PHRespect isn't something you claim — it's something you build. The majority bloc seems to have forgotten that fundamental truth. Holding the numbers doesn't automatically hand you the moral authority, and the recent Senate session made that painfully clear.
Imee Marcos stood at the podium and aired a video that falsely painted the minority bloc as conspirators scheming to oust SP Cayetano through Charter change. It was arguably the most misleading piece of media ever screened inside the Senate chamber — and the minority's response only made her look worse by comparison.
Instead of firing back with theatrics, the minority senators took the high road. Zubiri cited specific Senate rules (93–95) that the video violated and called for its removal, with Sotto and Lacson backing the position that they too oppose constitutional revision. The Tulfo brothers applied their journalistic instincts to dismantle the video's claims point by point. Gatchalian appealed for the chamber to redirect its energy toward actual legislative work. Kiko, who once chaired the constitutional amendments committee, testified that no such revision was ever on the table during his tenure. Bam Aquino reminded the chamber of the Senate's prior rejection of Romualdez's People's Initiative. Hontiveros, blunt as ever, called out the sheer waste of time unfolding before them.
Meanwhile, Imee — unbothered and unrepentant — tapped Marcoleta to defend the video, insisting it was perfectly fine.
Then came the twist: SP Cayetano himself acknowledged the video was fake news and ordered it withdrawn. Yet in the same breath, he shifted blame onto the minority, framing their pushback as the root cause of the majority's behavior. It was a remarkable bit of circular logic — condemning the fire while excusing the arsonist.
Imee tried to brush the whole thing off as meaningless chatter, apparently forgetting that just hours earlier she had publicly accused the minority of orchestrating a Senate attack. Hontiveros had already preemptively denied any involvement and clarified that Cayetano never instructed them to remain in the building during the shooting incident — leaving Imee's accusation exposed as baseless in real time.
Cayetano then lamented the Senate's eroding credibility, seemingly oblivious to his own role in its decline. His decision to back Bato dela Rosa's return lit the fuse on much of the current dysfunction. Robin, Bato, and Imee have become a rotating cast of embarrassments — with that fabricated video being only the latest entry. And somewhere in his frustration, Cayetano forgot that it was under Chiz Escudero's watch that flood control anomalies involving several senators first surfaced.
The irony is thick: despite commanding a majority, they can't manage to earn the baseline respect the minority once held when Sotto himself was SP — and nobody was pulling stunts like this back then.
The Filipino public funds every salary in that chamber. If you want respect, you have to do something worthy of it. You don't get to demand credibility while broadcasting disinformation from the Senate floor.
They've become a punchline — and they're still proud of the brand.
