Any change in the two-week-old, controversy-plagued Senate presidency of Alan Peter Cayetano should happen in the last three session days next week, before Congress goes into sine die adjournment on June 6. 

And with Congress out, the Senate leadership becomes even more crucial as the chamber is set to embark on one of its important roles: as an impeachment court to try Vice President Sara Duterte starting July 6.

Senate Minority Leader Vicente Sotto III has acknowledged that June 1-3 are crucial dates for the 11-member bloc. “If there are any changes to be made [in the Senate leadership], it should be from June 1 to 3,” he told CoverStory in a phone interview on Wednesday night.

Congress adjourns on June 6 and convenes again on July 27, when its second regular session starts. The opening of the new session also coincides with President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.’s fifth State of the Nation Address. Congressional sessions are held from Monday to Wednesday only.

Shaky presidency

Cayetano wrested the Senate presidency from Sotto on May 11 on the strength of 13 votes including that of Sen. Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa. The now-fugitive Dela Rosa appeared at the Senate to vote for Cayetano after a six-month absence triggered by the threat of an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Dela Rosa, who once led the national police, fled the Senate’s “protective custody” early on May 14 and is now the subject of a manhunt by Philippine authorities. He is charged as a co-perpetrator of the brutal “war on drugs” of former president Rodrigo Duterte, who is being held at the ICC’s prison facility in the Netherlands awaiting trial on Nov. 30. 

With Dela Rosa on the run, Cayetano’s leadership of the Senate is shaky. Yesterday, Thursday, the Office of the Ombudsman filed plunder and graft charges against Sen. Jinggoy Estrada in relation to the multibillion-peso flood control scam. The charges pave the way for Estrada’s arrest. The crime of plunder is not bailable.

Ombudsman Jesus Crispin Remulla has also said that Sen. Joel Villanueva will be similarly charged within two weeks. The session will have been adjourned at that time.

Both Estrada and Villanueva are members of the majority under Cayetano.  

Sunday meeting

In the face of these developments, Sotto told CoverStory that the minority will likely meet on Sunday to discuss its next moves, as well as the majority’s efforts on Monday to amend the Senate rules to allow remote voting for senators.

On the possibility of the minority regaining the Senate leadership, Sotto said it really depends on their securing 13 votes to replace Cayetano. He said the bloc continues to push for Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian as Senate president, and described the latter as “a better alternative than any of us.”

Asked whether a change in the leadership of the Senate can happen while it is sitting as an impeachment court, Sotto admitted that he is studying the possibility.

“This is the first time we are encountering a situation like that,” he said, noting that so far the Senate has convened as an impeachment court thrice — twice with the Senate president as presiding judge in the trials of then Chief Justice Renato Corona and then Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez, and once with then Chief Justice Hilario Davide serving as presiding judge at then President Joseph Estrada’s trial.

“I still can’t answer you on that question with conviction,” he told CoverStory on the possibility of a Senate leadership change during Vice President Duterte’s impeachment trial.

Sotto said it was the minority’s wish that fair and impartial senator-judges will serve at Duterte’s trial. 

In the event of Senator Estrada’s arrest and with Dela Rosa unlikely to resurface at the Senate, Sotto said the majority and minority blocs will then have 11 members each. He said the senators will then have to work together, and noted that any Senate leadership change should happen next week.

Asked about the event that Villanueva also ends up arrested, further cutting the majority number to 10, Sotto said it will then be the “impartial” senator-judges prevailing in the impeachment court. 

Marcoleta’s motion

But Sotto said it is crucial for the minority senators to block the motion of Sen. Rodante Marcoleta to amend the Senate rules to allow senators to participate in the sessions and vote online.

“I will exhaust all parliamentary strategies possible for us not to go to court,” he said. He was referring to former Senate president Franklin Drilon’s recent statement that the minority can go to the Supreme Court to file a case of grave abuse of discretion against the majority if it succeeds in amending the Senate rules. 

The minority was able to block the majority’s amendment push last Monday by walking out, with Sotto subsequently moving that the session be adjourned for lack of a quorum.

Sotto said he and Sen. Miguel Zubiri had agreed on the minority bloc’s walkout after Cayetano sought a vote on whether the chamber could amend the rules through plenary.

“It’s because they did not allow us to debate on it. Cayetano moved for the division of the house. He wanted us to immediately vote on it,” Sotto said. He said that with nine minority senators departing, he stayed behind so he could request a roll call and then sought the session’s adjournment for lack of quorum.

With 24 senators, a quorum of 13 senators is needed to vote on a motion or measure.

At that time, Sotto said, he counted the number of senators present. He said the majority had 12 senators and the minority had 11. 

“I counted, and [found that] the majority would not have a quorum once the minority left,” Sotto said, adding that this allowed him and Zubiri — whom he described as a veteran senator like himself — to plan their move.

He agreed that Cayetano might not have anticipated the minority’s walkout.

The minority had questioned Marcoleta’s move to raise his motion in plenary when it was initially sent to the Senate committee on rules. 

But as pointed out by minority senators Sotto, Panfilo Lacson, Francis Pangilinan, Risa Hontiveros, and Erwin Tulfo, the Senate committee on rules had yet to be organized because of the recent Senate shakeup.

Cayetano, however, insisted that he could invoke Senate Rule No. 136 that allows a motion to be raised in plenary, prompting the minority senators to counter that this could be done only after a one-day notice. This means that the earliest it can be discussed is on Monday. 

‘Why allow Bato?’

The minority also objected to the possible remote participation and voting of senators, saying that according to the rules, this can be done only in the event of a national emergency or force majeure. Sotto agreed with his bloc that there is no such national emergency to allow the online participation and voting by senators.

Sotto pointed out that the Senate did not allow the remote participation of senators who were detained for various cases, such as Leila de Lima, Jinggoy Estrada, Bong Revilla, and the late Juan Ponce Enrile. 

“So why allow Bato?” he said. “That’s the situation that they are forcing us to agree on. This should not be done.”

How long can the minority bloc hold off the majority’s push for Marcoleta’s motion? 

Sotto said the majority should allow the minority to debate and explain their side. If the majority will push immediately for a vote, he said, then the minority will go to the Supreme Court, as Drilon had proposed.

But they will discuss their options when they meet on Sunday, he added. CS

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