First word
“GROTESQUE” is a mild word to describe what the Philippine Senate became after Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano installed himself as Senate president on May 11 via coup and a promised division of the spoils. Dame Agatha Christie, the great mystery novelist for all her fertile and vivid imagination, probably could not have invented the farce-melodrama that is the Philippine Senate today.
Alan Peter portrayed himself as “the ambassador of Jesus Christ” at the center of the drama. Sen. Pia Cayetano is the new chairman of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee which is poised to cover up the looting by senators of the flood control fund and who drew attention to herself by crying before the TV cameras.
The siblings conceived the scheme to resurrect the absentee senator, Ronald Dela Rosa, from his hideaway to cast a vote to depose Sen. Vicente Sotto III from the Senate leadership.
After years of persistent and fruitless plotting, Alan Peter finally succeeded when he got vote No.13 from Sen. Loren Legarda, who agreed to turn against the Sotto majority in exchange for the post of Senate president pro tempore. Legarda is giddy from the fantasy that she could be elevated some day as the first female Senate president in national history.
When Alan Peter broke the news of the May 11 coup to a stunned nation, public reaction was electric and mostly negative. Justifying the leadership change as just a matter of numbers was not enough to dispel the furor. Many demanded Alan Peter’s resignation before he could take over as Senate president.
What sharpened opinion all around was the impending impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte in the Senate impeachment court which would then be directed by a new Senate leadership.
Some wanted the trial to be held soonest and proceed at all cost to bring closure to the protracted impeachment debate. Others were confident that a fair trial would lead to the abortion of the trial or to certain acquittal of the vice president.
But there were more complications along the way and nothing was more worrisome than the prospective arrest and transshipment to The Hague of Senator Dela Rosa on an International Criminal Court warrant, where he was envisioned to join his former boss and former president Rodrigo Duterte in standing trial for alleged crimes against humanity during the ill-fated drug war of the Duterte administration.
What happened turned out to be a new plot line of incredible complexity and peril when the government decided to serve the warrant on Dela Rosa. He sought sanctuary in the Senate when the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) tried to arrest him in the Senate building. Shots rang out. That threw the chamber into panic and confusion. The Senate sergeant-at-arms, a Philippine Military Academy classmate of Dela Rosa, fired off some warning shots to prevent the NBI from taking away the senator. Gunfight and violence did not take place between the Senate security forces and the police authorities. But it caused panic and confusion with the senators in the session hall and Senate employees.
De la Rosa returned to the Senate in order to vote Alan Peter Cayetano to the Senate presidency.
Absurdly, it was the new Senate chief Alan Peter Cayetano, who made the declaration that the Senate was under attack. This, however, was not true. The NBI did not force their way into the chamber. What set off the turmoil were the waning shots fired by the Senate sergeant-at-arms. Nerves were frayed by the gun fire, but much of the feared violence was more imaginary than real.
Senators Risa Hontiveros and Pia Cayetano moaned needlessly over their respective misunderstanding of the situation.
Senator Hontiveros, in her privilege speech, urged the Senate to actively deal with the May 13 chaos instead of just leaving the investigation in the hands of other government agencies like the Department of Justice.
Hontiveros said that the Senate could not act as if nothing had happened.
Pia takes offense
Pia Cayetano then took the floor, offended by a remark by Hontiveros.
“Siguro para sa inyong mga wala dito, pero para sa amin na nandito, napakaraming nangyari (Maybe for those of you who were not here, but for us who were, so many things happened),” she said.
That the two lady senators differed emotionally on events in the Senate since Alan Peter’s takeover is a reflection of how bizarre the Senate is today.
The senators are ill at ease. The actions and reactions in the Senate last week testify to a legislative chamber that was unhinged and far from ready for serious deliberations and decision-making.
Skepticism about the new Senate leadership arise principally from public distrust of Alan Peter Cayetano because wherever this politician has risen as a top official, outlandish things have usually happened.
In the House of Representatives, he incredibly introduced the idea of term-sharing the position of House speaker.
Now as Senate president, there is no telling where he will lead the chamber next. It is not reassuring for the nation to hear him talk of himself as the ambassador of Jesus Christ.
No one will be surprised if someday, in another turn of the wheel, there will be another new Senate president, who may yet turn out to be a woman.
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