Who were villains and who emerged heroes? Was it for real or some drama with script, badly written, and cast, who apparently didn’t act well?
Actually, it was not a whodunit. It was just a major breakout of hostilities between the Marcos and Duterte political camps, waged not personally by PBBM and VP Sara but by proxies, allies and lackeys.
And the confusion was higher, more intense among people who want their information straight and haven’t abandoned logic and appreciation of facts. Partisans in both sides have had no such problem: blinding faith in the heart has long crushed the mind.
Images that grabbed the nation’s attention and held it for hours and hours last Wednesday, May 13, 2026: Bato dela Rosa, a senator and former police chief of the land, running and huffing on Senate hallways and staircases (stumbling, falling ala Keystone cops).
Mix them with sound of gunshots fired in the second floor of the Senate building and, later, the emotional cry-out of a newly installed Senate president, glib and God’s-name-dropper Allan Peter
Cayetano, “We are attacked!” (switching tenses to “We were attacked,” realizing the play had been over).
That had not happened before in the 109-year-old Senate history (since 2019), where once rang out words of wisdom from far greater minds, including Cebu’s Mariano Jesus Cuenco and Marcelo Fernan.
Confusing to many people but not to those who’ve been closely watching events on the national stage since the Bongbong Marcos-Sara Duterte political team broke up in June 2024 and has since escalated into a full-blown war.
Partisans obviously stick to the version of their respective political camps, believing and defending it in public forums, no matter that facts, the law and logic say.
Disinterested observers, seeing it as mostly politics and personal interest, are annoyed by the clashing spins on issues and events. But they know and understand what’s going on.
The Senate fracas was another incident in the Marcos-Duterte war, but this time on a larger, more visible and noisier scale.
Coming trial brought it on: Sara’s impeachment in the House -- where glimpses of alleged corruption involving unexplained wealth stashed in banks were publicized – and impending trial in the Senate prompted the coup.
VP Sara was not there in the vortex or periphery of the Senate eruption. Neither was PBBM. But their interests, or the conflict of their interests, set it off.
The Sara camp believed they had to wrest control of the Senate from the majority. And they did, by transporting Bato dela Rosa from his hiding den, so he could join the coup and help oust Tito Sotto as Senate president.
After the vote, Bato became a problem. How could dela Rosa avoid arrest and be free-albeit-fugitive again? Thus the series of moves: the legal assault on the International Criminal Court warrant and jurisdiction, the coup ousting Sotto and the complaint about an attack on the Senate.
The new majority protected Bato while he was in the building, then sprang him out into some hideout/hideaway, presumably to continue being an absentee senator -- with pay but without tasks except to show up in public again for another Duterte emergency, like another crucial vote in the Senate.
From fugitive to villain/hero (depending on who’s assessing), Bato escaped/was allowed to escape from Senate protection -- and became a fugitive again.
How was Cayetano rated? Depends on which side he sees Allan Peter on. He could be hero to the Duterte cause and heel to those who’d want Sara account at the Senate trial for her alleged illegal wealth.
Followers stuck in the mind’s partisan zones. The DDS camp has seen the serial moves against VP Sara as a “deliberately evil plot” to bar her from the 2028 presidential race.
And the Duterte countermoves are seen by the BBMs as mainly aimed to derail the constitutional mechanism that would make her account for her alleged impeachable offenses.
The warring camps and their respective followers have muddled facts and distorted issues, resulting in many people not knowing what and whom to believe.
Even though there have been some straight and unpolluted information and argument from impartial sources, believers in PBBM and VP Sara do not or cannot see anything else but what supports their respective beliefs.
That’s how it is: why the confusion in the nation’s mind, abetted by the chaos in the Senate.