Comparing the back-and-forth among senators to a soap opera, Senate President Pro Tempore Vicente “Tito” Sotto III on Friday, June 19, brushed aside Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano’s recent broadside and urged his colleagues to redirect their energy toward national concerns.
Sotto made clear he had little interest in responding point by point to Cayetano’s criticism. Reaching reporters through a Viber message, he argued that the spectacle of senators trading barbs in public served no one.
“Parang telenovela style (It’s like a telenovela). It’s not good for the country. Let’s move on to more urgent issues to help our countrymen,” Sotto said.
The remarks followed an extended Facebook Live session in which Cayetano singled out multiple members of the chamber. Among those he named were Senators Raffy and Erwin Tulfo, along with Senator Panfilo Lacson.
Cayetano branded both Sotto and Raffy Tulfo “tuta,” or lapdogs, of Malacañang during the broadcast, while characterizing Erwin Tulfo as a “tuta” of Lacson. The label, drawn from Filipino political slang, paints its target as a puppet or lackey who obeys another’s instructions without question.
He went further with Lacson, claiming the senator was holding damaging information over Erwin Tulfo and gesturing at supposed problems tied to contractors connected to him. No proof accompanied either assertion.
Cayetano reserved a particular jab for Lacson, declaring that the senator had graduated from “tuta” to “aso,” then riffing on the phrase “aso-kaso” to imply Lacson tends to answer disputes by filing cases.
That characterization arrived not long after Lacson had publicly commended Erwin Tulfo for endorsing the partial findings of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee’s probe into questionable flood control projects, a move Tulfo made despite resistance from within the chamber.
Cayetano closed out the lengthy stream by quoting Jeremiah 29:11, scripture he returns to often in his public statements.
