Kill the chicken to scare the monkey?
Kill the chicken to scare the monkey.” Punish one conspicuously, the saying goes, and others who fear the same fate may fall into line. Could this explain shifting alignments in the Senate impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte? The chronology makes it plausible—but unproven.
The story began on June 10, 2025, when the Senate, then led by Sen. Francis “Chiz” Escudero, voted 18–5 to return Duterte’s impeachment articles to the House without dismissing the case. Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano had moved to remand the articles, amending Sen. Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa’s motion for outright dismissal. The trial was delayed, not extinguished.
In May 2026, Cayetano replaced Sen. Vicente Sotto III as Senate president. Dela Rosa, facing an International Criminal Court warrant over alleged crimes against humanity, appeared at the Senate amid a security confrontation and then disappeared from public view. Cayetano called the episode an attack on the Senate; later, the justice department said the building had not been attacked. Evidence has not established it was staged.
Then came the flood control cases. Sen. Jinggoy Estrada was detained in June after a Sandiganbayan warrant in a plunder case alleging P573 million in kickbacks. Estrada denies wrongdoing. On July 6, just before the impeachment trial opened, Sen. Rodante Marcoleta was arrested in a separate plunder case involving alleged P75-million campaign donations. He pleaded not guilty. Neither arrest is a conviction, but both made prominent senators’ legal vulnerability impossible to ignore.
Meanwhile, Senate control shifted. A rival bloc installed Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian as acting Senate president on June 3; he was formally elected on June 17 after Sen. Joel Villanueva’s attendance secured a quorum. Villanueva’s move was pivotal: Cayetano’s faction had boycotted the session, and Cayetano acknowledged that the transfer made his own leadership bid untenable. Villanueva explained his decision: “For work.”
But Villanueva’s position deserves particular scrutiny. He had himself been named by former Bulacan engineer Henry Alcantara and other witnesses in allegations concerning ghost flood control projects and alleged kickbacks. He became a respondent in complaints, filed counter-affidavits denying wrongdoing, and the justice department endorsed findings on complaints to the Ombudsman in March. In September, however, the Commission on Audit (COA) said its fraud audits had found no link between Villanueva and the Bulacan projects examined. These are distinct facts: allegations and complaints existed; he denied them; COA’s audit findings did not identify a link. As of the latest reporting cited here, no guilt had been established.
On Sept. 23, the impeachment court voted 13–1 to interpret the two-thirds conviction requirement by reference to senators legally and factually able to participate, rather than automatically all 24 members. The ruling made the practical threshold 14 rather than 16. Villanueva and Sen. Mark Villar joined the majority; Escudero dissented. The interpretation is contested and has been challenged before the Supreme Court. This was a procedural vote, not a verdict on Duterte’s guilt. Meanwhile, claims that Sen. Loren Legarda fled to Paris to evade arrest, or is now poised to return and join the majority, await reliable corroboration.
Here the chicken-and-monkey hypothesis gains force. Marcoleta was a combative Duterte ally, an endorsed candidate of the powerful Iglesia ni Cristo, and a senator who had chaired the Senate blue ribbon committee’s flood control inquiry. His arrest despite his stature and support startled observers. It suggested that political visibility and allies did not guarantee immunity from legal process. Estrada’s detention had already delivered a similar warning. Other senators might have concluded that their own protection was less secure than they assumed.
Yet no public evidence proves that Marcoleta’s arrest caused Villanueva’s realignment or Villar’s vote, or that either acted from fear of arrest. Villanueva’s flood control exposure makes the timing politically striking, but does not prove motive. COA’s findings also caution against treating every allegation as established fact.
An alternative explanation is institutional arithmetic. Cayetano’s coalition was fragile; absences and defections changed who could convene the Senate. Gatchalian’s election established a working majority. The threshold ruling then gave senators a consequential constitutional question on which to align without declaring their position on conviction. Villanueva may have prioritized a functioning Senate; Villar may have followed his interpretation of the rules. Strategic repositioning, factional calculations, and legal anxiety could all have operated together.
The proverb is therefore a useful hypothesis, not a verdict. The public should watch both the impeachment evidence and the court’s constitutional reasoning. The question for the attentive public is whether senators are judging the case on evidence—or calculating how to survive the changing balance of power.
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