The recent shake-up and change of the Senate leadership only prove two things, anything that is given will be taken and in politics, loyalty does not pay. Ousted Senate President Juan Miguel Zubiri should know very well these unwritten rules if he wishes to push further his own interests. He was with the President at the start but failed to act decisively on the illegal drug issue that involved the name of President Bongbong Marcos.
He allowed the Senate Committee on Public Order and Security chaired by Senator Ronald de la Rosa to launch an investigation in aid of legislation on the drug issue that allegedly implicated the name of the President and an actress. In his desire to accommodate his colleague, he must have forgotten that De la Rosa was a trusted aide of former president Rodrigo Duterte who is now engaged in a head-on collision with the President politically speaking.
The bias of De la Rosa is visible during the hearings oftentimes providing leading questions to the invited resource persons. When Zubiri could have outrightly killed the resolution calling for such investigation, he allowed it to move forward. He delivered the man who helped him earn the senate top spot to the mouth of the snake. As it did not sit well with the administration, Zubiri just reported to the Senate one afternoon and was shown a resolution signed by 14 senators endorsing Senator Chiz Escudero as their next leader. He was left with no choice but to resign from his post.
Sadly, as if adding insult to injury, De la Rosa affixed his signature on the document that endorsed Escudero. When on national television De la Rosa was shown getting emotional over the fate of Zubiri, inside his office he willingly signed his support for Escudero.
Of course, the shake-up was a normal thing in the Senate as nothing is permanent. Anybody can become its leader anytime and anybody can be ousted anytime. The circumstances though are always different. In the case of Zubiri, he lost his job protecting the Senate’s not so independent independence.
