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Cristina Chi - Philstar.com
May 12, 2026 | 4:45pm
MANILA, Philippines — Sen. Panfilo Lacson said the leadership change that removed Tito Sotto as Senate President yesterday broke with the chamber's long-standing customs and was carried out in a manner he described as "ugly."
Lacson — who lost his own post as Senate president pro tempore in the same surprise vote — said the new majority did not follow the unwritten procedure that has accompanied past Senate coups.
Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano was elected Senate president on Monday afternoon, May 11, by a vote of 13 to nine, with two abstentions.
The vote took place just as the House of Representatives was in the process of voting to impeach Vice President Sara Duterte.
Sen. Loren Legarda — previously among those who stood with Sotto in the majority — was among the 13 who voted for Cayetano.
She replaced Lacson as pro tempore.
"Any way you look at it, regardless of your political persuasion, what happened on Monday was ugly," Lacson said in a DZMM interview, speaking in a mix of English and Filipino. "It was an unpleasant sight."
The custom
Lacson said Senate tradition dictates that once a bloc has secured 13 votes — the threshold needed to elect a Senate president — its members approach the sitting Senate president at noon to inform them.
The sitting leader of the upper chamber then steps down at the start of the session, Lacson said, and nominates his own replacement. Both sides exchange courtesy votes.
This did not happen yesterday. Instead, Sen. Joel Villanueva moved from the floor to declare all leadership posts vacant. Sen. Imee Marcos nominated Cayetano, Lacson nominated Sotto, and then the deciding vote followed within minutes.
Lacson acknowledged that he understood part of the reason for this break with tradition. The new majority, he said, had to bring Sen. Bato dela Rosa — the subject of an International Criminal Court arrest warrant — into the Senate building, and an early public handoff would have alerted law enforcement.
A Senate coup, Lacson wrote on X (formerly Twitter), was "as common as the daily sessions in the Senate" and, like rebellion under Philippine law, a continuing crime.
Crossing the floor
Four members of the old majority voted for Cayetano: Legarda and Senators Pia Cayetano, Mark Villar and Camille Villar.
Lacson expressed disappointment that Legarda did not inform him of the impending vote to push out Sotto.
"My sentiment, and I think my colleagues in the former majority share this, it is sad that Sen. Legarda, one of our originals in the former majority, did not inform us of her decision," he said.
Lacson recalled that when Senators JV Ejercito and Sherwin Gatchalian joined the Sotto bloc in 2025, they had first informed then-Senate President Francis Escudero, who Sotto replaced.
Asked whether Legarda's move was connected to her son, Rep. Leandro Leviste (Batangas), Lacson declined to speculate. "The point is, she should have told us," he said.
In her acceptance speech as pro tempore on Monday, Legarda paid tribute to Sotto, saying his "wisdom, leadership, and discipline" had strengthened the institution.
Sotto, asked on Monday whether his removal was tied to the impeachment, said it was a "strong possibility."
Cayetano during plenary claimed the impeachment was "much, much more than dismissing a complaint because of political affiliation," but did not spell out or assure his colleagues how he would proceed.
The Bato question
Dela Rosa, who had been absent from the Senate since November 2025, reappeared at the chamber yesterday and cast the 13th vote that elected Cayetano.
He said agents of the National Bureau of Investigation pursued him through the hallways and "wrestled" with him as he made his way in.
The new majority cited the agents in contempt the same afternoon.
Lacson said the contempt citation was procedurally faulty. Direct contempt, he said, requires that the offense be committed at the same time as a committee hearing.
The pursuit had already ended by the time the motion was made, which in Lacson's view meant the proper remedy was indirect contempt, wherein the Senate orders the agents to appear and explain themselves first.
