The Philippine politics has seen whirlwind intensity in the past 24 hours, with turmoil set to deepen ahead. The Senate now stands as the ground zero for these explosive developments.
Since November 2025, Senator Ronald dela Rosa has been absent from the sessions following reports of a possible International Criminal Court warrant tied to his role as former Philippine National Police (PNP) chief from 2016 to 2018 during former President Rodrigo Duterte’s bloody war on drugs. Vice President Sara Duterte has also similarly snubbed hearings on confidential funds and was mostly absent after her father’s arrest by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Predictably, both were no-shows at the budget hearings for the offices they represent or sponsor. And so they starve the people of clarity to ensure no contradiction or admission enters the public record.
Now, Dela Rosa and Duterte appeal to victimhood to justify their vanishing acts. The reappearance of dela Rosa and the recent Senate maneuvers, especially the change in leadership, coincide with the House of Representatives’ planned transmission of impeachment articles against Duterte. This signals the escalating clashes among reactionary factions in politics.
Critically, these actions likely aim to block politically damaging investigations, including the impeachment case and the overdue Senate Blue Ribbon Committee report on the multibillion-peso flood control fiasco. With the committee’s new chair, the direction of the corruption probe will probably pivot away from implicated senators.
What’s currently happening in the Senate shows ruling-class factions teaming up to protect their political survival and economic power.
On the same day, Dela Rosa was placed under Senate protective custody after a chase inside the Senate building, saying he would remain holed up there while exhausting all legal remedies to block any ICC arrest attempts.
Worse, the newly-elected Senate President Alan Peter Cayetano is actively protecting Dela Rosa, who is an alleged mass murderer sought internationally for crimes against humanity. As former Foreign Secretary, he also justified the mass-murdering policy of the Duterte regime in public statements to global audiences and media.
Yet the gravest risk is Duterte’s possible acquittal in the impeachment trial. That is, if she has 13 votes in the Senate or if the majority is on her side, she will absolutely be acquitted. She only needs 9 votes for acquittal, while a conviction demands a two-thirds supermajority or 16 out of 24 total votes in the Senate. With the ruling bloc controlling the Senate, she now has a compliant Senate president leading the charge to bury her case.
The Senate must not serve as a haven for those charged with constitutional violations, graft, betrayal of public trust, or other grave offenses. Nor must it be a shelter for those accused of crimes against humanity. The impeachment trial must proceed, and the arrest warrant must be executed.
Every time the people come close to achieving a measure of accountability from high officials, the rotten ruling system manages to spoil it. This was what occurred with Duterte’s first impeachment complaint when the trial was delayed, and a Supreme Court ruling eventually voided the entire proceedings. More than a year later, we are back to a situation where the impeachment trial could be delayed by technicalities or a swift acquittal from a pro-Duterte Senate majority.
As old alliances break apart and electoral calculations heat up, competing factions are repositioning themselves ahead of future power transitions. An entire network of political actors whose interests are intertwined through patronage, populism, and mutual political dependency.
All of these theatrics are part of a larger contest for state control, succession planning, and evasion of legal and public scrutiny. They lay bare how political institutions are repeatedly subordinated to elite deal-making to preserve their entrenched power.
Years of lessons show we cannot entrust the demand for accountability and justice to the rotten system with its defenders and beneficiaries, the politicians and bureaucrats. This system is designed to protect its own, and to reproduce corruption and human rights violations in advancing the interests of the ruling elite and foreign powers who benefit from the status quo. As the Philippines has been plunged deeper into Indo-Pacific volatility and caught in the strategic competition between the United States and China, these elites battle not only for domestic political power but also for leverage in the shifting regional security dynamics and economic vulnerabilities.
As the nation faces overlapping crossroads, it has become extremely urgent for Filipinos to act collectively and not allow another denial and delay of justice. Ours is not a choice between Marcos and Duterte or any ruling class, for that matter. Ours is a choice between this rotten system of bureaucrat capitalism and a new system where the working people—not the parasitic class—are at the helm.
Demand a reckoning for the injustices committed against us Filipinos. Realize that our future lies with us alone—not politicians, tainted institutions, or any foreign powers. Amid the ever-worsening crisis, we have a world to win.