MY last domestic column concluded a series on political dynasties. For nine weeks since, this space tracked a global apocalypse: a catastrophic war ignited by a megalomaniac Trump that decapitated Iran’s leadership, devastated the Middle East, and wrecked the global economy. Yet, following this American defeat — a disaster Trump’s cohorts still cannot comprehend — (my next few columns) I must shift back to the local scenery.

While the geopolitical stage deals with the fall of empires, the Philippine scene is bracing for a different warfare: the exasperated Filipino versus a shameless Senate leadership. We lack global military might, but our theatrical talent is unmatched. The award for the country’s most gripping prime time drama no longer belongs to television networks; it belongs to the Senate, which has decided to moonlight as a low-budget Hollywood studio.

Following mid-May’s chaos, the public was fed a sanitized narrative. We were told — with straight faces — that the sudden ouster of Senate President Tito Sotto and the coronation of Alan Peter Cayetano was a routine, spontaneous transition. A master class in legislative independence!

Then, Sen. Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa sat down with Jessica Soho on KMJS, opened his mouth, and blew that entire fictional edifice to smithereens. Bato blurted out that the takeover was, indeed, a “coup” and detailed how Cayetano personally micromanaged his stealth extraction into the complex via a custom getaway vehicle to evade law enforcement.

By exposing this frantic evasion and the tactical timing aligned with VP Sara’s impeachment, Bato completely destroyed the “tough guy” persona he spent years cultivating.

The accidental ‘coup’ confession

In politics, the golden rule is elementary: you are supposed to keep the quiet part quiet. Instead, Senator Bato took a primetime megaphone to it.

When Jessica Soho asked him directly if the Senate leadership takeover was, for all intents and purposes, a “coup,” Bato bypassed the standard political doublespeak entirely. He didn’t pivot. He didn’t deflect. He just blurted out: “Yeah, yeah.”

Just like that, the myth of the “organic legislative realignment” died a swift, embarrassing death on national television. Bato proudly admitted he served as the decisive, engineered “13th vote” needed to install Cayetano. But the true comedic brilliance of the interview emerged when he detailed exactly how that 13th vote physically arrived at the Senate complex.

For days, Cayetano’s camp portrayed Bato’s dramatic appearance during the May 11 session as the heroic return of a dedicated statesman performing his solemn legislative duty. Bato’s own testimony, however, painted a picture less like a lawmaker attending a session and more like an episode of “Narcos.”

According to Bato, Cayetano didn’t just invite him; Cayetano allegedly micromanaged a stealth extraction operation. He phoned Bato while the latter was in hiding, provided specific instructions on how to infiltrate the Senate complex, arranged a custom getaway vehicle, and mapped out a clandestine route explicitly designed to bypass law enforcement.

Congratulations to Senate President Cayetano: you have officially graduated from a passive beneficiary of a leadership shift to the alleged chief logistics officer of an underground fugitive extraction unit.

From alpha cop to hide-and-seek champion

The KMJS interview didn’t just create an immediate legal headache for the new Senate leadership; it completely vaporized Bato’s long-cultivated, alpha-male public persona.

For years, the public has been treated to endless loops of fierce, chest-thumping rhetoric regarding the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) probe into the Duterte-era drug war. “I am ready to face the ICC!” “I am not afraid!” “I will face jail time if needed!” It was pure, unadulterated, grade-A machismo.

Cut to the television screen, where reality finally caught up with the script, exposing a striking contradiction:

– The public rhetoric: “I answer only to the Filipino people!”

– The prime-time reality: He openly admitted he spent the last six months playing a high-stakes, panicked game of hide-and-seek because he was terrified of being apprehended by authorities linked to ICC enforcement.

– The public rhetoric: “I fear no one! Let them come!

– The prime-time reality: He deeply regretted showing up at the Senate because he discovered National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) agents were positioned nearby. In his own words, if he had known they were there, he “would never have shown up.”

It takes a very special, unparalleled level of political naivete to go on national television to defend your integrity, only to accidentally confess that your entire public persona is a theatrical performance. The fearless, hard-boiled general was, in truth, just an anxious guy hiding under a metaphorical bed, desperately wishing he hadn’t answered Alan Peter’s phone call. This Bato is one unmitigated idiot!

A masterclass in chronology and coincidence

Let us not overlook the impeccable, totally “coincidental” timing of this entire circus. The Senate leadership overhaul happened on May 11. By sheer, cosmic happenstance, which was the exact same day the House of Representatives finalized the articles of impeachment against VP Sara.

To believe these two monumental events were isolated requires a level of gullibility that borders on a medical emergency. To any conscious observer, the sequence is glaringly obvious. First, Bato publicly announced that authorities were preparing to arrest him. Public sympathy was mobilized online, and DDS loyalists were urged to gather.

Then came the grand finale inside the Senate complex: reports of gunfire, armed personnel pacing the hallways, breathless claims of suspicious intruders, and an abrupt lockdown atmosphere that plunged the institution into instant crisis mode.

Yet, when the smoke cleared, there were no reported casualties, no publicly identified attackers, and the terrifying threat was quietly downgraded to “perceived” NBI agents. But the best part of the magic trick? Amid all this expertly manufactured, cinematic chaos, the idiot somehow vanished completely from the premises!

The death of plausible deniability

The Senate exists to uphold constitutional governance, yet current optics suggest it is being used to build a plush, taxpayer-funded barricade against it. The Senate is not a medieval fortress, an elite safehouse, or an overgrown playground for politicians to evade law enforcement.

By trying to play the victim on KMJS, Bato accidentally destroyed the one thing his sophisticated allies desperately needed: plausible deniability. By proudly detailing the phone calls, the secret transport arrangements, the tactical timing and the frantic evasion of authorities, Bato effectively transformed Cayetano from a passive politician into the central coordinator of a highly questionable operation.

Legal observers are already noting that this stunningly naive display of show-and-tell may expose the Senate leadership to serious allegations, ranging from abuse of institutional authority to obstruction of justice and harboring or assisting an individual evading law enforcement presence.

As Senate president, you do not get to invoke institutional independence without also accepting institutional responsibility. Leadership carries accountability for what occurs under your watch, especially when a major government building suddenly functions like a getaway car.

The KMJS interview will undoubtedly go down in history as one of the most consequential pieces of political self-sabotage ever televised. Bato wanted to show the world his heart; instead, he handed everyone the blueprints to the conspiracy.

As a Davaoeño — in the same neighborhood as the idiot — I am appalled!

The Senate President crowed yesterday that the party he nominally coheads, PDP-Laban, has a “pleasant problem” — too many potential senatorial candidates. Koko Pimentel’s estimate is they have up to 20 possible choices for the 12-person slate for the 2019 senatorial race. But his list includes the five administration-affiliated senatorial incumbents up for reelection next year. This is a group that has made noises that, much as it prefers to remain in the administration camp, it is unhappy with the way PDP-Laban has been designating its local leaders and candidates, and therefore prefers to strike out on its own, perhaps in alliance with the other administration (regional) party, Hugpong ng Pagbabago, headed by the President’s daughter and current Davao City mayor, Sara Duterte.

Setting aside, then, the five-person “Force,” the administration-oriented but not PDP-friendly reelectionists (Nancy Binay, Sonny Angara, Cynthia Villar, Grace Poe, and JV Ejercito), what Koko’s crowing over is a mixed bag. Some of them have been floated by Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez (with whom Mayor Duterte clashed in recent months): six representatives (Gloria Macapagal Arroyo who is in her last term in the House of Representatives; Albee Benitez, Karlo Nograles, Rey Umali, Geraldine Roman, and Zajid Mangudadatu), three Cabinet members (Bong Go, Harry Roque, and Francis Tolentino), and two other officials (Mocha Uson and Ronald dela Rosa), which still only adds up to 11 possible candidates (who are the missing three?).

Of all of these, the “Force” reelectionists are only fair-weather allies of the present dispensation; their setting themselves apart is about much more than the mess PDP-Laban made in, say, San Juan where support for the Zamoras makes it extremely unattractive for JV Ejercito to consider being in the same slate. Their cohesion is about thinking ahead: Creating the nucleus for the main coalition to beat in the 2022 presidential election. The contingent of congressmen and congresswomen who could become candidates for the Senate, however, seems more a means to kick the Speaker’s rivals upstairs (at least in the case of Benitez and Arroyo) and pad the candidates’ list with token but sacrificial candidates, a similar situation to the executive officials being mentioned as possible candidates (of the executive officials, only Go seems viable, but making him run would deprive the President of the man who actually runs the executive department, and would be a clear signal that the administration is shifting to a post-term protection attitude instead of the more ambitious system-change mode it’s been on, so far).

Vice President Leni Robredo has been more circumspect, saying she’s not sure the Liberal Party can even muster a full slate. The party chair, Kiko Pangilinan, denied that a list circulating online (incumbent Bam Aquino, former senators Mar Roxas, Jun Magsaysay, TG Guingona, current and former representatives Jose Christopher Belmonte, Kaka Bag-ao, Edcel Lagman, Raul Daza, Gary Alejano and Erin Tañada, former governor Eddie Panlilio and Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña) had any basis in fact.

What both lists have in common is they could be surveys-on-the-cheap, trial balloons to get the public pulse. Until the 17th Congress reconvenes briefly from May 14 to June 1 for the tail end of its second regular session (only to adjourn sine die until the third regular session begins on July 23), it has nothing much to do. Except, that is, for the barangay elections in May, after a last-ditch effort by the House to postpone them yet again to October failed.

Names can be floated but the real signal will come in July, when the President mounts the rostrum and calls for the big push for a new constitution—or not. Connected to this would be whether the Supreme Court disposes of its own chief, which would spare the Senate—and thus, free up the legislative calendar—to consider Charter change instead of an impeachment trial. In the meantime, what congressmen do seem abuzz over is an unrefusable invitation to the Palace tomorrow — to mark Arroyo’s birthday. An event possibly pregnant with meaning.

Here’s a striking statement about love shared with me by an English college mentor. “Love knows no grammar. How it works can’t be measured by any parts or figures of speech. It goes beyond the literate and illiterate. The sad reality is that, even a fool who has got no philosophy is not spared of its harsh reality.” After almost three decades, I reminded him through a private message of his words. Here’s what he said. “Thank you, Jord. This statement about love is searing to the heart. And, yes, fools do fall for it too. But I thought that we as well speak of the beauty that it gives and not so much focus on the harsh realities. After all, our country has had enough of the negativities.” Thank you, dearest Sir Eugene.

In these decisive times when our nation trembles under the weight of corruption, inequality, and disillusionment, it is you―the youth, burning with idealism, courage, and an unyielding sense of right―who must stand at the forefront of CHANGE. The future of the Philippines hangs in the balance, calling not for silence or apathy, but for unity, conviction, and action. Let your dreams be the spark that ignites renewal; let your voices thunder against injustice; let your hands build the nation our forebears envisioned but never fulfilled. Now is the hour to awaken, to rise, and to lead the march toward a just and transformed Philippines.

Remember, the pages of our history resound with the triumphs of youth who dared to dream and act. From the Propagandists who wielded the pen against tyranny to the Katipuneros who took up arms for freedom, it was always the young who ignited revolutions and rebuilt nations. As Dr. Jose Rizal declared, “The youth is the hope of our motherland,” but that hope is not a gift to be passively claimed; it is a duty to be earned through courage and purpose.

Today’s generation must transform awareness into action―to confront corruption with integrity, to challenge inequality with empathy, and to counter apathy with participation. The time for mere commentary has passed. What the nation demands now is commitment, creativity, and collective resolve. When the youth stand united in conscience and conviction, no obstacle is insurmountable, no reform impossible. The power to redeem the nation’s promise lies not in the hands of the few, but in the awakened spirit of the many. Rise, therefore, as one generation with one objective―to forge a Philippines worthy of its people’s deepest hopes. And to those who were once the torchbearers of youth but have since laid down their fire―hear this call.

The nation does not forget its veterans of hope, those who once believed that change was possible but have since grown weary in the long twilight of disappointment. Thus far history grants no sanctuary to resignation. It demands of every generation the same unrelenting duty―to defend what is right, to confront what is wrong, and to labor still for what remains unfinished.

Now is the moment to rise again. Let not caution disguise itself as wisdom, nor comfort as peace. The courage that once stirred your youth still flickers within; rekindle it, and let it burn anew for the sake of those who follow. Your experience, tempered by time, must now join hands with the fervor of the young - to guide, to mentor, to strengthen.

Together, let the wisdom of the seasoned and the passion of the rising coalesce into a single, indomitable force for renewal. For the task of nation-building is not bound by age, but by conviction. The call of the motherland resounds to all who still believe that the story of the Filipino is not yet complete―and that redemption, though delayed, is still within our grasp if only we choose to act once more. And to those whose hands have long gripped the levers of power―hardened by privilege, dulled by entitlement―hear this with clarity: the era of self-preservation must yield to the dawn of selfless service.

The nation can no longer afford leaders who mistake possession for stewardship, nor governance for dominion. The time has come to relinquish the throne of complacency and make way for the custodians of vision, courage, and renewal.

To step aside is not to surrender, but to honor the sacred rhythm of nationhood―to allow new voices, new hearts, and new minds to breathe life into institutions that have grown stale from neglect. True leadership is an act of stewardship, and stewardship demands humility―to know when to lead, and when to pass the torch. Those who have ruled long enough must now become mentors, not masters; guides, not gatekeepers.

To the youth who will inherit this burden and blessing alike, the call is equally profound. Lead not with arrogance, but with awareness; not with impulse, but with integrity. Let optimism be your discipline―a conscious act of faith in the nation’s capacity to rise again. Lead with inclusivity that unites rather than divides, with courage that reforms rather than destroys, and with resilience that endures when hope seems frail.

For the measure of a new generation’s greatness lies not in its defiance alone, but in its wisdom to build where others have failed. Let your leadership become the living testament that the Philippines, once disillusioned, has learned at last to believe again―through you.

Now, the Filipino youth stand at a defining crossroad of history. The echoes of the past and the murmurs of the future converge upon this moment, and in your hands rests the fragile, however formidable promise of a nation reborn. You are the inheritors of unfinished dreams and the architects of what is yet to be. United in thought and deed, strengthened by the wisdom of history and the fire of conviction, you possess the power to shape a Philippines anchored in justice, animated by democracy, and sustained by the collective flourishing of its people.

The mantle of responsibility has passed to you. Do not falter beneath its weight; bear it with courage, for it is through your resolve that the nation will rise from the ruins of complacency. Let your unity transcend boundaries of region, class, and creed. Let your integrity redefine leadership, and your compassion restore faith in the Filipino spirit.

This is your hour. Let this narrative be not merely a call to awaken, but a solemn commitment―to the country that nurtures you, to the people who believe in you, and to the generations who will follow your example. Stand firm, for you are the heartbeat of a nation yearning to live with dignity once more. Speak right and shine!

Rise, Filipino youth, and let history remember that when your time came ―you stood unwavering, and the nation moved forward.