A leadership shake-up at the top of the Senate is being floated by one of the chamber’s longest-serving figures, who argued on Sunday, May 31, that the institution has become incapable of doing its job under its current head.
Former Senate president Aquilino Pimentel III told dzBB that Alan Peter Cayetano ought to weigh giving up the post, framing the suggestion not as an ultimatum but as a recommendation rooted in the chamber’s worsening paralysis. In Pimentel’s telling, a presiding officer who cannot move legislation forward should read that failure as a sign the role does not suit him.
“You volunteered to be a leader, then your chamber can’t do anything because of all the fighting. You may think, ‘This is not for me, I will step back.’ Give it (leadership) up for the good of the chamber, not for your own good,” he said, describing a Senate he called “deeply divided.” He added that the body would be better served by someone capable of bringing senators together: “Better yet, get a better unifier.”
Pimentel traced part of the problem to temperament. Drawing on a working relationship with Cayetano that goes back to the 15th Congress, he characterized his colleague as someone whose forceful disposition complicates the consensus-building a small chamber requires.
“Alan Peter is palaban (a fighter). If you challenge him, he will also challenge you. Our Senate is smaller than a classroom, you should adapt to your colleagues. You need a bit of unity. It doesn’t need to be all disunity, quarrelling and fighting,” he said.
The dysfunction, by his account, runs deeper than personality clashes. Pimentel said he had been told that the 13-member majority aligned with Cayetano and the 11-member minority have stopped communicating altogether — a contrast he drew with his own 12 years in the chamber, when he managed to stay on cordial and even friendly terms with rivals across the aisle while serving in the minority. Senators, he warned, should be alarmed at belonging to a body that produces nothing, with legislative time slipping away to the impasse.
That breakdown also threatens to taint the looming impeachment proceedings, Pimentel cautioned.
He flagged a separate legal exposure as well, taking aim at the majority’s intention to convene panels such as the Blue Ribbon and Public Order committees before the minority has formally designated its members. Pushing those hearings through without a properly seated minority, he said, invites a legal challenge. “If the minority does not have a voice, that may be questioned in court,” Pimentel said.
His appeal extended to both camps. He pressed the majority not to steamroll the minority in violation of the rules, while urging the minority to stop stalling on its committee nominations so the chamber could resume functioning. “My appeal to the majority, do not dismiss the minority because that is against the rules. To the minority, cooperate as best as you can so the Senate can function, because the institution is becoming pitiful,” he said. As of his remarks, the minority had still not chosen its representatives to the permanent committees the majority has already set up.
Separately, League of Cities of the Philippines national president and San Juan Mayor Francis Zamora pressed lawmakers to return their attention to legislating, speaking to reporters in Legazpi City, Albay, on Saturday and clarifying that the view was his own rather than the LCP’s. “As a Filipino, I want to see a Senate that is respectable and respected. We should conduct ourselves in a manner worthy of respect because that is why elected officials are called honorable,” he said.
