Senate President Alan Cayetano and his allies in the majority bloc staged another boycott on Tuesday, leaving not only their colleagues in the minority, but also crucial bills in limbo.
The “Solid Bloc 11” was present at the session hall, but by past 3 p.m., no one from the majority showed up. Senate President Pro Tempore Loren Legarda, who presided over a hearing earlier in the day, was also a no-show at the plenary.
Without a quorum, minority senators cannot call the session to order.
Minority senators lamented that no advance notice from Cayetano was given, and that they were only informed when they were already at the session hall.
As a result, they accused Cayetano of violating Senate rules for deliberately withholding a quorum.
The development on Tuesday marks the second consecutive day that Ceyetano and allies “boycott” the Senate session.
Cayetano’s defense: Senate not a puppet
Cayetano went live on Facebook at around 3:30 p.m., asserting that their absence was in retalation for the walkout staged by the minority last week.
The ulterior motive, according to the Taguig lawmaker, is to snatch back the Senate presidency from him and make the institution a “puppet” of Malacañang.
“So now that there is no quorum and no session yesterday and today, these are protests, protests against a puppet Senate that they want,” Cayetano stressed in Filipino.
“We need to look at what is happening in the Senate in the broader context. Do we want the Senate to be a tool to ferret out the truth, or a tool to hide the truth?” he added.
Cayetano and allies have since alleged that the minority, led by ousted Senate president Tito Sotto, has been pressuring members of the majority to switch sides, with the supposed guarantee that their respective criminal cases involving the flood control kickback scheme will not progress to courts.
For instance, Cayetano cited the arrest of Senator Jinggoy Estrada inside the Senate complex on Monday on non-bailable plunder charges.
In a short statement delivered live prior to his arrest, Estrada pledged he would not be a turncoat despite internal pressure. He also branded the charges as politically motivated, designed to intimidate those who dissent.
Cayetano accused the minority of sowing discord to execute their plan to control all the panel chairmanships, including the Blue Ribbon Committee, which has been probing the anomalies in the flood control projects.
The minority, he alleged, is exploiting the powerful panel as a political weapon targeting his allies. Conversely, the minority accused the majority of deliberately amending the rules to shield their colleagues from possible arrest.
Aside from Estrada, speculations suggested that Senators Chiz Escudero and Joel Villanueva are next in line to be arrested over their alleged involvement in the kickback scheme.
“[They] don’t want to have a hearing on Blue Ribbon because the whole truth will come out,” he pointed out. “It will be revealed that they abused the Blue Ribbon Committee. They abused the DOJ and the Ombudsman’s investigation.”
Despite the standoff, Cayetano assured that the BRC’s flood control probe will proceed on Thursday as scheduled.
Stalled bills
Due to the two-day boycott of the majority, the approval of several priority measures had been stalled. This includes, among others, the proposed Magna Carta of Barangay Health Workers, amendments to the Indigenous Peoples' Rights Act, and strengthening the Anti-Hospital Detention Act, which aims to permanently end the illegal practice of withholding patients or cadavers for unpaid bills by imposing stiffer fines and penalties.
In a press briefing held shortly after the minority caucus, Senator Migz Zubiri lamented that there was no one to blame for the stalled bills but Cayetano.
His allies also called for the resignation of Cayetano for stirring up division within the chamber, citing recent events that put the Senate in a bad light, including the 13 May gunfire incident triggered by the Senate’s protective custody of Senator Bato dela Rosa, who is evading an ICC warrant.
The boycott also left hanging the confirmation of ad interim appointment of several military generals, and granting Philippine citizenship to Bennie Boatwright III and Matthew James Ramos.
