Cayetano attacked the Senate

Let us not mince words. Senator Alan Peter Cayetano, the “ambassador of Jesus Christ,” attacked the Senate. In his relentless pursuit of the Senate presidency and to protect allies from accountability, he gravely eroded the institution’s integrity and credibility.

His assault began on Monday. After several failed attempts, Cayetano finally succeeded in ousting Senator Tito Sotto as Senate President. The timing was no coincidence. It came as the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to impeach Vice President Sara Duterte for a second time.

Cayetano claimed his bloc, comprised of Duterte loyalists and accused plunderers, wanted a more “united” Senate. What irony. In less than a week under his leadership, the Senate descended into chaos and became a national embarrassment.

He secured the Senate presidency with the backing of his sister, Senator Pia Cayetano, unsurprising to many, who viewed her as a Trojan horse within the majority bloc, as well as the support of the Villar siblings. Long-time Sotto ally Senator Loren Legarda also defected, reportedly expecting to become the country’s first woman Senate president, only to be outfoxed by Cayetano. How poetic. Selfish ambition betrayed by even greater selfish ambition.

But the vote that ultimately tipped the balance came from the sudden reappearance of Senator Ronald dela Rosa, who had been hiding for months following the issuance of an ICC warrant.

Using Cayetano’s vehicle to sneak into the Senate, Dela Rosa, a former “tough-talking cop,” was caught on CCTV cowardly running from authorities and even stumbling clumsily in a stairwell. Social media, naturally, wasted no time turning the scene into meme material. If the Senate was deeply humiliated, the internet was entertained.

Cayetano then placed Dela Rosa under “protective custody,” a measure traditionally reserved for whistleblowers and witnesses facing credible threats, effectively weaponizing the Senate’s Office of the Sergeant-at-Arms (OSAA) to harbor a fugitive. This resulted in a series of confrontations between Senate security personnel and NBI agents, turning the legislature into a brawl fest.

Cayetano justified this by publicly misinterpreting the law. He claimed that the ICC no longer had authority in our country because we had already withdrawn from the international body, and insisted ICC warrants must first pass through local courts before they could be enforced.

What a load of crap from the motherlode of crap himself.

Under the Rome Statute, the ICC retains jurisdiction over alleged crimes committed while the Philippines was still a state party. More importantly, there is no Supreme Court ruling requiring local courts to validate an ICC warrant before authorities may act on it.

Then came Wednesday, the day of the Senate’s near institutional collapse.

Whether through design, staggering recklessness or both, the Senate descended into complete chaos. OSAA security personnel, behaving like a private army, roamed the Senate halls carrying long firearms, together with other armed men. Soon after, the Senate echoed with nearly 30 gunshots, reportedly fired by the OSAA trying to repel supposed armed intruders.

Cayetano-appointed Senate Sergeant-at-Arms Mao Aplasca, a PMA classmate of Dela Rosa, reportedly fired the first shot. He claimed they were under attack by the NBI. Yet when the smoke cleared, there was no invading force. There were only bullet holes suspiciously lodged high into walls, as if they were shooting at giants, and an apprehended lone individual, allegedly an NBI driver, who, if their story is to be believed, apparently went full John Wick on them.

Meanwhile, Cayetano went live online from a darkened room, dramatically declaring that the Senate was “under attack.” Curiously, the man his camp reportedly called for help was NBI chief Melvin Matibag; yes, the same NBI that Cayetano had expelled from the Senate to protect Dela Rosa, and the same agency his camp would later accuse of storming the building.

Naturally, people began asking questions. Who in their right mind would attack the Senate, knowing it was crawling with heavily armed personnel? And why call the NBI first instead of the Philippine National Police (PNP), whose forces were already deployed around the area?

To many, the incident looks staged, designed to manufacture chaos to facilitate Dela Rosa’s escape, pressure the Supreme Court to intervene in his favor and derail Duterte’s impeachment proceedings. After all, who benefits the most from the chaos?

Amid the disorder, Dela Rosa quietly escaped, reportedly aided by Senator Robin Padilla, who allegedly drove a getaway vehicle like he was filming yet another action movie.

At a press conference, Cayetano insisted that Dela Rosa did not “escape” but merely “left the Senate,” despite virtually everyone else, including Dela Rosa’s own wife, saying that he did. He then went ballistic and lashed out at a reporter, desperately trying to convince everyone that the Senate had been attacked. Funny. Even journalists who covered the incident and found themselves near the “gunfire” appeared unconvinced.

This is what the Senate has become, barely a week into Cayetano’s leadership. It harbored a fugitive, obstructed justice, aided and abetted an escape and transformed into a shooting range. Never has the Senate, even in our darkest political moments, sunk this low.

Yet, Cayetano was correct in saying that the Senate was attacked. But not by the NBI or some sinister armed group. The Senate was attacked by Alan Peter Cayetano himself.

Consumed by his ambition and his bloc’s partisan politics to protect the Vice President, Cayetano’s destructive politics assaulted and nearly obliterated the Senate’s integrity, credibility and democratic values.

In the coming days, senators across political lines who still possess some sense of duty to the institution will have to decide whether to restore order in the Senate or allow it to rot under Cayetano.

May God, whose name Cayetano invokes so freely like a false prophet, make his Senate presidency the shortest ever.