Legarda’s leap ‘not ruled out’

A spokesperson for Senator Loren Legarda said the veteran senator may be talking with some colleagues to pave the way for a potential move to align with the Senate majority when 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 that I wouldn’t rule that out,” Legarda’s spokesperson, Atty. Tony La Viña, said in an online interview.

La Viña noted that switching sides had become the norm in the upper chamber, saying senators “do that all the time,” especially in the post-martial law era.

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

“[Legarda’s] very good with her colleagues. [The senators] actually love her. I will say almost universally,” La Viña said.

Nonetheless, her camp has not associated her likely jump to the vote equation in the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte.

Ever-changing coalitions

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

After Cayetano was ousted as Senate President on 3 June, Legarda joined the 11-senator minority bloc that challenged the chamber’s decision to elect Senator Sherwin Gatchalian as its new leader.

Legarda 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 longstanding 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 it was looking at filing plunder and graft charges against her and her son, Batangas Rep. Leandro Leviste, as a reason for her departure.

Minority senators have said the charges were intended to pressure their bloc to vote for the conviction of VP Duterte in the ongoing impeachment trial. The Ombudsman has denied this.

Asked whether the impeachment trial had in fact led to Legarda’s continued leave, La Viña said this was farthest 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 at any hour, any day,” he said.

“If it’s just politics, she’s a master at 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 say they are currently in France, where the senator is supposedly receiving medical treatment.

Speaking on the pending cases, Legarda went on to say it was nothing more than an attempt to diminish her credibility as a veteran politician.

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