Crucial developments, one after the other, have been fast taking shape as the first two years of the present leadership come full circle. As soon as the President delivers his next State of the Nation Address for the third regular session of both the Senate and the House of Representatives, the newly installed Senate President will chart the direction of the legislative thrust.

The ouster of Sen. Juan Miguel Zubiri, which he himself called his “demise,” from the Senate presidency by Sen. Francis Escudero, who admitted having “masterminded” the Senate coup (euphemism for power grab), must have caught the public-at-large in disbelief. Ideally, the leadership of the Senate ought to be fairly stable and free of all forces that aim to undermine it from within and without.

Zubiri’s exit gave birth to a bloc called the “Magic 7” composed of the senators who did not sign up for the new occupant. It seems interesting that six of those 15 who voted to oust Zubiri in favor of Escudero are from the movie or showbiz world. Since the President’s sister sided with the new Senate president, this could likely be an indication that “outside forces” were behind it, if not the power from above.

Good thing there is no parallel move of a leadership switch obtaining in the House of Representatives. However, if one gives the valedictory speech of Zubiri serious thought, whatever misgivings the Senate may have demonstrated inconsistent with the desires of the “powers-that-be,” the lower chamber is least expected to follow suit.

Still, a sudden and uncharacteristic change of leadership in the Senate ought to be a bad precedent, especially where it is simply occasioned by a colleague or a dominant group wanting to cause such leave. It would have been more respectable if pressure and forces outside the Senate militated against who sat as the Senate head, except that was not so.

Speaking of “power from above,” a PA (public administration) cliché, what indications, if any, were obtaining in the untimely expulsion of the chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines Western Command, Vice Admiral Alberto Carlos? Regardless of which version of the conflicting ideological narratives one may believe, his unceremonious relief was enough proof a conversation between officers from opposite geopolitical camps in the West Philippine Sea controversy took place.

Unfortunately, because of what the admiral called a “casual and informal conversation,” a probe was initiated by the Senate on whether or not the recorded conversation was violative of the country’s wiretapping law and to what extent it could dissolve whatever diplomatic immunities a Chinese embassy official or diplomat enjoys.

In the meantime, an “all-of-government approach” is being launched simply to help a woman senator connect the dots in her grand theory of qualifying the beleaguered Bamban mayor, Alice Guo, as a “spy” planted by China. At no point yet has it become clear that their somewhat surgical or forensic work has yielded any indubitable proof.

While at this rather never-ending tale of “who are you” amid a larger universe of mayors, legislative district and party-list representatives, provincial boards, and the rest of elective officials below the local chief executive, there emerged a dismal “state of chaos” inflicting injury in governmental and governance realms. No less than the President should call for a moratorium on this whole bureaucratic rigmarole before it damages our collective psyche.

When nearly all agencies of government are summoned to appear before the Guo hearing based on whatever else any senator could think of that could possibly lend credence to the Hontiveros theory of a “China-planted spy,” let us hope it has legs to stand on lest it become a mere media blitz or “cancel culture.”

Would there be light from the bureaucratic cracks created by this “political circle jerk” as dim as when it started?