Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano pushed back against a fresh round of criticism aimed at him, telling viewers of his latest livestream that the barbs — including those from Sen. Panfilo Lacson — would not keep him from doing his work.
Speaking directly to the camera, Cayetano said he was capable of handling several demands at once despite the attacks being thrown his way, brushing off the notion that the noise around him had slowed him down.
Much of his commentary circled back to Lacson’s tenure at the helm of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee, the chamber’s chief investigative body. Cayetano argued that Lacson ran the panel differently from those who chaired it before him, contending that the senator steered both the course of its inquiries and the choice of who would be held to account.
He capped the segment with a pointed line aimed at Lacson, telling his audience: “Kung gusto niyo ng pampaputi, punta kayo kay Senator Lacson kasi magaling mag-whitewash.”
The remarks land amid a continuing rift within the Senate that has pitted Cayetano against several colleagues since the leadership change that installed him as chamber president. Lacson lost the Blue Ribbon chairmanship in the reorganization that followed, a post since handed to Sen. Pia Cayetano. The committee had spent months examining alleged anomalies in government flood control projects under Lacson’s watch.
