YOU HAD ONE JOB AND YOU COULDN’T EVEN DO IT

If my political future depended on a group of senators whose votes could decide whether I stayed in office, I would want them disciplined. I would want them careful with timing, careful with their numbers, careful about the fights they pick, and very careful about what comes out of their mouths.

There was a rumor earlier this year that Sara Duterte threw a laptop at one of her defense lawyers, Michael Poa. Both Duterte and Poa denied it, so I am treating it exactly as that, an unproven rumor. Still, after reviewing what the senators now occupying the minority have been doing these past several months, I can understand why somebody came up with the image.

If it were true, though, I think the laptop would be inadequate. Bring the entire desktop rig, tower, monitor, keyboard, mouse, UPS, desk and ergonomic chair. Maybe include the printer.

I started seeing a pattern while reviewing the cases involving Rodante Marcoleta and Jinggoy Estrada. I went back through my impeachment tracker, the Senate leadership fights, the Bato dela Rosa episode, Robin Padilla’s statements and the fights surrounding Sara Duterte’s impeachment trial.

Some moves came too early. Others were too aggressive. Some depended on numbers that were never secure, while attempts to protect one person sometimes created another person who also needed protection. Several senators talked before their own group had even agreed on what it wanted to do.

The group looks busy. It also looks scattered, and that is a terrible combination when your political future depends on counting votes.

Sara Duterte needs senator-judges who are legally able to participate, physically available when they are needed, and willing to vote in her favor when judgment comes. That is the standard I used in looking at what her Senate allies have been doing.

A NOTE ABOUT THE CURRENT MINORITY

Part of this happened when Alan Peter Cayetano’s group still controlled the Senate majority. Cayetano became Senate president on May 11 with 13 votes, and that group later lost control when Joel Villanueva joined the other side and Sherwin Gatchalian’s group reached 13. Gatchalian was formally elected Senate president on June 17.

So when I refer to the current minority, I am talking about the group that eventually ended up there. The lineup changed along the way.

I am also not claiming every senator in that group acts only for Sara Duterte. They have their own alliances, cases, ambitions and interests. I am looking at senators who repeatedly took positions favorable to her defense, defended one another through legal and political controversies, and fought over rules that could affect her impeachment trial.

THEY TOOK CONTROL BEFORE THEY COULD HOLD IT

May 11 looked like a major political win for Alan Peter Cayetano. Tito Sotto was removed as Senate president, Cayetano took over, and his group had 13 votes, exactly enough to control a 24-member Senate.

The weakness was already there. A 13-member majority gives you no room to lose anyone, and one of the senators helping supply that number was Bato dela Rosa, whose ability to appear regularly was already uncertain because of the ICC arrest warrant hanging over him.

That should have encouraged caution. Cayetano instead publicly declared that the 13 were intact.

Weeks later, Villanueva moved to the other side. Cayetano no longer had 13, Gatchalian did, and the Senate presidency followed the number.

They had the Senate presidency. They never had a comfortable grip on it.

The May 11 leadership change also meant Senate committees had to be reorganized. Soon afterward, Marcoleta pushed for wider use of remote participation, something obviously useful to a group already facing attendance problems.

When Cayetano’s side tried to move it, senators on the other side objected. One of the problems raised was that the Committee on Rules had not even been set up again after the leadership change.

The other senators walked out. The Senate lost its quorum, and the proposal could not move.

They changed the Senate, left committee work unfinished, then almost immediately needed a rule that ran into the mess created by that unfinished work.

ALAN PETER CAYETANO TALKS TOO FUCKING MUCH

I do not mean this simply because he gives long speeches. Politicians give long speeches, and Cayetano has never been shy about talking.

My problem is that he keeps committing himself publicly before he knows whether the facts, the numbers or even his own allies will still support what he is saying several days later. That turns ordinary political setbacks into statements that can be replayed against him.

He said the 13 were intact. The 13 broke.

He fought to keep the fixed 16-vote count. The impeachment court reopened the issue and dropped the fixed 16.

He argued for the participation of detained senators Estrada and Marcoleta in Sara Duterte’s impeachment trial. Once those senators were under Sandiganbayan custody, neither Cayetano nor the Senate could simply order them back into the chamber.

Cayetano keeps announcing where he stands before he knows whether he can keep standing there. Sometimes shutting up for a while is good politics.

BATO NEEDED PROTECTION. THEN ROBIN NEEDED PROTECTION TOO.

After Dela Rosa left the Senate, Robin Padilla publicly acknowledged that Dela Rosa rode with him and that he dropped him off in Makati. Padilla denies helping him evade arrest, and a complaint is not a conviction.

The group already had Bato’s problem to deal with. Then Robin explained his own role in transporting him, and another senator suddenly had questions to answer from the same episode.

Protect Bato, then defend Robin. Explain what happened, challenge how authorities behaved, argue about Senate independence, then answer whatever came next.

Sara Duterte’s impeachment was still moving while all of that was happening.

When Jinggoy Estrada was taken into custody in connection with his plunder case, Cayetano and members of his group did not attend the scheduled Senate session. Cayetano called on the other senators to join them and allow the Senate to “go quiet” as a protest.

The other side refused. Bato was already unavailable and Estrada was detained, yet that was the moment the group chose for another confrontation.

I cannot prove that the boycott caused Cayetano to lose the Senate presidency, and I will not pretend that I can. The group was already struggling with attendance and numbers, chose to stop Senate work as an act of solidarity with Estrada, and soon found itself out of the majority.

THE SENATE DOES NOT CONTROL THE SANDIGANBAYAN

The Senate cannot simply decide that two detained senators should walk out of detention and report for impeachment duty. Once Estrada and Marcoleta were under Sandiganbayan custody, they had to ask the anti-graft court for permission to attend.

Estrada did exactly that, and the Sandiganbayan denied his request. The court pointed out that the impeachment trial could run for 31 weeks and said repeated temporary release could not simply be treated as emergency leave.

Cayetano could argue. The minority could complain. The Senate could say it wanted Estrada there. None of those things placed him back in the chamber.

Marcoleta later said he would not ask the Sandiganbayan for permission because he rejected Chiz Escudero’s role as presiding officer of the impeachment court. Would the court have allowed him to participate? We do not know.

But if your goal is keeping every possible favorable vote available for Sara Duterte, refusing even to ask means you stop your own attempt before the court can answer.

Political anger cannot cast an impeachment vote. A senator can.

Marcoleta also publicly discussed the ₱75 million he received before the 2025 elections. His defense says the money was a campaign contribution, while prosecutors dispute how the funds were described and reported. His criminal liability remains for the Sandiganbayan to decide.

I am not deciding Marcoleta’s case here. Prosecutors later used his own public statement as evidence during his trial.

That was exposure he did not need to create for himself.

ROBIN TALKED BEFORE HIS OWN SIDE HAD A POSITION

Padilla did something similar politically before the impeachment court had even started its work. He publicly floated the possibility that the group could resist convening the impeachment court.

Then Bong Go said the group had never discussed such a plan, while Jinggoy Estrada and Imee Marcos also distanced themselves from the idea. One senator had already discussed a huge constitutional fight in public before his own side had agreed that it wanted that fight.

If your bloc is considering something that serious, perhaps agree among yourselves before somebody talks about it on camera. Instead, Padilla’s allies were left explaining a position they had never agreed to.

THE STRATEGY DOESN’T LOOK VERY STRATEGIC

I keep looking for somebody inside this group who appears to be saying, “Eto na lang muna. Leave that one alone. We can deal with it later. Don’t answer that yet. Protect the votes first.”

Maybe somebody is saying it and nobody is listening. Maybe nobody is saying it at all.

Too often, whatever happens that day becomes the next political fight. Bato has a problem, deal with Bato. Estrada gets arrested, stop Senate work. Marcoleta cannot participate, find a way to get Marcoleta back. Cayetano hears something he disagrees with, go explain it publicly. Somebody questions the leadership, defend the leadership. Somebody raises the vote count, fight that too.

Watching them sometimes reminds me of the old Road Runner cartoons. They rush into the next move before checking what the previous one did, then the rock falls, the bridge collapses, the dynamite goes off, and they are already preparing the next contraption.

Except this is not ACME. These are Senate votes, court orders, criminal cases and an impeachment trial involving the Vice President of the Philippines.

Their timing keeps hurting them because they keep answering today’s problem while creating next week’s problem. There does not seem to be enough sorting between what has to be dealt with now, what can wait and what should simply be left alone.

Cayetano’s group also challenged Chiz Escudero’s role as presiding officer and lost. Escudero stayed in the chair and later issued the initial interpretation that conviction would need 16 votes.

Sara Duterte’s own lawyers wanted that ruling kept. The presiding officer some of her Senate allies fought gave her defense one of its best early positions.

Once they had it, the job was keeping it.

They could not.

THEY HAD 16. THEN THEY LOST IT.

On September 23, the impeachment court voted 13 to 1 to drop the fixed 16-vote count and instead base the number on senators legally and factually able to participate when judgment is rendered. Six senator-judges did not participate.

With four senators then unable to participate because of legal issues, the immediate number needed for conviction became 14 instead of 16.

Bato had become unavailable. Estrada and Marcoleta were detained. Estrada asked the Sandiganbayan for permission to participate and was denied, while Marcoleta decided he would not ask.

For a group trying to keep the strongest possible protection around Sara Duterte, that is one hell of a sequence.

THE PRESSURE IS REAL. SO ARE THEIR OWN MISTAKES.

Alan Peter and Pia Cayetano have both said their group is under pressure. Looking at the timing of what has happened around several senators, I understand why they say that.

I can see what feels like an invisible hand in the timing. I cannot prove who owns that hand, whether one person is directing it, or whether every case and investigation is connected. I also refuse to pretend that people who should answer serious accusations should somehow be spared because their votes happen to be useful to Sara Duterte.

Estrada should answer the case against him. Marcoleta should answer his. Anyone else facing a real case should do the same.

What catches my attention is when these things happen and what they do to the Senate numbers.

I wrote before that Chiz Escudero looked to me like a man operating on a very short leash. Looking at Joel Villanueva, I cannot ignore the same question. I am not saying somebody ordered either senator to act a certain way. I am watching what happens around them and when it happens.

Now Loren Legarda has entered the picture. Her spokesman, Tony La Viña, said on October 2 that he would not rule out Legarda joining the Senate majority when she returns from medical leave. He also said she may already be talking with colleagues, although he rejected the idea that any possible move should automatically be tied to Sara Duterte’s impeachment.

At the same time, allegations involving Legarda and her son, Rep. Leandro Leviste, are under investigation. Legarda’s camp has called the case political.

Legarda has not switched. Her camp has only refused to rule it out.

Villanueva already left Cayetano’s 13. Now another member’s camp is openly saying another move is possible.

If Legarda eventually crosses, nobody needs to manufacture the irony for Alan Peter Cayetano. He already supplied it when he declared the 13 solid.

The minority may genuinely be under pressure. Somebody may even be very good at recognizing the right moment to apply it. Cases, investigations and political openings can arrive at times that make life very difficult for senators whose votes Sara Duterte may need.

Whoever is applying that pressure does not have to create the minority’s weaknesses. The minority keeps supplying them.

Nobody forced Cayetano to speak as though his 13 were unbreakable when he had no spare vote. Nobody forced Padilla to discuss Bato’s movements publicly. Nobody forced Marcoleta to talk about the ₱75 million that prosecutors later used as evidence.

Nobody forced the group to keep opening another political fight while its numbers were already getting thinner.

THE CURRENT MAJORITY APPEARS TO UNDERSTAND THE DIFFERENCE

So far, based on my tracking, Gatchalian’s majority has handled its position differently. It has generally kept the leadership drama down, continued Senate work and allowed hearings, rulings and votes to do much of the talking.

I also do not see Kiko Pangilinan or Risa Hontiveros constantly firing up Facebook Live because Alan Peter Cayetano has made another political argument. They speak, criticize and take positions, but they are not creating the same stream of running commentary.

I am not claiming the minority controls every troll page supporting it, and I am not claiming every account spreading false or misleading claims receives instructions from a senator. I have no evidence for either claim.

But trolls and partisan pages need material. Long Facebook Live sessions, premature declarations, dramatic accusations and confident claims give them ready-made clips that can be chopped up, stripped of context and repeated all over social media.

Cayetano keeps giving them plenty to work with. The current majority, so far, has been quieter and does not appear interested in answering every Cayetano statement with another live session.

They can still screw this up. Their numbers can break, members can make poor decisions, and they can become as confident as the people they replaced.

So far, though, they seem to understand one useful rule.

Power does not need a Facebook Live every time you use it.

SHOULD I EVEN BE WRITING THIS?

I did have one slightly funny thought while putting all of this together. Am I helping the minority by pointing out what I think they are doing wrong?

Then I looked at the cup beside me.

Morning Coffee Thoughts is a small blog, and I am writing this while drinking 3-in-1 coffee in the kitchen. I seriously doubt anybody in the Senate minority is waiting for my latest post before deciding what to do next.

But if a blogger having 3-in-1 coffee in his kitchen can go through the dates, votes, statements and cases and notice the same pattern repeating, why can’t they?

Maybe I am wrong about some of it. Maybe there is a brilliant plan behind all of this that I cannot see.

From where I am standing, though, it looks like Road Runner politics without anybody checking where the cliff is.

YOU HAD ONE JOB

The minority has not lost every argument. Its senator-judges have raised legitimate questions, tested prosecution evidence and won some points along the way.

They took the Senate presidency and lost it. They protected senators and ended up with additional problems. They fought for detained colleagues whose attendance was controlled by a court outside the Senate, and they talked publicly about moves their own allies had not agreed upon.

Then the fixed 16 disappeared.

Now even Legarda’s camp is refusing to rule out another move to the majority.

Sara Duterte does not need another livestream, another declaration that somebody is under attack, another display of solidarity or another senator explaining somebody’s movements on television. She needs senators who can actually vote.

You had one job.

And from where I’m looking now, after all the bad timing, loose talk, lost numbers, detained allies, broken blocs and the disappearance of the fixed 16, Sara's political future is fucked.

And that's a good thing for the Philippines.