Senator Alan Cayetano cast doubt on the credibility of intel reports from the National Bureau of Investigation alleging a security threat to the Senate, saying the timing was questionable, as if it was aimed to distract the public from the testimonies of the 18 so-called “bagmen” of former lawmaker Elizaldy Co.
“The Senate must not become a stage where narratives are managed. It must remain a forum where truth is pursued,” he stressed.
Cayetano issued the statement shortly after reports indicated that some senators in the Gatchalian-led faction received information about a looming security threat to the Senate, prompting heightened security protocols on the premises.
It was subsequently followed by an advisory from the office of Senate President Win Gatchalian authorizing a work-from-home arrangement from Wednesday to Thursday to ensure the safety of Senate employees amid the supposed threat.
Cayetano suspected that the move was a deliberate maneuver to “shift” public attention from the testimonies of the 18 bodyguards of Co, who detailed an alleged systematic corruption in the administration during the Cayetano-led bloc’s “unauthorized” Blue Ribbon Committee’s flood control probe last week.
“The timing demands honesty. This ‘threat’ surfaces precisely as the testimonies…begin to press for answers from the names it has raised. We are asked to accept that this is [a] coincidence,” Cayetano lamented.
The two opposing camps in the Senate have been embroiled in political bickering since last week, after Gatchalian’s bloc installed him as acting leader of the chamber in his capacity as the elected Senate president pro tempore, with only 12 votes.
Cayetano’s faction has insisted that they still retain control of the institution, arguing that the coup was not legitimate due to a lack of one vote of the 13-member majority threshold to conduct business as mandated by the Constitution.
Their persistence led to the convening of the BRC hearing on Thursday, during which the 18 bodyguards alleged how they delivered suitcase-filled with massive illicit cash from several senior officials, including President Marcos Jr. and some of his allies in Congress, namely, Senators Tito Sotto and Erwin Tulfo, ex-House speaker Martin Romualdez, and Ilocos Rep. Sandro Marcos, among others. They denied the allegations and threatened to sue them over “fabricated” testimonies.
Gatchalian’s faction proceeded with its separate hearing on Monday as scheduled, but Cayetano criticized it as a "cover-up committee,” designed to shield Marcos and allies from accountability.
Assuming that the intel from NBI Director Melvin Matibag is “credible,” Cayetano argued that information should also be relayed to him and his allies, and not confined to one bloc.
On the other hand, he remained convinced that it should be the police or the Senate’s in-house security that served as the sole source of security intel, not the NBI, which he derided as strikingly one-sided and loyal only to the administration.
“A clearly partisan NBI that was itself a party to violence within these walls cannot credibly appoint itself the guardian of our safety,” Cayetano asserted.
Cayetano and allies have repeatedly accused the Gatchalian bloc of selective prosecution, while allegedly covering up and deliberately ignoring leads pointing to the culpability of those in Malacanang.
Conversely, Gatchalian’s faction alleged that Cayetano’s bloc is weaponizing the investigation to target allies of the administration despite supposed glaring inconsistencies in the testimonies of the 18 bodyguards, whose credibility was put into question after some of them were disowned by the Armed Forces of the Philippines, while the majority had been dishonorably discharged.
