The Senate minority bloc
MANILA, Philippines — The absence of the majority during Monday’s session, the Senate minority bloc said, was a boycott following the arrest of Sen. Jinggoy Estrada, not a call for Senate independence as Senate President Alan Peter Cayetano claimed.
Due to the absence of all majority senators, including Cayetano, no session took place on Monday. But all 11 minority senators, or the Solid Bloc-11 (SB-11) had waited two hours for the 5 p.m. session to commence.
In a joint statement, the minority bloc said: “The claim that this is about Senate independence is false, because what happened today was about the rule of law, public accountability and a lawful process before the Ombudsman and the Sandiganbayan that no senator, no bloc and no presiding officer controls.”
“This is a boycott because of the arrest of Senator Jinggoy Estrada, and the public should not be asked to believe another convenient line from a leadership that has repeatedly twisted the truth,” they added.
