The Senate currently is embroiled in a fierce political battle of strategies. This august chamber has never been this polarized ever in the history of said institution.
Long ago during the time of Neptali Gonzalez and Edgardo Angara, they kept changing senate presidency but it's all about numbers game. However back then the battle was just about the title of being senate president. But now the battle for senate presidency is not just for the presiding seat, it is about career endings and imprisonment--thats how high the stakes are.
Usually senators would put their swipe at another senator through floor debates but despite the swipings and subtle mudslingings they would still adress their colleagues like "the gentleman from Pangasinan..." never forgetting to be respectful at all times no matter how hard they argue.
So what does our current Senators from 20th congress are going loco over that they tossed aside their collegiality and statesmanship out the window?
In my point of view this all started with the people's initiative. That time the Marcoses and the Dutertes were still good until...
Until the former president Rodrigo Duterte spoke up about BBM's addiction. He straight out said the current president is a user. He made that statement because he got wind that the new administration is pushing for a constitutional amendment.
At first the president and the vice president were still okay but then the former president was shipped to The Hague.
Then VP Sara distanced herself from the administration.
Next the impeachment against the VP was initiated but unfortunately for the current administration on the midterm Senate elections majority of the winning senators were from the Duterte ticket.
What happened next then the president opened a can of worms on his state of the nation address by calling out contractors regarding ghost projects causing the massive floods.
This led to the blue ribbon committee to investigate. It was established that lawmakers and contractors along with DPWH high officials were running a scheme to skim off money from the national budget.
Before it was an open secret there is corruption and some government officials would be indicted for several millions. The Napoles scam was the biggest plunder scandal back then amounting to hundreds of millions but the flood control scandal was in hundreds of billons, could be trillion.
This prompted BBM to make a separate and independent body to investigate the issue but nothing came out of it.
Also around this time the Senate had a change of leadership and seated Senator Sotto as the new Senate President along with Senator Lacson as the Blue Ribbon Committee Chairman.
Along the way the investigation was put on halt when a retired Sgt. Guteza took the witness stand on the Senate floor and stated that he delivered tons of suitcases full of money to certain addresses that allegedly belong to Speaker Romualdez..
The administration focus is now on VP Sara's impeachment, which was derailed due to a technicality, as its chess move. The flood control issue being set aside as Romualdez was named and the Aguado street near the Malacanang Palace as one of the addresses delivered to was dropped on Guteza's testimony.
The Duterte camp however was able to pull a coup on the Senate just as the new impeachment proposal was finally going up the Senate.
The coup was so timed it was like a move that a knight in the guise of Senator Bato double checked the King (BBM) and a rook (Sotto) in one move. Sotto having no choice but to yield the Senate presidency to Senator Cayetano.
However it was not easy to pull, as more pawns where sent to take out the black knight.The NBI, the police, Trillanes. But the damage was done. Bato's sudden emergence, even if he was really arrested, the Senate presidency along with committee chairmanships were now at the hands of the new majority was just a brilliant move.
Admin's next move was to file cases or build up cases en masse to senators belonging to the new majority group, a good counter I would say. Offers of not continuing the case among these senators like Senator Estrada was doled out. Senator Legarda also said she had calls asking her to go back to the majority. Admin just need two senators to get majority. But none budged. The majority stays.
Minority senators then walked out to stifle proceedings and do all they can to stall time until some senators get arrested or go over to their block.
Senator Estrada was given an arrest warrant making the majority numbers now down 11.
Senator Cayetano then led majority senators not to attend session.
This was another brilliant move. This move allowed majority senators to block plenary session and effectively not allow minority senators to pull a possible senate dethronement.
According to SP Alan Peter Cayetano, they did as such to make sure the new Blue Ribbon Committee investigation on flood control can resume. If they went to plenary with 11-11 on the numbers, something might happen and the scheduled blue ribbon committee hearings wll be stalled.
So far that's what I see. I wonder what damage can Senator Pia Cayetano (queen) and Senator Marcoleta (bishop) as chairman and vice chair respectively can do.
What will be admin's counter move? This really feels like one of those games when grandmasters of Karpov and Kasparov levels playing against each other.
Although I get what's happening on the political side of things, the real loser is not which personalities go to jail or won't be elected come next elections, it is the people who are the real losers, especially the tax payers. Trillions was lost.
For the admin, the impeachment of VP Sara is imperative because that will mean she cannot run for president on 2028 or if she can stand the stigma of being impeached is enough for her to lose.
For VP Sara, if she doesn't get impeached, she'll be the next president. All the flood control personalities on the admin side will surely go to jail.
For me and the Filipino people, yet we want accountability but what we really want is the truth on what really happened and put in place a better system to stop corruption in government.
