10 articles
Committee chair Sen. Erwin Tulfo says the panel will examine Sen. Panfilo Lacson's claims of double-funded slope-protection projects once he formally submits them — reviving Lacson's public feud with Senate Minority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano over projects in Cayetano's home turf of Taguig.
NBI Director Melvin Matibag says the bureau will pull COA, SEC, and BIR records on the body that organized the 2019 Southeast Asian Games, whose total budget — including private-sector money — may top ₱10 billion, with Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano potentially facing a subpoena over his undisclosed role on its board.
Nine senators led by Alan Peter Cayetano filed a 97-page petition before the Supreme Court on June 16 seeking to nullify the June 3 session that installed Sherwin Gatchalian as Acting Senate President, arguing it lacked a quorum and was "engineered" by the Executive — one day before President Marcos convened Congress in a special session that the majority intends to use to formally reorganize the chamber.
Sen. Joel Villanueva — long seen as the swing vote that could formally unseat Alan Peter Cayetano — said on June 14 he will attend any special session President Marcos calls, while Sen. Panfilo Lacson said the majority bloc has prepared undisclosed "contingencies" in case Cayetano "makes a scene." Villanueva's own father, televangelist Eddie Villanueva, publicly told him to follow his conscience "not your friends."
Sen. Joel Villanueva said he would show up for any special session President Marcos calls to break a five-week Senate leadership deadlock — a pledge that could hand the Gatchalian bloc the 13th vote it needs to formally unseat Alan Peter Cayetano, even as Villanueva himself faces an Ombudsman probe over Bulacan flood control projects.
The Philippine Senate failed to convene on the evening of June 1 after the Cayetano majority bloc and the chamber's presiding officers did not appear for the scheduled 5 p.m. session — leaving the 11-member minority waiting two hours without a quorum and an agenda full of pending legislation unaddressed.
Twelve senators broke a two-day deadlock on June 3 by electing Sen. Win Gatchalian as acting Senate president after Cayetano's bloc lost its majority — but Cayetano refuses to cede the title, leaving the chamber with two rival leaders and the impeachment trial countdown ticking.
Former Senate president Aquilino Pimentel III on Sunday called on the Cayetano bloc to attend any special session with full attendance and settle the leadership dispute on the floor — as a rival faction under acting Senate President Sherwin Gatchalian holds a 12-10 working advantage, and Senator Loren Legarda escalated her constitutional challenge to the new majority's legitimacy.
With the Senate deadlocked by a leadership war that has consumed three session days, President Marcos signaled on June 5 that he will convene a special session at the formal request of acting Senate President Sherwin Gatchalian — warning that the legislature's dysfunction is blocking an anti-dynasty bill, a supplemental budget, and military confirmations the executive urgently needs.
The 11-member Senate minority bloc stormed out of the plenary hall on May 26 after Senate President Alan Peter Cayetano's majority attempted to push through a rule change allowing remote participation in sessions — a maneuver the minority decried as a procedural "railroading" with potential implications for the upcoming Sara Duterte impeachment trial. The walkout is the second in as many weeks and has prompted the minority to threaten a Supreme Court petition.
