Politics, like nature, abhors a vacuum. It also abhors uncertainty, which is why, despite all the noise, drama and constitutional arguments ricocheting across the Senate floor, the outcome of this impasse has already been written and the only remaining question is how long will it take everyone else to acknowledge it.
Sooner rather than later, the Win Gatchalian bloc will find the 13th senator it needs to remove Alan Peter Cayetano from the Senate presidency. Doing so would put to rest any question on Gatchalian’s legitimacy without resorting to the 1949 Avelino ruling. The arithmetic points in that direction, too. But more importantly, so does the politics. And in the Philippines, politics has always defined how history is made.
This is not a battle over parliamentary procedure or the fine print of Senate tradition and rules. It has become a contest of leverage, and every senator knows that votes are rarely changed by eloquence or principle alone. More often, they are moved by pressure, ambition, self-preservation and the quiet realization that one side is gathering momentum while the other is skidding off the road and down a cliff.
For this Contrarian, the coercive power of the State is on full display, as though we’re right smack in the middle of an undeclared martial law. The arrest and jailing of Sen. Jinggoy Estrada has sent a message far beyond the detention cell that now holds him. Whether the charges are fully justified or politically convenient is almost beside the point. The signal is unmistakable and, in political circles, signals are often more important than verdicts.
Taken together with Rodrigo Duterte being shanghaied off to The Hague and the looming surrender by the government of Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa to the International Criminal Court, the lesson is not being delivered only to those already facing legal jeopardy — it is also being received by those hiding skeletons in the closet. Who isn’t, among the characters we are seeing today?
Observe what has happened to Chiz Escudero, who has fended off accusations of receiving campaign donations from a contractor linked to the multibillion-peso flood control scandal.
Chiz continues to insist that he belongs to neither Senate camp, yet by attending the session convened by the Gatchalian bloc — the same session that named Win the new acting Senate President and transferred the Blue Ribbon Committee to Erwin Tulfo — he moved the balance of power perceptibly closer to the tipping point.
One need not accuse him of changing sides; one merely has to observe the practical consequence of what he did to avert a fate akin to Jinggoy’s: rock Cayetano’s boat.
A position paper by several law deans has argued that Cayetano’s 11 cannot ultimately prevail against Gatchalian’s 12. You do not need to be a legal eagle to see the logic. Legislatures may be creatures of law, but they are political bodies first.
Win’s 12, as sure as the sun rises every morning, will soon have a 13th joining them, and most likely a 14th and a 15th. It’s all about saving one’s arse, folks. Dela Rosa was Alan’s 13th, and it came at the expense of Bato nearly being caught. Who’d be Win’s?
Yet the irony is that Cayetano may emerge politically stronger in defeat than he ever was in office. If the Marcos coalition secures control of the chamber, the diminished band Alan heads may inherit something considerably more valuable than committee chairmanships. They may inherit the opposition amid the coming impeachment trial of Sara Duterte.
Going against the odds captures the public imagination and the votes. It is through a process like this that candidates of presidential timber are picked from the forest, kiln dried, and presented as agents of real change. Not talking of Alan, of course. He’s too much of a trapo to be that.
As for Sara’s trial, what is really being contested is the shape of the battlefield for 2028. The Marcos camp would not want done unto it what it has done to the Dutertes. As my journalism professor, the late Ramon “Kiko” Francisco, loved to say, “Revenge is far sweeter than sex,” or as the adage goes, “is best served cold.”
Which leaves us ordinary Filipinos watching a spectacle as old as Philippine politics itself: yesterday’s hunters becoming today’s prey, the pot calling the kettle black, while both remain suspended over the same fire.
One side will win. One side will lose. But if the contest is ultimately about power itself rather than what that power is used for, the biggest loser may once again be the people as captive audience.
Let ‘em fight. We’ve all seen this before.
