Fourteen Senators signed a committee report on giving President Duterte an Emergency Powers to address the traffic crisis.

Fourteen senators have signed a committee report on a bill permits President Rodrigo Duterte emergency powers to address the traffic crisis in the country.

These are the fourteen Senators that signed the committee report:

1. Senator Loren Legarda

2. Senator Grace Poe

3. Senator Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan

4. Senator Panfilo Lacson

5. Senator Paolo Benigno “Bam” Aquino IV

6. Senator Juan Miguel Zubiri

7. Senator Richard Gordon

8. Senator Joel Villanueva

9. Senator Nancy Binay

10. Senator Sherwin Gatchalian

11. Senator Franklin Drilon

12. Senator Gregorio Honasan

13. Senator Antonio Trillanes IV

14. Senate Majority Leader Vicente “Tito” Sotto III, ex-officio member

Poe is chair of the Senate committee on public services, the lead panel that considered on the measure along with the committee on finance chaired by Legarda, and the committee on constitutional amendments and revision of codes chaired by Drilon.

She said Senate Bill No. 1284 or “An Act Compelling the Government to Address the Transportation and Congestion Crisis through the Grant of Emergency Powers to the President” was a combination of the measures filed by Drilon, Gatchalian and Senators Joseph Victor “JV” Ejercito, and Alan Peter Cayetano.

In her sponsorship speech of the bill, Poe described traffic as not just a Metro Manila “disease” but a “virus engulfing the nation.”

“A long train of bad ideas, bankrupt programs, botched projects, and lack of meaningful foresight has made it an accident waiting to happen—the perfect train wreck upon which the well-being and welfare of the Filipino people is fighting for survival. It is now time to untangle the mess, one that is so grave and great that it needs emergency powers to straighten it out,” she said.