Senate President Alan Peter Cayetano has appealed to members of the Senate minority bloc to join what he described as a stand for the institution’s independence following recent political developments involving Senator Jinggoy Estrada.
In a message addressed to his colleagues in the minority, Cayetano said the Senate is a co-equal branch of government and should not be treated as a political prize.
“The Senate is a co-equal branch of government. It is not a prize to be claimed — by anyone,” Cayetano said.
He acknowledged ongoing disagreements over Senate leadership but argued that such issues should be resolved internally by senators themselves.
“But no matter our disagreements, we must all agree that it is the Senate’s own business to settle,” he said.
“This chamber answers to God and the people who sent us here, and to no one outside these walls.”
Cayetano said recent events had raised broader questions about institutional independence and warned against allowing the legal standing of senators or the independence of the chamber to become bargaining tools.
“This is not an accusation. I am speaking truth that each senator already knows — the independence of this institution, and the legal standing of any of its members, are not currencies,” he said.
“The day they become things to be traded, is the day that the Senate is diminished. And after the Senate, the Republic.”
The Senate President then challenged minority senators to take a position on the issue.
“So I put one question to you, not as the majority but as the chamber: will you stand for the Senate’s independence?” he asked.
Cayetano also called on senators to participate in what he described as a deliberate act of protest by allowing Senate proceedings to remain suspended.
“I am asking you to join one deliberate act — to let the Senate go quiet, together and by choice, so the country is made to ask why a co-equal branch would fall silent rather than be made to serve,” he said.
His statement comes amid an escalating dispute between the Senate majority and minority blocs over the suspension of Senate sessions following Estrada’s arrest on plunder charges linked to the alleged flood control fund controversy.
The minority bloc earlier accused the majority of staging a “boycott of duty,” while Cayetano and his allies have framed the issue as a defense of the Senate’s institutional independence.
