Facing a wave of criticism over his reading of “force majeure,” Sen. Robinhood Padilla fired back at the people questioning him by mocking what he cast as their overthinking — taking aim at the “geniuses” who rejected his push to let fugitive senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa join plenary work remotely while in hiding.
The action star turned lawmaker leaned on sarcasm in defending the position on Facebook yesterday. “Iba talaga ang pangangatwiran ng ‘genius.’ Highest level ng pagkapilosopo,” he wrote on a quote card. He then challenged his detractors to bring the question to ordinary people: “Sa kalye mo na lang itanong kung si Senator Bato ay ayaw ba magtrabaho o hindi pinapayagan makapagtrabaho? Asagotin ka ng may warrant (sic).”
At the heart of his case is the provision allowing senators to take part by “teleconference, video conference or other reliable forms of remote or electronic means.” Padilla argues that option is already on the table because the rule’s trigger — “force majeure or the occurrence of a national emergency” — has, in his view, been satisfied by the El Niño phenomenon, the conflict in the Middle East, and the country’s territorial disputes.
That interpretation, though, skips over a key qualifier in the same rule. Virtual attendance and voting are permitted only when those unanticipated events actually prevent a senator from physically reporting to the session hall — a limit Padilla’s argument did not account for.
His colleagues seized on that gap. Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian, citing the teleconferencing language under Section 41, pointed out an additional hurdle: a majority of all Senate members must agree before any senator can be cleared for remote participation.
Gatchalian also doubted that the scenarios Padilla raised meet the standard the rule sets. “Even when there’s El Niño, it’s still OK for us to go to work. Even when there’s a war in Iran, it’s so far away, we can still go to work. Just because there’s something happening all over the world, we’ll teleconference all of a sudden?” he told radio dzMM.
