Tag Archives: Cayetano

Qwertyman No. 199: Making It about Themselves

Posted on by
Reply

Qwertyman for Monday, May 25, 2026

NEVER IN our political history has a sitting Senate been held in such disrepute, been so reviled in public opinion than over the past two weeks. You’d think that the outrage over the leadership coup couldn’t be topped, but then came the obviously staged shooting and a fugitive’s escape—and then a lady senator’s histrionics over that fake attack.

What sticks in the craw—at least in mine—isn’t even the leadership turnover, or the assisted escape. We saw those coming, and even if we didn’t, they make cynical sense; of course they would do it. What’s extremely galling was having to listen to Pia Cayetano’s pained depiction of herself as a victim in the whole affair, terror-stricken and forlorn. 

Even accepting that her fear may have been genuine, she sounded shrill and shallow, peevish and petulant, completely unmindful of the deeper and more harrowing terrors ordinary Filipinos—people without staff, security, bulletproof SUVs, and generous salaries—have suffered, with far more courage and even grace. 

Terror and fear are givens in this country. Like many others of my age, I was shot at during the First Quarter Storm—at the Diliman Commune and at any number of rallies disrupted by the police and military. During martial law, I was beaten up as a political prisoner. Later, our home was raided early one morning by military agents hunting down “subversives” they thought were there, and our four-year-old daughter was interrogated by them. They were traumatic at the time, but they were nothing compared to the unspeakable torture my friends and comrades went through, the horrible deaths others suffered, the grief and loss sustained by those left behind. 

Multiply that by many thousands, not just under Marcos Sr. but under Rodrigo Duterte, and you’ll know what true terror feels like. Heard shots two doors down the hallway? Scary, yes, but Sen. Pia’s histrionics should have been directed at her mates who failed to warn her of the plan to spring Bato, which evidently at least some of them knew.

Pia Cayetano’s outburst, Robin Padilla’s posturing, Bato de la Rosa’s pop-up show, even Allan Cayetano’s propensity to fall on his knees and raise his arms to heaven—all gestures they had to know would only raise the political temperature—display a skill mastered by politicians, usually those with skeletons to hide: making it all about themselves, employing theatrics and embracing notoriety, effectively deflecting attention from the larger issues at hand.

What we’ve seen is but a preview of the spectacle to come. We can expect even more drama at the impeachment trial itself, on and off the Senate floor. More tears, more swearing, more gnashing of teeth, maybe even a scuffle or two. The public expects it, the theater of the Senate will provide it. 

It will become obvious at some point that it will no longer be Sara Duterte on trial, but the Senate itself—its credibility, its viability, and ultimately its utility and necessity as a political institution.

It should probably be clear by now that if we just go by the present numbers, VP Sara Duterte’s impeachment is dead in the Senate, was dead before it even started. More optimistic observers have opined that a conviction remains possible if some senators are persuaded—whether by the evidence or the pressure of public opinion—to change their minds, or even somehow vanish. 

I myself think that while a few conversions can be secured, the nine votes needed to keep Sara free and happy are locked in place. The shamelessness with which the current majority pulled off their coup on the eve of the impeachment court’s convening shows that these people are prepared to do anything—to run the country to the ground if necessary—to save their skins and even prosper again under a Sara administration. 

We Pinoys have hurtful words for this—walanghiya, kapal-mukha—and they’ve made the rounds of social media many times over, but these people are beyond hurting, impervious to all injury but to their power and their pockets.

These are the robed jurors who will sit through VP Sara’s trial and listen stoically to the litany of evidence detailing her crimes, none of which will matter to them. They will brazen it out to the end, confident that a resurgent Sara will rescue their political fortunes, and that a forgetful people will restore their reputations. They have no respect for the people’s intelligence, expecting us to swallow the preposterousness of these claims:

1. That the timing of the Senate leadership coup had nothing to do with the impeachment trial of VP Sara Duterte;

2. That Allan Peter Cayetano and Co. had no foreknowledge of Bato de la Rosa’s appearance at that key Senate session;

3. That the shooting incident had nothing to do with the escape of de la Rosa from the Senate with the assistance of Robin Padilla;

4. That no one in the Senate majority knew or knows of fugitive de la Rosa’s whereabouts.

And that’s why I can safely predict that no matter what they throw at her at the approaching trial, VP Sara’s hardcore Group of Nine—which will likely remain intact regardless of whether Sen. Sotto et al regain leadership of the Senate, as some expect to happen before too long—will guarantee her acquittal. If they think we can believe these fictions—or worse, don’t give a damn about what we think—then they’ll give Sara (and thereby themselves) a pass. That’s impunity on another level. 

Sen. Pia’s flare-up was reportedly provoked by Sen. Risa Hontiveros’ remark that it seemed that “nothing happened”—“walang nangyari”—in the wake of the Senate shooting. “But something did!” Pia insisted. 

I hope we can say the same at the end of the impeachment trial, but I’m not holding my breath. Against all my hopes, I’m afraid that walang mangyayari, and there’ll be at least nine senators who won’t be the least bit bothered.

Qwertyman No. 167: Stranger Than Fiction

Posted on by
3

Qwertyman for Monday, October 13, 2025

IF SEN. Alan Peter Cayetano and his cohorts in the Senate minority wanted to rile the people even more, they couldn’t have done it better than by having Cayetano challenge Sen. Tito Sotto for the Senate presidency, at the same time that he was floating his supposedly heroic idea of having all elective officials resign because the public was fed up with them.

He had to know that that was exactly the kind of antic that made people throw up at the mention of certain names—a dubious pantheon of the corrupt, the bought, and the compromised. But he did it anyway, employing his imagination to yank public attention away from the burning issue of the hour—the massive flood control scam and its ties to many lawmakers—in the direction of Mars, and the possibility of honest (never mind intelligent) politicians inhabiting that planet.

Why he did that is anyone’s guess, but mine would be that anything to stop the momentum building up at the Blue Ribbon Committee under Sen. Ping Lacson was good for the minority, many of whom were increasingly being threatened by the exposure. If Cayetano had resigned first (and forthwith!) to provide proof positive of his noble intentions, the distraction would have been worth our time, but of course that was never part of the plan. 

The plot to unseat Sotto—brazen and shameless in its purpose—was more credible and worrisome. It fizzled out but remains potent, simmering just beneath the surface. Lacson’s resignation as BRC chair was probably a concession to forestall Sotto’s, but the situation in the Senate is so volatile that it can’t take much for the leadership to switch while we’re brushing our teeth. 

All we seem to be waiting for is that point of utter desperation when the beleaguered, fighting for their political lives and possibly even their personal freedom, ignore all considerations of decency and public sensitivity, weasel their way back into the majority, and deliver the Senate to its most famous watcher from the gallery: Vice President Sara Duterte, whose fate still hangs in the balance of an impeachment vote that has yet to happen.

That vote and its implications, let’s all remember, was what triggered all of this. Premised on rampant corruption within her office, her impeachment, had it passed the Senate, would have barred her from running for the presidency in 2028 (and, for PBBM, from the resurgent Dutertes wreaking retribution on their erstwhile allies). But this isn’t really just about Sara—it’s about all those other trapos who’ve cast their lot with her, whose fortunes depend on her absolution in the Senate and ascension to the Palace. 

Former Senate President Chiz Escudero, who dragged his and the Senate’s feet in that process, has now dropped all pretensions to impartiality, calling the impeachment “unconstitutional” in a speech that would only have pleased the Vice President, a title he himself might be auditioning for. He did his part well, with what many saw to be the ill-considered assistance of the Supreme Court, to freeze the impeachment complaint. 

And there that matter sat, until PBBM—whether unwittingly or presciently—(and here we’ll go fast and loose with the idioms) shook the tree, opened a can of worms, threw mud at the wall, and unleashed the kraken by exposing the trillion-peso infrastructure scandal now rocking the country. He might have done this to suggest a link between the alleged corruption in the VP’s office and even larger acts of plunder emanating from her father’s time in Malacañang, a deft political move. But reality overtook his imagination, and now the issue’s grown far beyond that into his own administration, his own responsibilities, his own accountability. 

That said, and however we may have felt about him, PBBM has done us all a service by drawing the curtain on the systemic rot in our society and governance, for which he, Sara, and their cohorts have all been culpable, directly or administratively. By doing so he rendered himself vulnerable as well, and the VP’s forces are now zeroing in on that vulnerability to deflect attention from their own predicament. 

Thus the barrage of “Marcos resign!” calls (as opposed to the Left’s “Marcos and Duterte resign!”), which has become shorthand for BBM out, Sara in. (It was on that key point that the rumored September 21 coup plot reportedly first stumbled, with the plotters balking at the alternative.) It also explains the slew of professionally produced reels on Facebook and other social media calling for the military to depose the President—ironically, something so openly seditious that Digong Duterte’s NTF-ELCAC would have instantly pounced on them, but which BBM and his crew seem to be shrugging off, at least for now. 

What tempts our imagination in this fraught situation—where public trust in our politicians and even in the courts is hitting critical lows, and where no clear and short path to change seems visible until 2028—is the possibility of military intervention, whether by martial law or on its own volition. I’ve been assured by friends who know better that this military of ours today is much more professional in its mindset than its predecessors, and that it will abide by the Constitution. I sincerely hope they’re right, because if there’s anything that all the parties in this mess can probably agree on, it’s that boots in the streets won’t bring us any closer to a functioning democracy. 

I’m reminded in this instance of one of my favorite literary quotations, from Mark Twain who said (in so many words) that “Of course fact is stranger than fiction. Fiction, after all, has to make sense.” If you had told me three years ago that we are now relying on a dictator’s son to save us from an even worse alternative, and in the process—if almost by accident—expose corruption so foul that we are back on EDSA demanding not regime change but the rule of law, I would have called you a lousy fictionist with a runaway imagination. Yet here we are.