When it resumes sumes session on Jan. l9, the Senate will tackle on the floor the archipelagic baselines bill with or without its sponsor, Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago.

Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile yesterday said he would even sponsor the bill if Santiago, chairman of the committee on foreign relations, could not report for work due to illness.

?I hope she will recover and report for work. If not, then I can sponsor the bill myself,? Enrile said. ?I will relinquish the chair to the President Protempore [Jinggoy Estrada] and take over the sponsorship of the bill.?

Earlier, Enrile said he was thinking of asking another senator to take over the sponsorship of the baselines bill.

Congress is pressed for time to enact a law delineating the archipelagic baselines of the Philippines to meet the May l3 deadline set by the United Nations for countries that are claiming an expanded maritime territory under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.

Based on the timetable set by the government, the Senate should have approved the baselines bill last month. But the continued absence of Santiago has prevented the chamber from taking up the bill in plenary session.

Santiago has been on sick leave since November when she informed the Senate that she had intestinal flu. Her sickness started after returning from a trip to New York to campaign for her candidacy for membership in the International Court of Justice. But she did not get enough votes in the UN General Assembly and Security Council to win an ICJ seat.

Yesterday, a staff member of the senator told Standard Today that she is still sick and undergoing treatment at home.

?She is still suffering from chronic fatigue and she has to limit her movements within the premises of her home,? the staff member said.

Santiago?s health condition has forced her to cancel a scheduled foreign trip during the current recess of Congress.

The foreign relations committee, together with the national defense and finance committees, submitted on Nov. 10 a committee report on Senate Bill 2698 defining the country?s archipelagic baselines.

The report, signed by l6 senators, adopted the recommendation of a technical working group which states that the Kalayaan Island Group and the Scarborough Shoal shall be considered as ?regime of islands? over which the Republic of the Philippines exercises sovereignty.

This differs from the version of the bill already approved on second reading by the House of Representatives, which puts the Kalayaan islands and the Scarborough Shoal within the baselines that enclose the Philippines? territories. Fel V. Maragay