Tulfo 'hurt' by minority senators' ouster vote

Senator Erwin Tulfo admitted on Monday that he felt hurt and disappointed after three of his colleagues in the minority bloc voted in favor of a renewed petition to unseat him over questions about his citizenship.

He was referring to Senators Pia Cayetano, Robin Padilla, and Camille Villar, who are members of the Senate Electoral Tribunal (SET) alongside Senators Bam Aquino, Kiko Pangilinan, and Lito Lapid, as well as three Supreme Court associate justices.

The SET recently dismissed a motion for reconsideration challenging Tulfo’s eligibility to retain his Senate seat by a 6-3 vote.

Tulfo said the voting process in the SET is confidential, and he learned only through social media reports that Cayetano, Villar, and Padilla voted to oust him.

“We are simply disappointed. You can probably see we are hugging, talking, shaking hands with one another [at the plenary] and then, suddenly, [it happened]. It’s just a bit sad. But that’s their right, after all. I mean, what can we do? We can’t force them,” Tulfo told reporters in Filipino.

“I don't know, but someone mentioned that it’s already circulating on social media that the three of them voted ‘No, this person is guilty’,” he added.

In a separate interview, the lawmaker pointed out that minority senators rarely vote against a majority colleague, as they usually “abstain,” which made the outcome unexpected for him, since he maintained friendly ties with them, except for Cayetano, with whom he wasn’t very close.

He also rejected calls to confront them, preferring to let the issue rest to avoid further escalation.

The SET’s decision follows the filing of a motion for reconsideration by the petitioner, disbarred lawyer Berteni Causing, which sought to reverse the tribunal’s 2 March resolution.

In that previous resolution, the SET dismissed Causing’s quo warranto petition against Tulfo on grounds of “insufficiency in form.”

Meanwhile, in dismissing the recent petition, the tribunal ruled that it did not comply with the SET's 2020 rules because it was filed outside the prescribed period.

Causing cited the controversy about Tulfo’s citizenship, lack of qualifications, and his being part of a political dynasty as grounds to unseat him from the Senate.

According to Tulfo, the Commission on Elections already dismissed a similar complaint, which the Supreme Court subsequently upheld.

Tulfo had faced accusations of identity theft in the US. He previously admitted that he became an American citizen in the late 1980s but claimed that he had already renounced it before he assumed the post of DSWD secretary in 2022.

He was twice bypassed by the Commission on Appointments over a similar issue in the same year. Tulfo later became a member of the House of Representatives, replacing then-ACT-CIS Rep. Jeffrey Soriano, who vacated the seat.

An October 2022 document allegedly from the US Embassy claimed that Tulfo faked his identity under the name “Erich Sylvester Tulfo,” who was reportedly born in Hawaii on 30 December 1965, to obtain an American passport/citizen.

In the same letter, the embassy informed "Erich Sylvester Tulfo” that his US passport had already been revoked.

In January 2025, Tulfo admitted that he was once a TNT (tago nang tago) or undocumented immigrant in the US, where he stayed for at least 10 years.

Tulfo claimed that he went to the US in 1986 on a tourist visa and worked various jobs to support his family, though he did not directly address the allegations that he faked US citizenship.