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Cristina Chi - Philstar.com
May 21, 2026 | 5:31pm
MANILA, Philippines — Senate President Alan Peter Cayetano told reporters the chamber was "under attack" during the May 13 gunfire incident because that was what acting sergeant-at-arms Mao Aplasca was radioing from the field, a senator from the minority bloc said Thursday, May 21.
Sen. Erwin Tulfo said Aplasca — whom investigations showed fired the first warning shots without a clear target — fed exaggerated reports to Cayetano and the senators sheltering with him, which left them rattled and afraid.
"Senator Cayetano was inside with all the senators, and they were just getting the report from Aplasca," Tulfo told reporters in Filipino. "If the information being given to them was wrong, of course you'd be rattled. If Aplasca says we are under attack, of course, all of them would be afraid."
"That's the fault of the commander on the ground," he said in Filipino.
Tulfo laid the blame on Aplasca, who he said was Cayetano's main source of information on the source of gunshots outside the room where he and other majority bloc members were staying.
"This report of Aplasca's, it sounded like he was exaggerating — 'we're under attack, sir, we're under attack,'" Tulfo said. "Of course, that's what Senator Cayetano then said to the media. Because that was the report given to him."
"Who was under attack there? Where?" he said.
The Office of the Ombudsman last week placed Aplasca under a six-month preventive suspension without pay. He has admitted to firing the first shot during the standoff.
CCTV footage of the shooting, presented by Philippine National Police (PNP) chief Gen. Jose Melencio Nartatez Jr. at a Malacañang briefing on May 19, showed Aplasca leading Senate security personnel and Marines toward the boundary with the Government Service Insurance System complex.
It is here that they exchanged fire with National Bureau of Investigation agents, even as no armed group was attempting to breach the Senate.
Aplasca fired three warning shots, according to the joint investigation by the PNP and the Department of the Interior and Local Government. He has denied this and has maintained that he fired only a single warning shot after seeing an NBI agent raise a long firearm.
A day after the May 13 incident, Cayetano vented angrily at a press briefing, saying there was "no question" that the Senate was under attack.
The NBI, the PNP, the DILG, and Malacañang have all since rejected that account and said no attack on the Senate took place.
"They were focused on a single area — it looked like they were shooting at a shadow," Tulfo said in Filipino. "They should have deployed people instead to secure the room where the senators were meeting."
'No manual'
Tulfo said the incident exposed the lack of an actual protocol for armed assault among security personnel assigned to the Senate.
"I know there's one for earthquakes and fires. But for that kind of firefight... — what the standard operating procedure is, there's none. There's no manual," the senator told reporters.
He said no one was posted outside the room where the senators had taken shelter. Tulfo said he asked Sen. Joel Villanueva, who was inside, whether any Marines or police stood guard.
"Was there no one posted to secure you? None," Tulfo said. Only Sen. Imee Marcos and senior security personnel had body armor, he said.
A Marine company of about 24 personnel is assigned to the Senate, along with a similarly sized Presidential Security and Protection Group contingent. Tulfo said about seven of them could have been deployed outside the senators' room.
"If you look at the video, the Marines were just waiting on the side. They were not on the front line. Only the [Office of the Sergeant-at-Arms] personnel and Aplasca charged in there," he said in Filipino.
Tulfo said he would push for a Senate committee-of-the-whole investigation to question Aplasca directly on his deployment decisions and his reporting to Cayetano.
