DISGRACEFUL is the word that springs to mind when we recall the recent shenanigans at the Senate, starting with the leadership change on May 11.
On that day, the fugitive Sen. Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, who had been absent for six months because he feared he would be arrested for crimes against humanity, suddenly appeared in the chamber to cast the deciding vote to oust then-Senate president Vicente “Tito” Sotto III and install in his place Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano, an ally of the Duterte clan, just as the chamber was preparing to convene as an impeachment court to try Vice President Sara Duterte.
We now know that dela Rosa was directly contacted by Cayetano, who urged him to return to the chamber to cast his vote in a planned coup to unseat Sotto. To evade law enforcement, dela Rosa secretly rode inside Cayetano’s personal vehicle to safely bypass the external perimeter and enter the Senate building.
National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) agents at the building tried to serve the arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court. A chase ensued through the hallways and emergency exits, the closed-circuit television footage of which has been fodder for social media ridicule.
On the Senate floor, the coup plotter surprised his colleagues by announcing that the fugitive senator was in the building and that the minority now had enough votes to effect a leadership change. Escorted and assisted by Cayetano, dela Rosa entered the Senate session hall for the first time in six months and helped install his protector as Senate president.
Cayetano was quick to return the favor, granting dela Rosa “protective custody” to shield him from arrest while he was inside the Senate. Then, upon the fugitive senator’s recommendation, retired police officer Mao Aplasca, dela Rosa’s classmate at the Philippine Military Academy, was appointed Senate sergeant-at-arms.
But the mischief had only just begun.
On May 12, Sen. Robinhood Padilla, a staunch ally of the Duterte bloc, tried to cut off Sen. Francis Pangilinan, who raised a point of order. Pangilinan said floor debates that night on dela Rosa’s “protective custody” should stop since the issue had already been referred to the Committee on Rules, but Padilla would have none of that.
Frustrated by Padilla’s interruption, Pangilinan raised his voice to assert his parliamentary right, firmly projecting across the chamber: “How are we going to discuss other [matters] ...? And for the record, Mr. President, I still have the floor!” The onion-skinned Padilla, unaccustomed to impassioned Senate debates joined by the likes of the late senator Miriam Defensor Santiago, took offense and said he would file an ethics complaint at Pangilinan for “shouting” at him.
Then, on the evening of May 13, Aplasca fired “warning shots” at NBI agents in the adjacent Government Service Insurance System (GSIS) building, near the connecting bridge that links it to the Senate building, causing chaos and panic. In the aftermath of the unprecedented shooting, dela Rosa slipped out of the Senate building at 2:30 a.m. of May 14, aided and abetted by Padilla.
By this time, the Senate under Cayetano’s “leadership” had become a laughingstock. This was aggravated by a privilege speech delivered by another senator of the new majority, Sen. Imee Marcos, in which she played a video intimating — without a shred of truth or proof — that the minority senators planned to support Charter change to keep her brother — with whom she has not spoken to in three years — as president beyond his six-year term. It sparked an immediate backlash from minority and fellow senators, who dismissed it as “propaganda” and “fake news,” ultimately leading Marcos to withdraw the video during the session.
The session on May 26 began with an inane and extended discussion on a bill to grant citizenship to an American basketball player so that he could play for the national team. Precious minutes were squandered in faux-friendly banter, but the knives came out again soon enough, when the new majority senators sought to amend the Senate rules to allow senators to vote remotely — a move that would clearly benefit dela Rosa and his allies. When Cayetano tried to force a vote, the minority senators upended what was clearly a self-serving maneuver by walking out of the session, allowing Sotto to seek an adjournment for lack of a quorum.
It is a temporary victory, of course. A holding action to stall the coming frontal assault on ethical government.
Minority senators speak of restoring the credibility and stature of the Senate, but in the absence of enough men and women of conscience and strong moral fiber in its halls, that ship has sailed. If the new majority’s tenuous hold on power is not broken, this Senate will go down in history as a national disgrace.
