Category: senate

Kumustahan blues

Hurt na hurt daw sina SP Alan Peter at Sen Pia Cayetano na walang nangumusta sa kanila matapos ang putukan sa Senado. With matching crocodile tears pa si Ate Pia. Ayun pala, kinumusta sila ng ilang minority senators sa group chat. Anong drama yon?

Kitang kita pati sa news reports at mga FB live at selfie nila mismo na the guys and gals of the new majority were unharmed. Even, that they were all quite pleased with themselves, having successfully established the Duterte Bloc as the majority — thanks to the four balimbings and the ICC fugitive who made a surprise appearance, and disappearance  — which means hawak ngayon ng DDS ang impeachment trial, ligtas na si VP Sara.

Yun naman talaga ang point, di ba? To take control of the trial, find devious lawyerly ways to archive the case again or, barring that, to disallow the body of evidence that show probable cause? Kaya hindi kapanipaniwala ang chismis ni Sen Imee na ayaw din ni  PBBM na matuloy ang trial dahil maa-acquit lang si VP at mananalo sa 2028 — mas gusto daw ni PBBM na mabawi ang majority at pagkatapos ay mag-ConAss para no-elections na lang sa 2028, or something wild like that.

Bottom line, ang mantra ng DDS ay: huwag nang ituloy ang trial dahil maa-acquit naman, sayang lang ang gastos at oras at pagod.

Sey ko naman, kahit pa mangyari na maa-acquit lang ang VP, importante pa rin na masaksihan at masubaybayan ng bayan ang paglilitis, marinig ang mga ebidensiya, gayon din ang mga depensa ni VP Sara, sapagkat iyan mismo ang hinihingi ng bayan, na ipinapahiwatig ng overwhelming YES to impeachment ng 214 (of 254) congressional district reps and 42 (of 64) partylist reps. Sigaw ng SuperMajority across the archipelago ang Impeachment Trial, no ifs or buts.

Kaya ang masasabi ko lang sa Cayetano sibs na nagtatampo dahil di sila kinumusta after the putukan na wala namang nasaktan: Wala ring nangumusta sa aming mga madlang pipol matapos kaming bulagain at buwisitin at galitin ng panibagong kudeta sa senado para protektahan na naman si VP Sara. Akala ba ninyo ay puro kami closet DDS na pumapalakpak at nagdiriwang? Nakakapanlumo, sa totoo lang. Hurt na hurt din kami. Kumustahin niyo naman kami.

*

37 shots fired!

Habang hinihintay natin ang official report ng  PNP at ng NBI sa naganap na putukan sa Senado kahapon on Day 3 of Cayetano‘s SP gig, heto muna ang Facebook post ni Mon Tulfo at ang news report ng Abante tnt.

Ramon Tulfo (Mon) 6:48 a.m.
https://www.facebook.com/isumbongmo.kaytulfo

Ito ang tunay na nangyari sa putukan sa Senado kagabi, ayon sa aking tweety bird: The 37 shots fired came from personnel of the Senate sergeant-at-arms under Mao Aplasca.

No shots were fired by NBI agents.

Aplasca and Bato were classmates at the Philippine Military Academy (PMA).

Senate President Alan Peter Cayetano and, of course, fugitive of justice Sen. Bato staged the commotion.

They wanted to gain public sympathy and call on the stupid DDS to gather outside the Senate.

Ayaw rin ni Cayetano na matuloy ang impeachment ni VP Sara kaya gumawa siya ng scenario, ayon sa aking tweet-tweet.

Basta bading madrama, sabi ni tweety bird.

Bato nakaalis na sa Senado?
ABANTE TnT https://tnt.abante.com.ph

Nakaalis na umano sa gusali ng Senado si Senador Bato dela Rosa nitong Huwebes ng madaling-araw, Mayo 14, ayon sa impormasyong nakalap ng Abante.

Ayon sa mga source, namataan na magkasamang umalis sina Dela Rosa at Senador Robin Padilla bandang alas-3:00 hanggang alas-4:00 ng madaling-araw mula sa Senate complex.

Dagdag pa rito, ayon umano sa Senate security log, eksaktong 2:35 ng madaling-araw ang log out ni Padilla.

Kasunod ito ng nangyaring insidente ng putukan at nangyaring lockdown sa loob ng gusali noong Miyerkoles ng gabi, Mayo 13.

Kung hindi na babalik si Bato, ibig sabihin 12 na lang ang DDS bloc. At kung hindi na bumalik si Robin,  11 na lang. No majority, either way.

Here’s praying that all seats are declared vacant on Monday, and JV Ejercito and Migs Zubiri rejoin Sotto et al instead of abstaining again, and that the Villar sibs and Legarda-cum-Leviste come to their senses and redeem themselves by making balimbing again. Para ma-convene na ang impeachment court. #Forthwith

The Senate shift

Hindi naman ako nagulat, pero nadismaya nang lubusan, when on the very day that the Lower House approved overwhelmingly (257 of 318 ) the Articles of Impeachment vs. the VP ay saka naman nagkudeta sa Senado — biglang naging majority of 13 ang dating minority DDS bloc of 9 (ImeeMarcos, ChizEscudero, JoelVillanueva, BongGo, Bato, RobinPadilla, RodanteMarcoleta, JinggoyEstrada, AlanPeterCayetano).

Hindi lang napasipot napaapir ng Cayetano siblings (it would seem) si Bato from hiding, napabaliktad rin  ang apat na dati’y nasa Sotto majority: ang magkapatid na Villar, ang Pia na kapatid ni APC of course, and the political butterfly Legarda-cum-Leviste, mother of the kulangkulang solarboy. Dynasties all, with axes to grind, legal cases pending, staking their political futures on a Duterte comeback, kapit sa patalim.

I hope Ronald Llamas is right, that it’s a manipis, even a shaky, majority that could shift yet again, sana soon.

Sana rin sumuko na si Bato, stop giving the Senate an excuse to delay the trial. Then we will see what the Cayetanos are up to, really. They’ll be calling the shots, these two lawyers, and I imagine there’ll be a lot of legal hair-splitting over objections already raised by Sara mimso, that the charges lacked proof, the hearings were a fishing expedition, and the complainants were politically motivated.

I hope they don’t do a Makoy circa 1985. Back in the first Sandiganbayan trial of Ver et al in the Ninoy assassination case, Marcos managed to disallow all the evidence unearthed by the Agrava Fact-Finding Board that found Ver et al indictable, eventually acquitting all the accused in November ’85. We know what happened not too long after that.

Kung maniniwala tayo sa surveys taken at the height of the Justice Committee’s hearings, it would seem that the madlang pipol have heard enough allegations, and now they want to hear from the VP, there’s just no getting away from it. Never mind what Cayetano’s Bible says. I’m sure we can find another saying the exact opposite. #Forthwith

Marcoleta falls for 9-dash line fiction

About Senators Kiko Pangilinan’s and Rodante Marcoleta’s heated debate over the legitimacy of the West Philippine Sea. 

MARCOLETA FLUNKS ELEMENTARY CARTOGRAPHY
Marlen V. Ronquillo

…  The West Philippine Sea is for real. Philippine laws have codified a specific area called by that name, and maps have been drawn to reflect. In 2012, then-president Benigno Aquino III issued Administrative Order 29 that demarcated the West Philippine Sea as “the Luzon Sea, as well as the waters around, within and adjacent to the Kalayaan Island Group and Bajo de Masinloc, also known as the Scarborough Shoal.”

A law signed by President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in November 2024 — Republic Act 12064, or the Philippine Maritime Zones Act — defined anew the portions covered by the West Philippine Sea. That law also asked the National Mapping and Resource Information Authority to prepare the corresponding map covered by that sea, then circulate that map in the country and beyond.

In her many warnings about China’s territorial ambitions in Southeast Asia, former United States secretary of state Hillary Clinton spoke about real threats faced by an area she called “the West Philippine Sea.”

The West Philippine Sea is a fact of nationhood, its existence amplified by the 2016 arbitral ruling that essentially said areas officially demarcated by the Philippine government under AO 29 and RA 12064 are, indeed, Philippine territory.

What accounts for Marcoleta’s refusal to recognize a basic fact of law, international ruling and cartography, the lay of the land in a nation of which he is a citizen and senator? That’s between Marcoleta and China. But to obviously take the side of China’s fictional nine-dash line over our historic and United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea-validated West Philippine Sea is beyond the pale. In nations and polities protective of their territories, a stand like Marcoleta’s will be grounds for a form of censure. In China, Marcoleta’s stand may fall under the category of treason and may end up like Lin Biao.

Some dear and basic lessons in geography and territory raise additional and troubling questions on why Marcoleta is seemingly on China’s side on the West Philippine Sea issue. With all the land, seas, and vast dominion in its possession, China’s territorial aggression looks like overkill.

China’s map occupies 9.6 million square kilometers — approximately the size of Europe. In terms of land area, it is the third largest in the world, after Russia and Canada, and much of Canada is uninhabitable tundra. The Philippines is a land-short country the size of the US state of Arizona. China, according to basic geographical data, shares boundaries with 14 other countries, and territorial disputes often arise, especially with India, due to boundary issues.

It cannot be that Marcoleta is cutting China some slack because it needs more territory, and the Philippines should play the role of a generous neighbor.

Speaking of basic generosity, has China been a generous and economically supportive neighbor, an economic superpower with zero predatory practices in economic dealings with the Philippines?

No. On the contrary — and this can be validated by the loan terms during the term of former president Rodrigo Duterte — China has imposed high interest rates on loans to the Philippine government, about 2 percent or more higher than those from, say, Japan and the European Union. Former Bayan Muna party-list representative Neri Colmenares has a compilation of China’s harsh loan terms, including provisions that allow China to seize national treasures, such as Rizal Park, in case of loan defaults.

China overall has been imposing onerous terms on foreign borrowers. After a loan default, one Latin American country found out that China demanded 80 percent of its total oil output.

So while we trade heavily with China — the only countries that do not trade with it are the imaginary trading posts Donald Trump slapped with tariffs in his April 2, 2025, “Liberation Day” tariff order — we should not forget one thing: trade is one thing, territorial aggression is another. Areas like Bajo de Masinloc — Masinloc is a town in Zambales — have been ours since time immemorial. And for Marcoleta’s information, China’s nine-dash line is a late 20th-century concoction.

Facts and cartography and history and empiricism all say there is a West Philippine Sea. Marcoleta’s West Philippine Sea distractions, at the very least, are on the wrong side of history.