The new majority in the Senate began the week like a house on fire and they’re still trying to put out the flames. After persuading Bato dela Rosa to come out from under the rock he was hiding and add to the vote ousting Tito Sotto as Senate president, Alan Peter Cayetano has his hands full in a seeming effort to rewrite a script gone sideways.
It’s positively Shakespearean, down to the unease of the head that wears the crown. To think it’s not even a week since the crown was won by a vote of 13-9 (Dela Rosa’s “yes” wasn’t all that critical, as has been pointed out).
The members of the new Senate majority, who are generally fighting the tightening of accountability screws, are under intense scrutiny. The new Senate President has been heard talking of a coup attempt against his leadership, of the “intimidation” of the other camp. What, so soon? It would be laughable but maybe he’s merely exhibiting awareness of the public revulsion at his cabal’s power grab just before the House of Representatives voted 257-25-9 to pass the second impeachment of Vice President Sara Duterte.
That same public revulsion appears to be saying that if something’s afoot yet again in the matter of the Veep’s impeachment trial, which the Senate majority under Francis Escudero managed to scuttle last year, the new majority better think twice.
The long-absent Dela Rosa’s appearance at the Senate, supposedly orchestrated by Alan Peter or Pia Cayetano, or both, was a surprise—a possible demonstration of the new majority’s ability to make things happen. Was the original intent to whisk him back into his lair after the voting? In which case his transporters knew all along where he’d been hiding these past six months, and getting paid besides.
The arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court and Dela Rosa’s subsequent privileging in terms of the Senate’s protective custody took up the chamber’s—that is to say the new majority’s—time and effort. It made the Senate a center of contention, even a scene of a twisted exercise of people power by groups reported to have besieged Tito Sotto alone in his vehicle on Wednesday night, as though he, whom Alan Peter Cayetano had replaced, were a murderer fleeing justice.
It turned out that Rodrigo Duterte’s police chief charged in the ICC as co-perpetrator of crimes against humanity in the “war on drugs” is also a performer. In the course of his brief stay in the Senate’s embrace, he sang and all but danced in calling on the police, his alma mater the Philippine Military Academy (PMA), society at large, even “Sir BBM,” to protect him. An interesting display of what the ex-chief of the national police is made of.
‘Under attack’
The Wednesday-night shooting initiated by Senate Sergeant at Arms Mao Aplasca—incidentally Dela Rosa’s “mistah” at the PMA—marked a first in the chamber’s history and elicited from its new leader a declaration that it was “under attack.” The commentator Ramon Tulfo laughed at this and said the new Senate president was just being dramatic. (The public awaits the results of the investigation of the Office of the Ombudsman, which would include an examination of CCTV footage held by the Senate. Itago niyo—hide the footage—Jinggoy Estrada was heard saying in a classic instance of ambiguity.)
But Dela Rosa has flown the coop, hugely complicating matters. That he did so a few hours after the gunfire that shook the Senate, appeared to confirm intriguing speculation: Was the “chaos” triggered by the shooting a cover for him to decamp? Some people suspect so. And the photo showing the Senate President, Mark and Camille Villar, etc. chilling over food and drinks with Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla late Wednesday night didn’t sit well with those already smelling something fishy. What were the new majority smiling smugly about with Remulla (who had earlier announced a planned 10,000-man “dragnet” to hunt down Dela Rosa)?
Then there was Imee Marcos who, in keeping with her propensity for provocation, said the minority senators had left early that night, insinuating they were in on something.
Dela Rosa supposedly left the Senate in an SUV driven by his friend and ally, Robin Padilla, at 2:30 a.m. Thursday. The ex-action star Padilla is now a person of interest in the case, according to National Bureau of Investigation Director Melvin Matibag.
Reaping the whirlwind
The members of the new majority are now reaping the whirlwind. How would they fare if they were candidates and clean elections were held now?
Alan Peter Cayetano has the crust to constantly invoke the Divine, but among other things a meme in viral stage portrays him with a lengthened nose and the screaming text: “Have you ever known me to lie?”
Padilla, who converted to Islam when he was doing time at the national penitentiary for illegal possession of firearms, has been accused online of giving Muslims a bad name.
It should be particularly stinging for Loren Legarda, now Senate president pro tempore, to see photos online of her portrait being removed from the “Wall of Empowered Women” at Assumption College San Lorenzo, her alma mater. “A place on this wall is an honor reserved for women who continuously embody Assumption’s ideals in action and character, and only those who do so will ever belong there,” the Assumption Student Council (’25–’26 and ’26–’27) said in a statement.
The council called on Legarda “to reflect on the principles she once upheld as a student and as a public figure.” It added: “She is encouraged to clarify her actions, correct her course, and demonstrate renewed commitment to accountability and justice.”
At the University of the Philippines Diliman, the UP Broadcasting Association of which Legarda was a member expressed “deep concern” over her alignment with the new Senate majority.
“These abrupt political realignments expose how easily loyalties within the Philippine government bend in service of political survival, convenience, and elite bargaining,” it said.
Noting Dela Rosa’s reappearance at the Senate and, despite his professed loyalty to Rodrigo Duterte, his call to President Marcos Jr. for protection, the association said: “This spectacle reveals a political system increasingly governed not by democratic accountability or public service but by opportunism, dynastic preservation, and impunity.”
Two contending student political parties at UP Diliman, Samasa and Tugon, urged Alan Peter Cayetano to step down as leader of the chamber that they said he had fashioned into “a stage for political theater, confusion and brinkmanship.”
A watchful public appears to have emerged from the doldrums. The Senate President has announced the convening on Monday of the impeachment court to try Sara Duterte. The new majority should consider itself also in the dock. CS
