Drilon: Senate coup? Don’t look at me

Senate coup? Don’t look at me, said the Aquino administration’s point man in the chamber.

Sen. Franklin Drilon vehemently denied he was behind an alleged attempt to unseat Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, as senators prepared to sit as judges in the impending impeachment trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona.

Other administration senators were just as incensed over the coup rumor, which Sen. Joseph “Jinggoy” Estrada, the Senate president pro tempore, spoke openly about at a Senate Christmas party late Thursday.

Estrada, an Enrile ally, said “many senators want to become Senate president … but they will not get the position.”

“I am not aware of this. I am not involved. I can swear on the Bible,” Drilon said in a phone interview.

Not in LP agenda

“There is no discussion in the Liberal Party (LP) about any change in leadership. It’s not in the agenda. What else do you want me to say?” he said when asked if he was interested in the Senate presidency.

Another LP member, Sen. Francis Pangilinan, described the alleged attempt to oust Enrile as “simply loose talk.”

“No one has approached me and no one has discussed any coup plot with me,” he said in a text message.

For Sen. Panfilo Lacson, an admitted Aquino administration ally, if he has not been approached, then there is no coup plot.

“The only possible power grab at this point would necessarily come from the administration party and I, as an ally, am a natural magnet for recruitment. I have yet to hear at least one overture from them,” he said.

Talk of a Senate coup has surfaced a month before the chamber formally begins the trial of Corona, who was impeached in a matter of hours last Monday by the administration-dominated House of Representatives.

Corona earlier denounced President Aquino for allegedly ordering his impeachment at the House, saying the President wanted to control the Supreme Court by appointing a chief justice who would follow his wishes.

Pangilinan and Drilon earlier asked Corona to inhibit from cases involving former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who had appointed him to the position.

‘We are not for sale’

Lacson said the coup talk was probably meant to “preempt any plan to oust Enrile by putting Malacañang and its allies in the Senate on the spot.”

He said it was unfair to the senators to even speculate on the matter of recruitment for a Senate coup in relation to the impeachment.

“A great majority of us in the upper chamber are not for sale. That I can say with authority,” he said.

Said Pangilinan: “The Senate cannot be controlled by any one group and it would be extremely foolish for anyone to think that it is possible to do so.”

“Conviction or acquittal in the impeachment trial should not depend on who is in charge or who presides, but on the strength or weakness of the evidence presented and the ability or the lack of it on the part of the prosecution to prove its cases,” he added.

Palace denies involvement

Malacañang on Saturday denied it has any role in moves to oust Enrile from the Senate leadership, supposedly to ensure that Corona is convicted.

“President Aquino has a good working relationship with Senator Enrile,” deputy spokesperson Abigail Valte told the state-run dzRB radio.

“We don’t have anything to do with this. This is the first time we heard about this,” Valte said

As to whether the Palace would indicate its support for Enrile’s continued leadership, Valte said: “Usually, questions on changes in leadership is left to the chamber. That’s their call. That’s up to the internal working mechanisms of the Senate.”

Valte said it would be difficult for the administration to categorically cast its lot behind Enrile as this might compromise the perception of the Senate president as an independent judge in Corona’s impeachment trial.

Valte even quoted Lacson’s demurrer. “From what I understand from Senator Lacson, he is an ally of the President. If there is a plot, it’s logical that he would have been approached but Sen. Lacson says that nothing of the sort is happening,” she said.

She said it would be up to the senators to determine what should happen at the impeachment trial, “what their appreciation will be of the evidence that is to be presented.”

“So let us leave our senators to do their work,” she said.

She noted that since President Aquino assumed office in 2010, “the Senate has always shown its independence.”

No to ‘Aquino court’

At the House of Representatives, a party-list member who was one of the 188 who voted to impeach Corona said they do not need to replace Enrile to convict Corona.

“The complaint can very well stand on its merits and does not require Enrile’s ouster to succeed,” said Teddy Casiño of Bayan Muna.

In a privilege speech last Wednesday, Casiño warned against turning the Senate into an “Aquino court.”

“The worst thing that can happen to the impeachment process is for it to be used as a tool by Malacañang to control the Senate,” he said.

Casiño said the so-called “progressive bloc” in the House supported the impeachment complaint in order for Corona to be made accountable for supposedly using his position not just to protect Arroyo from prosecution but to justify his alleged wrongdoing in office.

“We supported the impeachment complaint because we believe that the judiciary should be independent and not kowtow to the whims and caprice of the Executive,” Casiño said.

“We do not want the Arroyo court to become an Aquino court. That is the last thing we want to do. We want the Supreme Court to be independent and to be the bastion of justice that it is supposed to be,” he said. With reports from Norman Bordadora and Cynthia D. Balana