Obsessed with snatching the Senate presidency from Sen. Tito Sotto, Cayetano had to promise the Duterte bloc at the Senate that he would scupper the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio while goading Sen. Loren Legarda to ditch her erstwhile firm allies in the majority. He never thought that betraying Legarda and enticing de la Rosa to join the coup would lead to a crisis.
Surely, the Filipino people will not allow political mongrels to toss out the Sara impeachment trial to please the already incarcerated Rodrigo Duterte and Sara herself. The Cayetano drama at the comes as a huge embarrassment for the Filipino people, who were applauded when Duterte Sr. was sent on a free trip to The Hague more than a year ago.
De la Rosa spent Monday evening inside the premises after having been given protective custody by the new Senate President he helped install. It is looking like it would be a long-drawn standoff between de la Rosa and arresting officers eager to fly him to The Hague to undergo trial as an indirect co-conspirator in charges of crimes against humanity for the mass murder he allegedly participated in.
Some non-lawyer senator-judges would have to rely on their digital tablets for feeds from their respective legal teams. Others, especially the intellectual lightweights, would not even bother to master the rules of court and would just vote on what is personally beneficial for them. When they rise up to speak, they would most likely provide the comic relief in the drama.
. It led to the most famous CCTV footage in the history of 110-year-old Senate. There was no wrestling. What happened was an entirely different sports event: a 100-meter dash, albeit up some stairs and through some doors.
Cayetano may pretend to be a Christian fundamentalist who considers himself to be God’s ambassador to the House of Sinners, the Senate, but he is surely a political animal who thinks his time has come.
The Cebu summit and the missile launch in Tacloban must be read together. One projects the diplomatic language of stability. The other reveals the military reality taking shape beneath it.
What compelled Duterte Sr. to change horses in midstream? Not the reported P150 million monthly professional fee since the Dutertes are certainly not poor, with Pulong Duterte’s son even bragging that P10-billion in the bank or at the safe at home is a measly amount to deploy in the service of the people.
The abrasions and contusions of the dead, Dr. Fortun argued, “were consistent with a person who had been shot, fallen and then shot again, possibly from behind.”
It’s not far-fetched that Sara Zimmerman Duterte Carpio will lose lawyers in her defense panel if reports that she smacked one counsel with a laptop. As a lawyer herself with an 80% grade in her bar exam, Sara should have known physical assaults against a colleague warrants sanctions from the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP) and possibly disbarment.
