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MANILA, Philippines — Sen. Lito Lapid made a rare manifestation during the plenary session on Tuesday, May 26, to clarify that he is staying in the 11-member minority bloc.
This comes a day after he appeared not to join his fellow minority senators in seconding a motion by Sen. Migz Zubiri — also a minority bloc member — to strike Sen. Imee Marcos' controversial video from the Senate records.
"There's a lot of speculation going around on social media that I've already moved to the majority. That's not true. I will remain in the minority group, and I'm not leaving," Lapid said in Filipino on the floor.
He also clarified that he supported Zubiri's motion. "I just wasn't able to speak yesterday. I thought there was going to be a vote, but there wasn't," he said.
On Monday, May 25, Marcos played a video during her privilege speech that linked members of the minority bloc to a supposed covert push for Charter change, aimed at preventing the 2028 national elections.
The video showed Minority Leader Tito Sotto III supposedly discussing term extension with House Speaker Faustino Dy III.
Minority senators called the video disinformation. Zubiri, who criticized Marcos for showing "horrible propaganda," moved to strike it from the Senate records. Every other member of the minority bloc seconded the motion.
Marcos eventually withdrew the video on her own after being asked to do so by Senate President Alan Peter Cayetano, who took the floor to manifest his support for Marcos' right to show the video during plenary.
Lapid is part of the minority bloc now calling itself "Solid Block 11" or SB-11, which is pushing to unseat Cayetano and install Gatchalian as Senate president.
So far, no member of the 13-strong majority has publicly expressed their willingness to cross over. — Cristina Chi
