial assistance most.

Those amendments to R.A. 10,931, or the Free College Act, are good.

He directed CHED, TESDA, UNIFAST, and other concerned agencies to complete the implementing rules and regulations and ensure the smooth implementation of the amended law.

Senator Paolo Bam Aquino IV urged the Bureau of Internal Revenue to remove the 12% value-added tax on entire electricity bills instead of limiting the exemption to system loss charges.

Aquino said removing VAT only on system loss would reduce electricity bills by just around 0.5% to 0.8%.

In comparison, removing VAT from the entire bill could cut costs by an estimated 8% to 10%, giving households using about 200 kilowatt hours a month savings of around 237 pesos to 296 pesos.