Say Chiz: Escudero's road to downfall
MANILA, Philippines — A little over a year after ousting Sen. Miguel Zubiri from the senate presidency, Sen. Francis Escudero would find himself in the same spot: blindsided and unseated.
Zubiri himself would be the one to unseat Escudero this time, moving to declare the senate presidency vacant and allowing now Senate President Tito Sotto to assume the new role. Thus is politics, and Escudero was all smiles during his ousting.
As far as Senate presidencies went, Escudero’s is among the shortest stints in history at 16 months. Zubiri’s stint lasted almost two years (22 months), and Sotto’s is among the longest terms at four years. Only a handful of other Senate presidents had one-year stints.
While the change of leadership in the Senate can happen at any moment, the events leading up to it could span months.
Several controversies hounded Escudero’s Senate presidency, and it would continue to follow him as a senator.
Political scientist Cleve Arguelles told Philstar.com that it was not so much Escudero playing his cards wrong after the 2025 midterm elections; it was that the controversies that surrounded him had turned him into a liability.
“The chamber acted swiftly to cut its losses,” Arguelles said.
So, what happened?
Playing the zero-sum game
During the final stages of the controversial 2025 national budget deliberations, Escudero said it best himself: the national budget is a zero-sum game. This means that there is a finite number of resources, and they cannot be added to one without taking from another.
So the bicameral conference committee’s decision to trim down the budget for health insurance, education, social welfare and transportation while ballooning unprogrammed funds can raise a few eyebrows.
Even more egregious is the Department of Public Works and Highways (DPWH) getting such a huge cut of the budget (P1.1 trillion), surpassing the education sector. Under the Constitution, education must get the biggest share of the national budget. It took a presidential veto to pull back the DPWH budget, but the damage is done: a case is now pending in the Supreme Court to assess the legality of the 2025 national budget.
All of these major changes happened in the closed-door bicam. In later media interviews, Escudero would chalk up the bicam as a mere correcting and finalizing of the figures, but said that he welcomed opening up the process to the public.
However, Escudero would later be accused of budget insertions himself. A report from VERA Files tagged Escudero in a P142-billion budget insertion into the 2025 national budget that seemingly benefitted him and his allies. He would call these allegations a part of a demolition job against him.
Duterte’s impeachment: Caution or purposeful delay?
The impeachment of Vice President Sara Duterte is a historic one: this is the first time that a vice president has been impeached, and it is also the first one that was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.
Escudero was largely criticized for his handling of the impeachment, as he cited caution. Admittedly, the circumstances surrounding the transmittal were curious. The House of Representatives transmitted the articles of impeachment to the Senate on the last day before going on break, leaving it open for the Senate to sit on the articles of impeachment for several months. All while the 2025 midterms will effectively replace half of the Senate when they return.
To a certain point, Escudero had been consistent that the Senate would convene as an impeachment court when it resumed session in June.
Fast forward to the midterm elections and a good chunk of Duterte allies won seats in the Senate, and Escudero delayed the impeachment trial multiple times. This included the decision to return the articles of impeachment to the House of Representatives, putting them in something akin to limbo.
By the time that senators donned their robes to read the articles of impeachment, the SC had already decided that the impeachment was unconstitutional.
Leading legal luminaries have slammed Escudero for these alleged delay tactics. After all, the Constitution mandated that the Senate must proceed with an impeachment trial "forthwith". Now, legal experts have questioned the SC decision, as this may make holding public officials accountable through impeachment difficult for future cases.
The word "forthwith" would continuously haunt Escudero for the remainder of his Senate presidency.
On a September afternoon, Escudero’s senate presidency would end “forthwith”.
Opening the floodgates
Escudero’s budget controversies did not end with the 2025 national budget. After President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. demanded an end to corruption, he unveiled a list of the top-earning flood contractors who cornered P100 billion in contracts.
One of the contractors was Centerways Construction and Development Inc. The firm is owned by contractor Lawrence Lubiano.
A news outlet was quick to discover that Lubiano is one of Escudero’s top campaign donors in 2022.
When the issue first surfaced, Escudero was obviously irate, calling the news piece a part of the demolition job against him.
However, he did not deny being Lubiano’s friend, saying that he has helped him in the past.
Lubiano, who was strangely ignored during the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee probe into the flood control mess, was finally questioned in the House of Representatives. There, he admitted that he donated P30 million to Escudero’s campaign in 2022 while he held government contracts. He would backpedal slightly, clarifying that his donations did not come from his firm’s funds.
Under the Omnibus Election Code, candidates are not allowed to receive donations from people holding contracts or sub-contracts with the government.
Arguelles attributed the flood control issue as the decisive factor to Escudero’s downfall.
“With Escudero linked — through a donor — to the controversy now dominating national attention, the Senate could no longer afford to shield him. The institution itself risked losing credibility,” Arguelles said.
A House divided
While an explicit reason for Escudero’s ousting was not given, it was Sen. JV Ejercito who would offer somewhat of a clear insight into the reasoning.
“Nasobrahan na ‘yung siraan ng both Houses. It has affected the institutions already,” Ejercito told the media minutes before the plenary session that ousted Escudero.
(The fight between both Houses. It has affected the institutions already.)
As the controversies compounded, a pattern emerged.
House lawmakers calling for Duterte’s trial to proceed forthwith? Escudero simply labeled them Anti-Duterte and accused them of using the Senate as a political playground.
The demolition job where the alleged budget insertions and campaign donations were mentioned? Escudero blamed it on the House without substantiating his claim.
Even on his way out, Escudero took one more shot at the House of Representatives, saying that the final Blue Ribbon Committee hearing under him finally tagged House Speaker Martin Romualdez in the flood control mess.
But as Romualdez was quick to hit back: why call the Blue Ribbon hearing a win when the testimonies were based on hearsay?
The House and the Senate are co-equal branches that need each other to properly legislate. The better the working relationship between the two branches is, the faster laws get made (ideally). While it has not reached the point of a constitutional crisis yet, the chambers of Congress have already clashed multiple times during this administration.
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