Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano was again caught with his pants down when last week, he attempted to disrupt the agreement he had forged with Marinduque Rep. Lord Allan Velasco — that one where they vowed to honor the term-sharing they have firmed up in front of President Rodrigo Duterte on 22 July 2019.

Even in the week prior, Cayetano claimed a coup d’état against his leadership was being worked out by his rival Velasco. It turned out to be a false claim by Cayetano, who was charged of orchestrating the coup d’état against himself to effectively scrap their agreement and place himself as House Speaker for all three years of his term.

Buhay Rep. Lito Atienza exposed Cayetano’s plan, surprisingly as he is not a known close ally of Velasco. Atienza is a known man of principles. He had fought the dictatorship of his time until he served full terms as mayor of the City of Manila — a time when the country’s capital had experienced a rebirth of sorts.

He is among most senior members of the House of Representatives. And for a grand daddy to call out a young member of the House for going astray is actually chastising Cayetano for being wrong. So wrong for many reasons.

First, there was no clamor for a leadership change. Or to put it clearly, for the Taguig-Pateros Representative to continue on with the Speakership beyond the 15 months he had agreed to serve as part of his agreement with Velasco, who is to serve the last 21 months of their deal, and Leyte Rep. Martin Romualdez, the third erstwhile candidate for the post who agreed to serve as Majority Leader for three years.

Second, Cayetano was caught lying again when he accused Velasco of orchestrating a “coup.” There was none, and Velasco had vowed to honor their “gentleman’s agreement,” only that one of them is not a gentleman, if we are to be blunt about it.

Third, since there was no “coup,” Cayetano only exposed having some of his “coup pals” to work for his speakership extension.

Fourth, but not lastly, Cayetano once again flashed his Duterte card when he tried to project having the President’s support in his dream of term extension, and maybe — as others say — his dream of the presidency, which had long slipped his hands when he lost his vice-presidential run in 2016.

This was not the first time Cayetano had played the Duterte card, though.

Soon after that 2016 debacle — a big one as he placed a very poor third to Leni Robredo and Bongbong Marcos, with not even six million votes to his name — Cayetano had attempted to snatch the Senate presidency from Koko Pimentel by claiming the President’s support.

Cayetano had claimed all he wanted was a short stint as Senate President, before he joined the Cabinet on what he claimed was Mr. Duterte’s insistence that he join his official family.

He had also claimed to have the numbers that would have forced Pimentel to withdraw. But Koko knew better. Cayetano’s claims were all lies.

A year after receiving the double whammy, Cayetano got himself appointed as Foreign Affairs Secretary. In his short stint at the DFA, Cayetano made sure he was to get P6.5 billion in government funds for the 30th Southeast Asian Games, in which he got himself named as the chief organizer following a very controversial process that saw the formation of the Philippine SEA Games Organizing Committee (Phisgoc) and the Phisgoc Foundation.

What made them even more anomalous were the fact that Cayetano led both the Phisgoc and the Phisgoc Foundation, which was supposed to receive the money Cayetano had lodged with his own DFA, himself.

Confused? Well, government was also quite disoriented with that setup.

The President had initially sensed there was corruption in there somewhere that he ordered the money released to the Philippines Sports Commission (PSC), which released the SEA Games fund upon request from the Philippine Olympic Committee (POC, which was supposed to organize the SEA Games before Cayetano’s group hijacked the event), and back to the Phisgoc or the Phisgoc Foundation, which spent it.

Still confused? Well, wait for the Senate to start its probe on the matter. It’s where more exposures will be made to surprise us all.

Because this time, Cayetano’s Duterte card is found a dud. It’s not working.