IN all likelihood, Tito Sotto will be re-elected Senate president upon his return to the chamber.
Sotto was term-limited in 2022 and sat out for three years, a stretch he made full use of to reclaim the noontime show Eat Bulaga from its former producers, with whom Sotto’s group had a spat.
A network transfer provided him with the continued exposure and relevance that not all who aspired for one of the 12 senate seats to join the 20th Congress enjoyed.
His return to the top Senate post is expected to be easy as current Senate President Chiz Escudero is a Sotto party-mate in the Nationalist People’s Coalition – a member of President Marcos’ Alyansa.
Sotto and Escudero will be supported by holdover Senators Loren Legarda, Win Gatchalian, and JV Ejercito.
Lito Lapid, another returning senator, is also from NPC.
Sotto’s long experience in the Senate will be of use as he herds 24 members of different persuasions when the Senate convenes as an impeachment court to hear the cases filed against the embattled Vice President Sara Duterte.
The results of the last elections, however, point to the possibility of a very close vote for a Duterte conviction or an acquittal.
Alyansa campaign manager Toby Tiangco claimed to have raised concern over Duterte’s impeachment before the House leadership.
The House, however, will still be made up of more than 80 percent of those who voted for Sara’s impeachment.
For Tiangco, however, it was the death knell for the Alyansa candidate. He must have forgotten that former President Rodrigo Duterte’s arrest by the International Criminal Court, enforced by the Interpol through the Philippine National Police, accounts more for the protest votes that brought Bato dela Rosa and Bong Go back to the Senate.
Also, it was not entirely the Iglesia ni Cristo that had put Rodante Marcoleta in the top six of the new batch of senators. With the votes broken down, it was the Mindanao votes that gave Marcoleta his seat.
A previous study claimed the INC vote figures well in the last two or three of the 12 slots. The Mindanao votes made sure Marcoleta would not worry about being at the tail end.
Sara’s endorsement of Imee Marcos and Camille Villar had surprisingly resuscitated their sagging campaigns at the last minute. But their showing was less than impressive than Go, Bato, and Marcoleta who were given six years to serve.
Based on their earlier pronouncements they would be a solid bloc to go against Duterte’s conviction.
Four more votes are needed to protect Sara from a guilty verdict.
Where will they come from?
The other opposition, deridedly called the pinklawans, has made an impressive comeback. Bam Aquino had impressively landed at No. 2 with more than 20 million votes, more than the number of Leni Robredo when she sought the presidency in 2022.
Kiko Pangilinan also claimed the No. 5 spot to serve for six years.
Bam and Kiko will join Risa Hontiveros who still has three years left in her term.
Their victory is largely credited to the youth vote. The youth came out to support the opposition, badly beaten the last time.
Their vote demolished the survey firms who may have knocked on doors and were welcomed by their parents who no longer have the bigger share in vote numbers.
There’s also the threat of a possible ICC arrest on Dela Rosa and Go.
Dela Rosa was Duterte’s first PNP Chief. Oplan Tokhang and Double Barrel, which were largely blamed for the extra-judicial killings of possibly more than 20,000 victims– many of them innocent of involvement in illegal drugs– were created and implemented by him to mirror Duterte’s programs while he was still Davao City Mayor.
Go, the elder Duterte’s factotum, was said to have financed those programs. Without them in the Senate, the Vice President’s defense will have to convince more senators of her innocence to the charges leveled against her. Failure to do so would effectively end the Duterte dynasty.