Zubiri on why he joined Senate minority: 4 traitors in majority

CAGAYAN DE ORO, Philippines – “Political opponents are one thing, and traitors are another.”

Senator Juan Miguel Zubiri said this on Wednesday, May 27, as he explained how his 2024 ouster as Senate president, and what he viewed as betrayal by four members of the current Senate majority, factored into his decision to join the minority.

Zubiri named them during a news conference in Malaybalay City, Bukidnon: Senators Ronald dela Rosa, Christopher Lawrence Go, Imee Marcos, and Robinhood Padilla.

He said he was “betrayed” twice — first in May 2024, when he was ousted as Senate president and replaced by Senator Francis Escudero, and second at the start of the 20th Congress, when the same group allegedly promised to help bring him back as Senate leader, only to renege on their promise days later.

“Kaya nako makigtrabaho sa mga dili nako kapartido…kay sa pulitika kinahanglan adunay gihapon respeto, pagtinabangay, ug delicadeza. Pero lahi ang kontra sa pulitika ug lahi ang traydor,” he said.

(I can work with people who are not from my party…because in politics there must still be respect, cooperation, and delicadeza. But political opponents are one thing, and traitors are another.)

Such betrayal, he said, was something he could never forget and forgive.

He still called Dela Rosa, now in hiding and eluding an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court (ICC) his “friend and kumpadre (buddy),” but recalled that he was among those who looked him in the eye during a public event in Bukidnon and promised to back him up in his bid to retain the Senate presidency.

Zubiri had initially counted Dela Rosa as one of the emotional “kumpadres” who stood by him after a viral video showed the senator visibly tearing up following the May 20, 2024 vote that removed the Bukidnon lawmaker from the Senate presidency and installed Escudero in his place. 

For a brief moment, it looked like politics had taken a rare detour into sincerity — or at least a shared heartbreak.

That illusion didn’t last long.

The next day, Zubiri realized that the same tearful figure had actually voted for Escudero’s elevation. At which point, Zubiri summed up the state of Philippine politics with the weary disbelief of a man who has clearly seen too much, too often: “I thought I’ve seen strange things in my political career, and this happens to be the strangest.”

As the full weight of the situation finally sank in, Zubiri said: “If yesterday, I was heartbroken; now, I am dumbfounded.”

During the news conference in Malaybalay on Wednesday, Zubiri said it pained him that the so-called Mindanao bloc in the Senate did not keep their word and stand by him when he needed them.

“Mindanao lost a Senate president; Bukidnon lost a Senate president,” he said.

Zubiri and Senator JV Ejercito abstained from voting in a recent Senate leadership realignment that removed Senator Vicente Sotto III as Senate president and installed Senator Alan Peter Cayetano.

Both senators later said they intended to align themselves with the Senate minority bloc.

Zubiri was among those who walked out of the Senate plenary during deliberations on a proposed rule change that would have allowed remote participation and online voting by senators under “justifiable reasons.” 

The walkout on Tuesday, May 26, was used as a quorum-busting tactic to prevent the chamber from proceeding with the rule change.

At one point, Zubiri signaled to members of the minority bloc to leave the session hall, saying: “C’mon guys!” 

The group subsequently exited the plenary, temporarily disrupting proceedings and halting further action on the proposal. – Rappler.com