SEN. Minority Leader Vicente Sotto III said the minority bloc would seek the Supreme Court’s intervention if the majority succeeds in changing the Senate rules to allow electronic voting.
Senators in the minority bloc walked out of a contentious session on Tuesday night to express their disgust over the majority’s move to rush the changing of rules without exhaustive deliberation.
The walkout also enabled Sotto to seek an adjournment, citing the lack of a quorum, a move that staved off Senate President Alan Peter Cayetano’s move to force a vote in plenary.
“If we are not able to stop it (the change of rules),” said Sotto in a text message on Wednesday when asked if the minority intends to raise the issue before the Supreme Court.
“Rules should be followed, not changed for personal reasons,” Sotto said in Filipino and English. “Our rules say a change of rules must undergo a day rule,and the rules committee must report out. Why is it that [Sen. Rodante] Marcoleta insists on what is wrong?”
Sotto pointed out that the rules committee had not been constituted after the leadership change on May 11, during which he was replaced by Cayetano as Senate president.
“There is no [rules committee] chairman. [Sen.] Joel [Villanueva] was [in] acting capacity only. Why will they insist [on changing] the rules when it is obviously just to favor [Senator] Bato and whoever will be charged. That is not our fault,” Sotto added, referring to Sen. Ronald Dela Rosa, who is in hiding after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant against him for his role in the Duterte administration’s bloody war on drugs.
In a joint statement on Tuesday night, the minority bloc said, “We have always welcomed healthy discussions on the floor, but this should mean allowing all members to be heard, not forcing the chamber to move at the speed preferred by the majority.”
“At the time the motion was taken up, there was no duly constituted Committee on Rules and there was not even an elected majority leader who could properly guide a rules amendment through the regular process,” the bloc said.
“How could there have been any action or discussion before the Committee on Rules when no Committee on Rules has been organized to date?” they asked.
“With due respect, the answer that no Senate rule had been violated does not settle the matter, because the rules cannot be treated as a matter of convenience when the very process for amending them is under serious question,” they said.
The minority added, “The public deserves to hear it debated openly. If the proposal is truly defensible, then let it pass through the proper route. We owe it to the people who voted for us to do our mandate. This is why we want more time to discuss this further.”
Sen. Panfilo Lacson said that by staging a walkout on Tuesday evening, the Senate’s “Solid Bloc 11” minority bloc showed that retreat can mean victory, especially when the rules are on its side.
The group walked out of the plenary to object to the majority bloc’s move “to rush” amending the Senate rules to allow voting through videoconferencing.
The minority senators questioned the majority bloc’s move to tackle and vote in plenary on Marcoleta’s motion allowing online participation in Senate proceedings.
“Senate minority walkout: we demonstrated how to score a victory by retreating. They may have superior numbers, but we have the rules on our side,” Lacson wrote on X on Wednesday.
The minority is composed of Senators Sotto, Bam Aquino, JV Ejercito, Sherwin Gatchalian, Risa Hontiveros, Lacson, Lito Lapid, Francis Pangilinan, Erwin Tulfo, Raffy Tulfo and Juan Miguel Zubiri.
“In a condescending tone, a colleague, who is a lawyer, took issue with Sen[ator] Hontiveros’ lack of ‘legal background.’ I have a simple message — it’s the rules stupid,” Lacson said in a separate X post.
He was referring to Sen. Rodante Marcoleta, who belittled Hontiveros’ lack of legal training. “When they in the majority play dirty, we in the minority will play it smart,” he said.
He added that legal training was not relevant to a discussion on the Senate rules.
No valid reason
Zubiri on Wednesday said the rules and time-honored tradition of the Senate are that the senators should be present on the floor to conduct business, especially when it comes to voting, regardless of technology available.
In a statement on Wednesday, the senator said, “I’m being consistent with my stand on teleconferencing.”
Zubiri said when he was the Senate president, he turned down the request of then-senator Bong Revilla to participate in the Senate proceedings through teleconferencing due to a foot injury from an accident. He showed up in the Senate in crutches.
“And because of that, many of my colleagues got angry with me and used that as one of the reasons why I was removed from my position,” he said in Filipino.
“In fact, [the late] Sen. Miriam [Santiago] did not ask for exemption when she got cancer and just filed a medical leave as she respected the rules of the Senate,” Zubiri said.
He said if the minority accepts the majority’s motion, no senator will be physically present on the floor.
“And we can all work from home,” Zubiri added. “It will be a mockery of the Senate, and I don’t know of any other major democratic country that allows a work-from-home setup, especially during voting,” he said.
Zubiri said the minority will only allow such a setup during a “pandemic or war,” which, he said, is covered by the Senate rules. “That is why I’m against the majority plan,” he said.
‘It must be condemned’
Former Senate president Franklin Drilon said the “rude” attempt of the majority bloc to railroad changes in the Senate rules is tied to the coming impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte.
The former senator warned against the “tyranny of the majority” after the Senate majority bloc tried to ram through amendments allowing senators to vote remotely, a move that would allow Dela Rosa to vote even as he is in hiding.
Drilon said Sen. Erwin Tulfo is correct in calling “a spade a spade” when he pointed out that the amendment is meant to accommodate senators who may soon face detention over alleged plunder cases.
“This is ugly. I have never seen this kind of bastusan (rudeness) in the history of the Senate,” Drilon said in a statement on Wednesday.
“This is malicious and grave abuse of discretion I have never seen in the history of the Senate. It must be condemned,” he said.
Drilon said the move is directly connected to the impending impeachment trial of Duterte and threatens the credibility and independence of the Senate.
The amendment could affect crucial rulings during the impeachment proceedings if senators facing detention or hiding from arrest are still allowed to vote remotely.
The opposition-led Akbayan Party-list on Wednesday condemned the attempt to railroad amendments to Senate rules, which party president Rafaela David said was a “desperate attempt” by Cayetano to cling to the Senate presidency.
“Let’s call it for what it is: ‘fugitive-and-jail voting’ in the Senate.... This is not about technology or efficiency. It is a desperate maneuver by the power-hungry Cayetano to preserve his increasingly fragile grip on the Senate presidency. Its real purpose is to ensure that allies such as internationally wanted fugitive [Sen.] Ronald Dela Rosa can continue participating in Senate voting, while also preparing for the possibility that members of their own bloc may soon face arrest and imprisonment over plunder and other serious corruption charges,” she said.
David also called Cayetano a hypocrite, because he never pushed for Senate rule amendments when former senator and now Mamamayang Liberal Rep. Leila de Lima was unjustly jailed during the administration of now-detained former president Rodrigo Duterte.
David also called out Sen. Rodante Marcoleta for belittling Sen. Risa Hontiveros, who is a member of Akbayan, for lacking any legal background.
Marcoleta is under a hold departure order by the Sandiganbayan because of a plunder complaint over election campaign contributions totaling P75 million.
“Marcoleta’s attack was unparliamentary, but hardly surprising coming from one of the Dutertes’ most loyal political pitbulls,” David said.
“He thinks highly of himself as a lawyer, yet failed to declare his campaign donations and even stupidly admitted it on national television. Because of his ‘legal expertise,’ he now faces a solid plunder case,” she added.
