Senator Alan Peter Cayetano’s minority bloc has reiterated its plea to the Supreme Court (SC) to nullify the June 3 session that eventually resulted in the change of Senate leadership.
In a 15-page motion dated June 29, the petitioners argued that “the Senate special session on June 17 did not render the petition moot and academic.” The erstwhile majority bloc, headed by Cayetano, asked the high court to declare the June 3 Senate proceedings null and void and to hold that these were undertaken without the constitutionally required quorum.
“If these issues are not resolved at the earliest opportunity before the impeachment trial commences on July 6, 2026, the impact on the institutional integrity and practical workings of the Senate of the Philippines, both as the upper chamber of the Congress of the Philippines and as the impeachment court, is far-reaching,” the group said.
The then-minority group, now headed by Senator Sherwin Gatchalian, broke a three-day legislative deadlock by holding a plenary session on June 3 following the surprise appearance of Senator Chiz Escudero.
With Escudero’s decision to attend the session, a majority group was formed and elected Gatchalian as Senate President Pro Tempore and later as acting Senate President.
During the June 17 session, the required 13-senator quorum was met, leading to the election of Gatchalian as Senate President.
Cayetano and his group claimed that the subsequent election of Gatchalian on June 17 “neither erases nor retroactively cures the constitutional infirmities that have attended the rump session on June 3, 2026.” “Ultimately, this case is not about who controls the Senate. Rather, it is about safeguarding the constitutional order from which all public authority derives and reaffirming to the Filipino people that no branch of government, however powerful or politically situated, is above the Constitution,” the group added.
