Assumption, UP student groups slam Loren, Alan
A groundswell of outrage and dismay is growing among students over actions taken by the new Senate leadership following their recent “coup” in the chamber, ahead of the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte, and Sen. Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa’s evasion of an International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant.
Current and former students from the alma maters of Senators Alan Peter Cayetano and Loren Legarda have expressed disgust and disappointment at last week’s Senate leadership shakeup when they wrested majority control from then Senate President Vicente Sotto III, who was seen as a political leader determined to immediately start Duterte’s impeachment trial.
In an unprecedented move, two student political parties at the University of the Philippines (UP)—Sandigan para sa Mag-aaral at Sambayanan (Samasa) and Nagkakaisang Tugon (Tugon)
—set aside their long-standing rivalry and issued a joint statement to demand that one of their own, Cayetano, resign as president of the Senate for allegedly making it a “stage for political theater, confusion and brinkmanship.”
“What makes this especially significant is that this call now includes members of Nagkaisang Tugon itself—the very student political formation under which Alan Peter Cayetano once served as a University Student Councilor,” the statement said on Saturday.
“When even one’s own political roots and former allies publicly repudiate one’s leadership, it reflects a profound belief that institutional and democratic boundaries have been dangerously crossed.”
In separate statements this week, the Assumption Student Council (ASC) of Assumption College San Lorenzo and UP Broadcasting Association criticized Legarda, the Senate president pro tempore, for leaving the Sotto-led majority and voting to unseat him, as senators awaited the transmission of the articles of impeachment against Duterte.
The ASC successfully petitioned the removal of Legarda’s portrait from the school’s Wall of Empowered Women, a gallery of distinguished alumnae honored for their life work that demonstrates not just high achievement, but also “character, responsibility, and moral courage.”
“While her past contributions are acknowledged, her recent political actions no longer reflect the values that Assumption holds,” ASC said on Friday.
It called on Legarda to “reflect on the principles she once upheld as a student and as a public figure,” urging the senator to “clarify her actions, correct her course, and demonstrate renewed commitment to accountability and justice.”
Legarda, 66, graduated as an elementary school valedictorian at Assumption, where she finished high school in 1978. She went to college at UP where she served as president of the UP Broadcasting Association. Graduating cum laude with a degree in broadcast communication in 1981, she became a well-known broadcaster before entering politics.
In its statement last Tuesday, the UP Broadcasting Association recalled that Legarda “once stood within the ranks of student leadership,” but that her political choices “now stand in contradiction with the principles of accountability, public service and democratic responsibility that UP students are taught to uphold.”
Legarda’s move to join the new Senate majority and her election to her new post “expose how easily loyalties within the Philippine government bend in service of political survival, convenience and elite bargaining,” said the group.
“We challenge Sen. Legarda to reflect on the values she once claimed to stand for and to ensure that the Senate does not become a sanctuary for impunity nor a bargaining table for political dynasties seeking to preserve power,” it added.
‘Protective custody’
Sotto was unseated by 13 senators, nearly all of them known supporters of the Vice President and her father, ex-President Rodrigo Duterte. As a matter of parliamentary courtesy, however, Sotto and Cayetano voted for each other for Senate president.
But the crucial vote last Monday came from Dela Rosa, who appeared in the Senate after six months in hiding since November last year when the ICC reportedly issued an arrest warrant against him on charges of crimes against humanity alongside the former president, who is now detained in The Hague, the Netherlands.
Cayetano said arresting Dela Rosa was illegal because the NBI did not carry any warrant from a local court. He declared, upon a motion that wasn’t opposed, that the Senate would hold Dela Rosa in “protective custody.”
On Wednesday night, the third day of Dela Rosa’s protective custody, shooting broke out in the Senate, allegedly between NBI agents and personnel from the Office of the Senate Sergeant-at-Arms (Osaa). No one was injured and investigations are under way.
Critics of Cayetano alleged that this was a ploy to allow Dela Rosa to leave the Senate building. Hours later, Dela Rosa snuck out of the Senate.
‘Failure of leadership’
Samasa and Tugon called out Cayetano for his “grave failure of leadership, judgment and institutional responsibility” in handling Dela Rosa’s situation.
“A situation that should have been handled with sobriety, clarity and respect for legal processes instead escalated into chaos, conflicting statements, armed tension, warning shots, and the eventual disappearance of the very person supposedly under Senate ‘protective custody,’” the groups said.
The former student leaders said Cayetano displayed “profound failure of judgment, leadership, and institutional responsibility during one of the most embarrassing episodes in recent Senate history.”
They said that Dela Rosa’s escape was a failure of the new Senate leadership and “rests primarily and singularly on Alan Peter.”
Cayetano has argued that Dela Rosa, then President Duterte’s first national police chief, had no case in the Philippines and was free to leave the Senate and its protective custody.
But the student leaders said it wasn’t that simple.
“You cannot invoke the Senate’s institutional powers to shield someone from arrest, insist that you are now responsible for his custody and safety, obstruct or delay lawful enforcement efforts, and then later shrug your shoulders when the person disappears,” they said. “At that point, you are no longer defending institutions or the rule of law. You are actively undermining them.”
Cayetano, 55, was admitted to the Philippine Bar in 1998 a year after finishing his juris doctor at the Ateneo School of Law where he graduated with second honors.
He studied political science at UP where he was elected student councilor in 1990. He graduated in 1993.
The Youth Against Kurakot (YAK), a coalition of youth organizations, student councils, and Sangguniang Kabataan officers, also called for Cayetano’s ouster as it condemned the recent events that transpired in the Senate after he assumed leadership.
YAK co-convenor Matthew Silverio said in a statement that the Senate chose to put the public in danger by protecting Dela Rosa.
PUP Central Student Council member Frank Araneta said that Cayetano “effectively prioritized personal interests” instead of focusing on the preparations so that the impeachment trial could “proceed forthwith.”
Cayetano on Saturday defended the recent Senate leadership change, saying that the chamber needed a “new direction” as the country’s “present crisis” was “not getting enough attention.”
He insisted that the move was not meant to derail the impeachment process against Duterte.
Cayetano, who often quotes the Bible, called for what he described as a “prayer and reflection campaign.” —WITH REPORTS FROM ISABELLE PECHAY AND INQUIRER RESEARCH
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