CHICKENPIEAlan Peter Cayetano held a quorum. Thirteen senators showed up for Sherwin Gatchalian. Cayetano started counting anyway.
This is the Philippine Senate tradition: the gavel doesn't move until everyone has had time to perform their feelings about the gavel. Three weeks of press conferences. Two court filings. One special session that produced thirteen votes for Gatchalian — which is thirteen more than Cayetano had — but somehow, still, contested territory in the news cycle. The senators voted. Cayetano asked a court if they could un-vote. The court said no. Cayetano continued as if the court had said we'll look into it.
What Cayetano was doing wasn't politics. It was a holding action. A man keeping a crisis alive long enough for something — anything — to change. Nothing changed. The senators didn't flip. The courts didn't bite. The math stayed exactly as bad as it was on day one. Yesterday, he released a statement with the word "concede" in it. He said he accepts the results.
He did not say sorry for the three-week detour.
You can't really blame him for trying. Gatchalian's bloc had the numbers in May. Cayetano had a constitutional argument and a previous quorum and a filing at the Supreme Court and a counter-session and three weeks of morning press conferences. He had everything except votes. By the time the courts finished declining to intervene, the senators were already arranging the Recto Room seating chart for Gatchalian's inauguration. Cayetano was the last to see the floor plan.
The loss doesn't become official in Philippine politics until the loser says the word. Cayetano said the word yesterday. The word is now on record.
Gatchalian is the nineteenth Senate President in twelve years. He gave the unity speech. He mentioned working together and advancing national interest and the usual things people say when they've just won something and want to sound like they weren't trying to win. The job was already his before he finished saying it.
The Recto Room has a new occupant. The gavel is in different hands. Cayetano's quorum was the last performance of a show that had been cancelled for weeks.
Not a scandal. Just a Thursday.
