Drama

The drama in the Senate continues this week. As of last weekend, the solicitor-general is calling on the Supreme Court to reject the plea of Senator Ronald "Bato" Dela Rosa who requested to block his arrest warrant on grounds of jurisdiction. The office also said that the latter's action makes him a fugitive from justice, as law enforcers are now back to square one trying to figure out where he is. At the same time, the Senate has convened to become an impeachment court. One by one, they will go through the articles of impeachment against the vice president.

It seems that there are too many things happening at once but they are all interconnected with one another. The root of it all may be the love for power but not for the country. We can assume that it is secondary. Each one of them has their own hidden agenda. The one who holds the key position, Senate President Alan Peter Cayetano should actually be answerable for the whole situation. We know his political affiliation and the clear indication is his bid to become the vice president in 2028. Clearly, the loyalty remains the same.

At this point, it is not about loyalty anymore but how to make one's position advantageous in the series of events to unfold. It looks like a television drama, and we are waiting for the director to give his cue. All this at the expense of the Filipino people. By now, flashbacks of the previous national elections come to mind. I could only wish that we did more or better than how we have done now.

What is more frustrating is how quickly public discourse has shifted away from accountability and toward the next performance. Every senator now appears to be balancing two roles at once: public servant and political survivor. The cameras are always rolling, and perhaps that is the problem. Governance has become secondary to optics. The louder the sound bite, the more attention it receives. Meanwhile, ordinary Filipinos are left trying to make sense of a government seemingly consumed by its own internal wars.

The timing of all these events is also impossible to ignore. The country is already entering another cycle of political positioning ahead of the next elections. Alliances are being tested. Friendships are becoming transactional. Those who once stood side by side are now slowly distancing themselves from one another in an effort to preserve political capital. It is survival above all else. Principles can easily be adjusted depending on where the numbers favor them.

Perhaps that is the saddest part of all this. The Filipino people are once again trapped in a cycle where personalities dominate over policies. In the end, institutions suffer because people no longer trust them. We discuss drama more than governance. We follow conflicts more than concrete solutions. While political figures exchange accusations, many Filipinos continue to struggle with inflation, low wages, overcrowded transportation, and inaccessible public services. Those realities do not disappear simply because another controversy has taken center stage.