Economist Winnie Monsod placed the blame for Monday’s collapsed Senate proceedings squarely on the chamber’s leadership, pressing the question of why presiding officers chose to be elsewhere rather than convene the session.
The former Socioeconomic Planning secretary spoke to reporters after she and others had spent roughly two hours inside the session hall with nothing to show for it. “Did you realize how ridiculous this whole thing is? Tell me, is accompanying Senator Estrada to wherever he’s going, is that more important than presiding over a Senate session? Any seven-year-old will tell you what is more important,” she said.
The session, set to resume Monday following the chamber’s May 26 adjournment, never got underway. By the time the clock pushed past 7 p.m., the floor remained idle. Only the 11 senators of the minority bloc had turned up, while the majority stayed away without filing any notice of their absence.
Monsod also took aim at how Senate President Alan Peter Cayetano had characterized the day’s events. She rejected his framing of Sen. Jinggoy Estrada’s arrest as a politically driven move aimed at flipping the balance of power in the chamber. “For them to say that Senator Jinggoy Estrada would be arrested so that the majority would be minority or something, it’s so ridiculous,” she said, adding that such claims were an affront to the public’s intelligence. She noted that the arrest had been anticipated for months, alongside others expected to follow.
Estrada turned himself in earlier that day and was taken to Camp Crame for processing in connection with a plunder case stemming from alleged kickbacks tied to flood control project funds. Cayetano, for his part, traveled to the camp rather than open the session.
Word that the day’s business was off came through Cayetano’s media relations officer, who confirmed there would be no proceedings. Earlier, the Senate chief had issued a written appeal to the minority, urging them to defend what he called the institution’s independence and describing the chamber as a co-equal branch that no party should treat as a trophy to be won.
