Hours after relinquishing his claim to the Senate’s top post, Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano told the colleagues who had peeled away to back the chamber’s new leadership that he carried no grudge against them, framing their defections as choices made under heavy pressure rather than acts of betrayal.
“We are not enemies — only colleagues, brothers caught in a moment larger than us all,” Cayetano said, adding: “I hold no bitterness toward you. I have seen the pressures that were brought to bear, and I understand them.”
The conciliatory note followed a decisive turn on Wednesday, June 17, when Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian was formally elected Senate president after securing the 13 votes the Constitution requires for the position. The final piece fell into place when Sen. Joel Villanueva — once counted among Cayetano’s allies — threw his support behind the opposing camp, supplying the thirteenth vote. All 13 senators present at the special session cast their ballots for Gatchalian.
Cayetano had stepped aside roughly an hour before the session opened, announcing he was giving up his claim to the presidency after Villanueva informed him of his decision to support Gatchalian. BusinessWorld reported that Cayetano acknowledged the rival bloc had assembled the numbers it needed, telling colleagues that the other side would soon hold enough votes to install a new leader.
Gatchalian inherits a chamber still split down the middle. The senators aligned with Cayetano stayed away from the special session entirely, an absence that underscored how raw the divide remains even after the vote settled the question of who holds the gavel. In his first remarks as Senate president, Gatchalian described his goal as a chamber oriented toward dialogue and solutions, calling the role a daily summons to set an example in public service.
The leadership itself is not the only contest still unresolved. Cayetano and his allies have taken the fight to the Supreme Court, filing a petition for certiorari and prohibition that runs more than 80 pages. Their argument centers on the June 3 session, when Gatchalian was first named acting Senate president pro tempore: the petitioners contend that the 12-senator quorum recognized that day was invalid, which in their reading would render everything that followed — including Gatchalian’s initial elevation — void from the start.
The new majority that carried Wednesday’s vote brought together a roster that crossed old factional lines, among them Sens. Bam Aquino, JV Ejercito, Chiz Escudero, Risa Hontiveros, Panfilo Lacson, Lito Lapid, Kiko Pangilinan, Vicente Sotto III, and the brothers Erwin and Raffy Tulfo. Escudero and Villanueva, both former members of Cayetano’s group, were among those who supplied the quorum that made the election possible.
