SENATE President Vicente “Tito” Sotto said Thursday the instigator of a coup in the upper chamber failed to gain the 13 signatures required to trigger a leadership change.
With the help of his bloc in the majority, Sotto on Wednesday survived a bid by the minority bloc to unseat him and install Sen. Loren Legarda in his place.
“You will always need the 13 signatures. Even if there are only 14 or 15 senators present, you still have to have 13,” Sotto said in Filipino and English on Thursday.
“That’s the rule, that’s the law in the Constitution on how to elect the Senate president,” Sotto said in a radio interview. He did not say which senators instigated the move to replace him.
Hours after the alleged power grab fizzled out, Sotto said a term sharing agreement with Legarda was brought up.
But Legarda declined to confirm Sotto’s pronouncement that she will be installed as the first woman Senate president before the end of the 20th Congress in 2028.
“I have no idea, I did not hear it yet. That’s why I don’t want to comment on something that I have no idea of and I was not informed,” Legarda said in a chance interview on Thursday.
Senate Majority Leader Juan Miguel Zubiri on Wednesday night wrote on X that the Senate majority “remains strong, united and unflinching under Senate President Tito Sotto.” He said the majority group pushed back against rumors and refocused “the conversation on work and moving priority measures that matter to Filipinos.” Sen. Francis Pangilinan said the term sharing issue cropped up while the majority bloc was relaxing at the senators’ lounge during their break.“But nothing has been finalized during the majority caucus. My understanding was it was suggested but not finalized because we were only nine [majority members] present at the lounge [that time],” he said in Filipino and English.
“But I have no problem with that if that happens,” Pangilinan added.
In a radio interview, Sotto shared some details of the majority bloc’s “emergency caucus” on Wednesday right after the Senate passed a resolution in honoring Filipino athletes.
“We agreed to talk as Loren asked for an audience with me. So, we went to the senators’ lounge. Those who wanted to join were welcome,” he said in Filipino.
“But, I was not able to stay long because some members of the minority also wanted to talk to me. So, I went up to my office and one by one or two members of the minority [bloc] approached me,” Sotto said.
“Apparently, some members of the minority have some gripes. So, we just listened to them,” he added.
Sotto said the minority felt that some of their members were being targeted by the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee investigation on the flood control fund scandal.
He said the minority felt slighted when the Foreign Relations Committee chairmanship was removed from Sen. Imee Marcos and was given to Sen. Erwin Tulfo, a majority bloc member.
The minority group was also lukewarm to the proposed Senate resolution condemning the apparent rude behavior of some Chinese Embassy officials toward some legislators.
“We’re planning to adopt the resolution [concerning the] undiplomatic criticism of these Chinese officials on us. We reiterated that we have freedom of expression. But for them, we’re onion-skinned,” Sotto said.