A political alliance built around supporters of the Duterte family threw its weight behind embattled Senate President Alan Peter Cayetano on Sunday, framing the recent reorganization of the chamber’s leadership as a breach of the Constitution.
The Reform Alliance for Good Governance and Accountability, known as the Rage Coalition, said the bloc of senators that moved against Cayetano had bypassed the legal threshold needed to install new officers. “The Rage Coalition declares its full, absolute support for Senate President Alan Peter Cayetano,” the group said in its statement.
At the center of the dispute is a contested vote on June 3, when 12 senators declared the leadership posts vacant and elevated Sherwin Gatchalian, who now functions as acting Senate president after being chosen as Senate president pro tempore. The same session saw committee chairmanships reassigned, an outcome Cayetano’s camp has refused to recognize.
The coalition argued that the numbers simply were not there. The Senate majority bloc “ignored the strict constitutional requirement of a true quorum and the mandatory 13 affirmative votes of the entire Senate membership required to change officers. This was an illegal maneuver executed solely to seize the Blue Ribbon Committee and control the narrative,” the statement read.
That objection mirrors the position Cayetano has pressed since the session unfolded. He has insisted that with the Senate composed of 24 members, a majority of 13 is required to transact business or replace the chamber’s leadership, and that a 12-member gathering falls short of that mark.
The opposing faction has leaned on a different reading of the rules. Gatchalian and his allies point to the Supreme Court’s 1949 decision in Avelino v. Cuenco, which they say permits a quorum to be measured against the number of senators actually able to take part in proceedings rather than the full roster. Under that interpretation, the absences of Senator Ronald dela Rosa and detained Senator Jinggoy Estrada reduced the working base, leaving 12 as a sufficient figure.
Three convenors put their names to the Rage statement: Davao City Mayor Sebastian Duterte, former House Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez, and former congressman Mike Defensor. The coalition, launched in April and anchored in parties allied with the Duterte camp, has positioned itself as a vehicle for opposition to the Marcos administration.
Malacañang, by contrast, has already extended its recognition to Gatchalian’s leadership, as has the House of Representatives, leaving the question of legitimacy contested across both ends of the political spectrum.
