Legarda may rejoin Senate majority, says spokesperson

A spokesperson for Senator Loren Legarda said it was possible that the veteran senator was communicating with her colleagues about a potential move to the Senate majority once she returns to the country after her months-long medical leave.

“I will not rule that out… In the last four years, there have been four Senate presidents, right? The majority has changed in the last four years, so I wouldn’t rule that out,” Legarda’s spokesman, Atty. Tony La Viña, said during an online interview.

La Viña noted that switching sides had become a norm in the upper chamber, stating that senators “do that all the time,” especially in the post-Martial Law era.

He also said Legarda was likely talking to some of her colleagues, given the relationships she had established with a majority of senators.

“[Legarda’s] very good with her colleagues. [Senators] actually love her. I will say that almost universally,” the lawyer said.

Since being reelected to the Senate in 2022, Legarda has been part of various leadership changes, including being part of the majority during Senator Alan Peter Cayetano’s short-lived leadership.

After Cayetano was ousted as Senate president on 3 June, the senator decided to join the 11-member minority bloc that challenged the chamber’s decision to elect Senator Sherwin Gatchalian as its new chief.

Legarda, for her part, has been on medical leave from the Senate since August, with her last plenary attendance on 29 July.

Her colleagues have attributed her absence to long-standing medical conditions affecting her immune system and respiratory health.

Critics of the veteran lawmaker, however, pointed to the Office of the Ombudsman’s announcement that a plunder and graft case was being actively investigated against her and her son, Batangas Rep. Leandro Leviste, as a reason for her departure.

Some minority senators have even gone public to express their view that the cases were an intimidation tactic against them to vote favorably in the ongoing impeachment trial against Vice President Sara Duterte.

The Ombudsman has repeatedly denied the insinuations.

Asked whether the impeachment had in fact led to Legarda’s continued leave, La Viña said it was further from the truth, noting that their position was that the case had more to do with Leviste’s “expose on corruption.”

“[Legarda] doesn’t think that this has something to do with the impeachment because she knows politics and it can move any hour, any day,” he said.

“If it’s just politics, she’s a master of that. She’ll be able to deal with this. But because the son is involved and corruption is involved…it becomes a more challenging thing to navigate politically,” he added.

Recent reports about the whereabouts of the mother and son have said that they are currently in France, where the senator is receiving medical treatment.

Speaking on the pending cases, Legarda has asserted that they were nothing more than an attempt to diminish her credibility as a veteran politician.

In a separate interview, La Viña said that Legarda was “raring” to return after her treatment, without stating a particular date.