I profusely apologize to the Hon. Senator and Minority Floor Leader,
Alan Peter Cayetano for my disrespectful and offensive statements and
overbearing tenor as I was interviewed on DZMM Teleradyo last Monday,
January 21, 2013. In particular:
1. I committed an act of disrespect in referring to His Honor as "Alan"
and not addressing him properly as an elected Senator of the Republic. I
do not mean this as an excuse for such unethical behaviour, but perhaps
due to my long years of working in the Senate, almost all of 25 years,
some of the younger Senators and I have come to call each other on a
first-name basis. But that is when we are in private conversations.
Therefore, it was highly inappropriate for me to refer to Senator
Cayetano simply as "Alan".
2. More importantly, I committed a serious ethical breach in making the
remark: "They are hypocrites". I am sorry that I was driven by my
emotional state, as the Senate President and I viewed and listened while
Ms. Karen Davila and Mr. Vic Lima were obviously aghast and scandalized
at Sen. Cayetano's allegations, apparently believing them to be the
whole truth about the disposition of the Senate's budget.
3. While I had the permission of the Senate President to contact Ms.
Karen Davila and to refute the allegations of Sen. Cayetano live and on
the air, when Ms. Davila asked me for my last words and I said "They are
hypocrites", such was MY OWN spontaneous reaction and it was not
sanctioned by the Senate President. Actually, I was reacting to Sen.
Alan Cayetano because as I stated, he had received similar checks from
the Office of the Senate President in previous Christmases, and at that
time, only Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago had returned the equivalent
amount of P250,000. I therefore found his remarks that these were
questionable and irregular very puzzling and yes, hypocritical. I really
ought to have kept that feeling to myself.
Last Wednesday, January 23, 2013, I tendered my irrevocable resignation
to the Senate President effective on even date. By its nature, the same
need not await the Senate President's acceptance and I have given
instructions for my own copy to be filed with the Senate Secretary, who I
expect will immediately turn over the same to the Senate's Human
Resource and Management Service.
My resignation is but proper because of the rightful indignation of Sen.
Cayetano and perhaps some of the other Senators. I had no right to
speak ill of any Senator while I served in the Senate. To be sure, I
never once thought of myself as their EQUAL. I was also expected to do
as I preached to the other staff members of the Senate- that we must
accord all of the Senators the respect due them, regardless of
disagreements, personal or otherwise, among our principals. While I have
practiced and kept this in mind all these years, last Monday, I was
carried away by my emotions and for that, I sincerely apologize to
Senator Alan Cayetano, to the rest of the Senators, and the listening
public whose sensibilities I had offended.
I am now being derisively called "the 25th Senator"- that used to be
just a joke from some Senators every time they would kindly offer me to
take a seat in meetings and caucuses. I never harboured any illusion or
delusion that I am or will ever be their equal. I have tried to serve
all of them and accommodate their needs and requests to the best of my
ability and within the authority given by the Senate President, and
ALWAYS in consultation with the Senate Secretariat officials.
I wish to disabuse the minds of the public that I enjoy any special
privilege as the Senate President's Chief of Staff. I only go to the
Senators Lounge when and as needed by the Senate President, or when I am
called by the other Senators. I do not butt in when the Senators are
discussing in caucus, and I am not the only non-Senator present at these
caucuses. I speak only when I am asked to give information or my
inputs, and always respectfully.
It is also a total lie that nobody can go directly to the Senate
President unless they pass through me or my brother as Sen. Cayetano
alleges. The Senate President and I have our hands full with people to
meet, tasks to attend to, and my desk overflows with administrative
work. I don't remember when I ever kept Sen. Cayetano's Chief of Staff
waiting and unattended to. My brother's job is actually to attend to the
numerous requests for medical assistance. Yet many people, especially
Sen. Alan Cayetano's and Sen. Trillanes' own Chiefs of Staff would
rather approach him to relay requests addressed to me or the Senate
President. That is much added burden to him. In that respect, being my
brother has become more of a curse, and definitely not a perk to him.
I have had the honor and privilege of the personal friendship of some
Senators and Congressmen in the course of my long years in the Senate,
and to closely and freely interact with them. That, I consider, is one
of the few rewards of an otherwise punishing and oftentimes thankless
job. Yet, I never abused their kindness and friendship. I was therefore
surprised when I heard Sen. Alan Cayetano say that I can go in and out
of their offices. I have gone into Sen. Cayetano's office only once, and
that was to ask him for a chance for my niece who is an SK member in
Taguig to pay a courtesy call to him. When Senators say they want to see
me, I always offer to be the one to go to their offices. I never go to
their offices uninvited. If I need to discuss any matter with any one of
them, I ask first for permission to see them.
If Senator Alan Cayetano or the other Senators resent my presence at the
lounge or at their caucuses, I am sorry for that as well. The Senate
President, as he explained before, is suffering from both vision and
hearing impairment. I, together with my legislative staff and his aide,
assist him just to make things a bit easy for our boss who is almost 89
years old with age-related macular degeneration and high blood pressure
problems. Most of the time, the Senators themselves call me to go down
when they see that the Senate President is not feeling well.
As to my authority to sign checks, two of us in the staff were
authorized in writing by the Senate President to sign the voluminous
checks, payrolls and other administrative documents coming from the
Secretariat on his behalf. This is not an unusual practice even with the
past Senate Presidents. It is purely administrative, and I never signed
any Senate check without first the signatures of the heads of the
offices involved in the process of disbursement AND without the
signature of the Senate Secretary.
I and my Deputy Chief of Staff, Atty. Carole Quirolgico, were also the
designated signatories of the Land Bank checking account of the "Office
of Senator Juan Ponce Enrile". This is different from the Senate checks
drawn against the Senate's Land Bank account. Hence, I was the one who
signed the checks for P250,000 each which were ordered by the Senate
President to be prepared and given to all the Senators. This is also the
same practice adopted by other Senators who have chosen to designate
their check signatories for their offices' accounts.
My resignation is also due to an honest difference of opinion with my
principal, the Hon. Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, on how to
respond to all these mad and baseless accusations of public fund misuse.
I had prepared and submitted to him at noon of January 23, 2013 a
detailed response to the allegation that more than P500M of the Senate's
budget is under the sole disposition of the Senate President and the
insinuation that the Senate President is misusing or benefiting from
such funds. I asked him to consider delivering it as a privilege speech
after Sen. Cayetano's speech.
The said amount of almost P600M actually represents the MOOE of the
entire Senate Secretariat, and contrary to the allegations, all expenses
charged to that account are covered by supporting documents and
vouchers which are available for all in the Senate to see. In fact,
these expenses pass through several departments before reaching the
Secretary of the Senate who then submits them to the OSP for
approval/signature. Senator Cayetano claimed that only the Office of the
Senate President has access to these vouchers. That is not true.
The Senate President did not agree to deliver the speech, understandably
concerned that with the prevailing howl over the media, the Senate and
his colleagues may be unduly placed in a bad light- in particular, with
respect to the budgets of the oversight committees that are locally
funded by the Senate.
The draft speech also contained details of the delicate balancing act we
have had to do just to accommodate many of the Senator's requests-
extra office space, hiring or promotion of their recommendees, detail of
Senate personnel, and requests for additional travel funds. But the
Senate President did not want to embarrass his colleagues. It also
recalls the history of the current system of liquidation of the MOOE of
the Senator's offices and the Senate President's own position, as
relayed to the COA Chair, that he has no objection to reverting to the
old system if the Senators and the House of Representatives agreed.
Also, he had not yet consulted and gotten the consensus of his
colleagues on the matter.
As it happened, Senator Alan Cayetano went on the attack, mainly aimed
against me and my role as Chief of Staff, and insinuating something else
on the side. As I watched the events on the floor from my monitor in
the office, I saw that the Senate President was visibly angered- angered
enough to fall into the trap of drawing him to the gutter, as he
spontaneously drew out the document regarding the unpaid loan of the
late Senator Rene Cayetano. That was very unfortunate indeed. But I also
understand the depth of the Senate President's personal hurt involving
Senators Alan and Pia Cayetano which the public will never know and
understand I guess. It is quite deeply rooted, and by the way, it is not
related to the RH bill itself, much less, to local politics in Taguig.
THE DRAFT SPEECH I PREPARED ALSO CONTAINED A STATEMENT TOWARDS THE END
THAT HE WAS RESIGNING IRREVOCABLY AS SENATE PRESIDENT, SOMETHING THAT HE
HAD BEEN CONTEMPLATING SINCE MONDAY WHEN HIS MOTION TO DECLARE THE
POSITION OF SENATE PRESIDENT VACANT WAS DEFEATED. Perhaps, if Senator
Cayetano stuck to the real issue, Sen. Trillanes would be really happy
by now as he would not have to sweat it out just to unseat the Senate
President.
In my humble opinion, letting the public know the whole truth about the
Senate's and the Senators' budgets would have more clearly shed light on
the issues being heaped solely against the Senate President, and it
would have settled the issue of his leadership once and for all. But the
Senate President believed that to do so would be falling into the trap
laid by his detractors. I thought otherwise.
I arrived at this purely personal conviction to convince the Senate President to resign irrevocably for several reasons:
1. It saddened me that only a handful of the Senators in the majority
spoke up about the issue which, as things unravelled, already went
beyond the unequal distribution of the additional MOOE. Not only was the
exercise of discretion by the Senate President in question- it was the
budget of the Senate itself. I had expected the other Senators not so
much to defend their own leader, but to clarify, explain and defend
their own honor and the honor of the Senate. The systematic
disinformation and the malevolent attacks raged on, fuelled by Sen.
Trillanes' tireless pronouncements that a change in leadership was in
the offing. I did not know what to make of the conspicuous silence of
the other members of the majority. I grant that some of them just did
not want to be embroiled in the fray.
2. I had a serious disagreement last Tuesday night with the Senate
Secretary, Atty. Emma Lirio Reyes, over her refusal to state the name of
the Minority Leader as the one calling for a private audit of the
Senate's funds (which was actually the MOOE of the Secretariat) in the
press statement that the Senate President asked her to prepare detailing
the Senate's budget so that the public can be enlightened. She
explained that she did not want it to appear that she was defending the
Senate President. What? Even the Senate Secretary who serves under and
at the pleasure of the Senate President was hesitant to set the record
straight and confront the issue, fearing that she would be perceived as
defending the Senate President?
3. Sen. Trillanes the next morning (Wednesday) on ANC stated that the
Senate President might use the funds of the Senate for the campaign of
the UNA; hence he should be removed right away.
As all these percolated in my mind, I thought that there was no point
for the Senate President to continue to stick his neck out defending
himself and his colleagues while the others except for very few would
rather just watch. We had not been deluded by the so-called "vote of
confidence" he gained when his motion was voted down, with 16 Senators
in attendance. It was not a moro-moro. He was ready to step down, and so
he manifested that he will reiterate his motion when the others,
especially all his detractors were present.
I asked myself: Why are the others silent when the Senate President is
being accused of being a thief? Is the Senate President supposed to be
left alone to explain how the Senate's budget is spent? Does he have
control over the expenditures of the Senators and their committees? Was
it he who invented the controversial "one page certification" system of
liquidating the Senators' budgets for MOOE?
As a mere subordinate, I always bow to the wisdom of my principal, and
no matter how some people tend to overrate me, my role and my supposed
"influence", I cannot substitute, nor can I impose, my analysis and
opinion over his own. They give me too much credit and they seem to
think the Senate President is a fool. They are grossly mistaken.
In matters such as this which involves many complex considerations, and
where no less than his honor and integrity are at stake, I know that he
alone can and will make the better judgment.
It may be wishful thinking, but I still wish that the Senate President's
family and my own family could be spared from the hurt brought about by
malicious insinuations and imputations regarding my personal
relationship with the Senate President- just to whet and feed the
public's appetite for gossip, to gain political points, and to inflict
more pain as if the pain and ugliness we have all witnessed and suffered
were not already enough. My family, especially my mother and my
children, continue to suffer in silence the horrible and distasteful
comments they read and hear about me in the media and all over the
internet.
I believe what the public really hungers for is the truth about the
officials they elected and how their money is spent or wasted. The
people now believe that the Senate stinks…It is sad but I so agree. It
is time to look for where the stink is actually coming from.
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