The student council of Senate President Alan Peter Cayetano’s law school rebuked him on Saturday for the turbulence in the chamber after he assumed the top leadership post in a ‘coup’ last week.
‘[T]he Ateneo Law School Student Council believes that Senator [Alan] Peter Cayetano fell short of the ethical leadership expected of him as an Atenean,’ the student council said. ‘His actions disappoint those students who look to alumni of this institution for examples of principled leadership.’
The statement pointed to the sudden appearance, after a six-month absence, of Sen. Ronald ‘Bato’ dela Rosa on May 11 to vote for Cayetano to wrest control of the Senate.
Not a sanctuary
It noted that Dela Rosa also evaded an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court and was placed under the ‘protective custody’ of the Senate only to disappear again before dawn on May 14, after an alleged exchange of fire the previous night between a National Bureau of Investigation agent and members of the chamber’s security force.
It said that Dela Rosa’s action sent a ‘dangerous message: that accountability applies differently to the powerful.’ It said the Senate was ‘not a sanctuary.’
‘Our legal education taught us to call things by their proper names. And what is happening in the Philippine Senate today has a proper name: Impunity,’ the Ateneo Law Student Council said.
It urged Cayetano to ‘reflect whether the conduct now being defended in the Senate is truly worthy of the principles of Truth (Veritas), Integrity (Integritas), and Justice (Justitia) that Ateneo Law stands for.’
Earlier, rival student political parties in the University of the Philippines in a rare joint statement, demanded Cayetano’s resignation, saying that the Senate has become a ‘stage for political theater, confusion and brinkmanship’ under his leadership.
His law school batchmates also issued a statement reminding Cayetano to ‘keep only to the known facts,’ adhere to Supreme Court rulings, and avoid ‘interpretations for convenience and accommodation,’ as they had been taught in Ateneo.
‘Chaos rising’
Cayetano went live on Facebook on Saturday afternoon and tried to use the card game Pokémon as an analogy of what’s happening in the Senate.
He said he thought of using Pokémon to explain the situation to a nephew, beginning with the game’s ‘Mega Dream,’ that is followed by ‘perfect order,’ ‘ascended heroes,’ and eventually ‘chaos rising.’
Cayetano is a known collector of Pokémon trading cards.
‘Everyone has a dream,’ he said. ‘And I really believe that God plants a dream in us. But of course, the devil also plants wrong dreams in us.’
Cayetano compared modern political divisions to ‘heroes and villains’ often seen in comic books, Netflix shows and movies.
‘So, am I saying that we are good and they are bad? No, what I’m saying [is] there are 24 senators. There are different political leanings, there are a lot of issues,’ he said.
‘So, from our mega dream to the perfect order, to the ascended heroes, to the chaos rising. Life is like that,’ Cayetano said.
He recalled that Sen. Vicente ‘Tito’ Sotto III, whom he ousted, remarked that ‘maybe the Lord has other plans.’
‘That’s also what I said, right? Maybe this is God’s plan. So, if God’s plan is for me to stay for just one day, two weeks, or two months, my only prayer is: God, put me where You want me to do what You want me to do,’ Cayetano said. INQ