The Senateflix is over.
This was the bold declaration of newly elected Senate President Sherwin Gatchalian after his bloc successfully secured the support of 13 senators during the special session called by the executive on Monday. The vote drove the final nail into the coffin of Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano’s fantasy that he still led the Senate despite exercising zero control over it and enjoying zero public recognition of such a claim.
An hour before the special session, Cayetano, who lacked the courage to make the announcement himself on the Senate floor and was perhaps more comfortable in the company of his Pokémon cards, once again turned to social media to concede the Senate presidency. It brought an end to what was not only one of the shortest Senate presidencies in history, but arguably the worst and most destructive.
Cayetano’s chaotic tenure served as a stark reminder of how fragile our democratic institutions remain and how vulnerable they are to tyrannical attacks from those evading accountability and placing personal ambition above public duty. It is a painful reminder that the moment we become complacent in defending democracy, opportunists are quick to seize what generations struggled to build and nurture.
But is the Senateflix truly over?
While many celebrated the fall of the “king of nothing” and the loss of his kaldero crown, it would be premature to write him off. Cayetano is a political zombie. Time and again, he has demonstrated an uncanny ability to resurrect a seemingly dead political career.
After branding President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino as “topak” during the 2010 presidential campaign, Cayetano cleverly found his way into Aquino’s 2013 senatorial slate, showering PNoy with praise as “President 6.6 GDP.” After his crushing defeat in the 2016 vice presidential race, he landed comfortably within the Duterte regime, first as foreign affairs secretary, where he exported to the United Nations the fiction that extrajudicial killings did not exist, and later, a short stint as House Speaker under a term-sharing agreement with Lord Allan Velasco that he famously refused to honor, leading to his humiliating removal.
By 2022, he was back in the Senate, powered by the unkept promise to give every Filipino household P10,000. And after more than three attempts to seize its leadership, he finally became Senate president, only to lose the position after barely three chaotic weeks, in an ending that was strikingly similar to his downfall in the House of Representatives.
To call Cayetano resilient would be a profound understatement. He is a malignant political tumor. He embodies the dynastic politics that reformers seek to dismantle; a virus that survives every apparent defeat, mutates with every administration and repeatedly attacks the very institutions meant to protect our democracy.
This is precisely why the new Senate leadership under Gatchalian must purposefully restore the institution’s integrity and credibility. It must rebuild from the ruins left behind by Cayetano and his gang.
And it must begin with a swift, impartial and thorough impeachment trial of twice-impeached Vice President Sara Duterte. The charges against the Vice President are serious and deserve equally serious, comprehensive deliberation, with all evidence presented transparently before the public.
Lest we forget, Cayetano’s coup was not merely about ambition; it was, at its core, a desperate attempt to shield Sara from the impeachment process. While the self-proclaimed ambassador of Jesus Christ certainly has his own insatiable appetite for power, even wanted international fugitive Sen. Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa did not emerge from months of hiding and risk arrest just to crown a delusional Senate Pokémon king. He did so, as he himself made clear in an interview, to protect the Dutertes, particularly Sara.
While the three-week Senate chaos is often attributed to Cayetano’s ambition, it found both its fuel and its direction in the Dutertes’ broader desperation to evade accountability. It was a convergence of interests, like a fly finding its way to a dung heap.
As such, all eyes now turn to how the Senate will proceed with the impeachment trial.
On Friday, several social movements and civil society organizations expressed deep concern over reports that the new Senate majority is considering Sen. Francis “Chiz” Escudero as presiding officer of the impeachment trial. For them, the proposal risks undermining the credibility of the newly formed majority. They acknowledged the tactical constraints of a chamber filled with imperfect options, but warned that appointing Escudero is the most flawed and potentially most dangerous choice.
The groups recalled his conduct during previous impeachment proceedings, where his expansive interpretation of the constitutional mandate to proceed “forthwith” was used to justify delays in the process. With the Senate presidency now settled under Gatchalian, they said that he should take full responsibility for shepherding the impeachment trial to its just and credible conclusion.
This is only one of the several tests the Gatchalian-led Senate must confront as it seeks to prevent the institution from sliding back into chaos, a scenario that, as the past weeks have shown, remains ever-present whenever accountability edges closer to Sara and her allies accused of plunder.
Another challenge is the urgent need to pursue institutional reforms, particularly the passage of a genuine anti-political dynasty law and a reformed budget process. Without these, along with other reforms, the Senate chaos risks becoming not an aberration but a recurring feature of our politics captured by political dynasties and plunderers. It may be even more catastrophic, with the damage potentially irreversible.
The worst of the three-week Senate mayhem may be over, but the institution is not yet out of the woods. With the impeachment trial looming and reforms still largely missing, it may in fact be entering the most treacherous part of the journey, where political zombies clutching Pokémon cards linger in the shadows, waiting for another opening to seize the moment once again.