FIRING LINE: Distraction and shifting alliances

FIRING LINE: Distraction and shifting alliances

By Robert B. Roque Jr. | June 18, 2026

The events of last Tuesday at an event venue on EDSA in Mandaluyong were an absolute circus — shameful! What exactly was Mike Defensor doing?

Acting Senate President Sherwin Gatchalian killed that stunt with a simple statement saying Defensor is not a member of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee; he’s not even a senator. So what business does a former congressman have in presenting what he would have the public believe is a Senate hearing? None, actually.

No one would fault Blue Ribbon Committee chairman Sen. Erwin Tulfo if he looked into legal options and charged Defensor for what is by all indications a usurpation of authority and an exercise in deceiving the public into thinking that the spectacle he staged carried the institutional imprimatur of the Senate.

Tulfo himself had already poured cold water on Defensor’s announcement that the Blue Ribbon Committee was convening to hear the testimony of former Marine officers claiming to have worked for dismissed former Ako Bicol Rep. Zaldy Co.

And if there was any indication that Tuesday’s production starring Defensor and Atty. Levito Baligod was a farce, it was this: none of the senators from the Cayetano bloc showed up. Apparently, none wanted to risk being accused of turning the Senate into a traveling circus outside its august halls.

Reports even said Sen. Imee Marcos had arrived at the venue, only to hurriedly leave. Political kibitzers naturally read this as a sign that even the minority senators did not want to expose themselves to an exercise that could only deepen the institutional embarrassment already engulfing the chamber.

To my mind, the entire affair smacks of diversionary tactics and delay. With the Senate preparing to tackle the pre-trial brief on Vice President Sara Duterte’s impeachment case, distractions appear to be multiplying.

That is why Gatchalian’s determination to proceed today and forthwith with the pretrial briefing must not break.

I’m also noticing one more sign that the political power in the Senate has really tipped sides, considering that the petition filed by the Cayetano bloc before the Supreme Court questioning Gatchalian’s assumption conspicuously lacked the signatures of Senators Joel Villanueva and Mark Villar.

Speaking of the Villars, I would not be surprised if they eventually cross over to what I assume by now should already be an unquestioned majority under Gatchalian.

In this space, I have repeatedly written about what I call “warning shots” or the legal dark clouds that suddenly gather over politicians in times of shifting alliances. We saw it in the case of Jinggoy Estrada. We saw suggestive statements seemingly directed at Joel Villanueva when DPWH Secretary Vince Dizon spoke of a “big fish” in the Bulacan flood-control scandal.

Now comes Ombudsman Boying Remulla talking about investigations into Senators Mark and Camille Villar over the alleged derailment of the LRT-1 extension project.

If true, the allegations are serious: that the siblings sought to reroute the line through areas where their family’s property interests are concentrated, delaying the Niog station in Bacoor.

I am not exactly holding my breath on this, but if the Villars decide to play their cards to save their political hides, I suspect they will not be running away from the majority. They will be running toward it.

*         *         *

SHORT BURSTS. For comments or reactions, email firingline@ymail.com or tweet @Side_View via X app (formerly Twitter). Read current and past issues of this column at https://www.thenationweek.com