‘No overnight coup vs Koko’

It was a confluence of events that led senators to decide to remove Aquilino Pimentel III as Senate president and replace him with Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III, Sen. Panfilo Lacson said yesterday as he rejected insinuations that what happened was a “coup.”

“This was not something that happened overnight so there is no coup d’etat here,” Lacson said over dwIZ.

He recalled how some members of the majority bloc had expressed dissatisfaction with the move of the ruling PDP-Laban to bring in their political rivals at the local level.

A few months back, Sen. Joseph Victor Ejercito complained about the decision of PDP-Laban to bring in his family’s political rivals

and making them leaders in San Juan City.

Ejercito said at least two more of his colleagues from the majority bloc had the same experience and aired their displeasure over Pimentel in particular because of his position as president of PDP-Laban.

“All politics is local. Some of our colleagues are not happy that PDP-Laban swore in their rivals,” Lacson said.

He recalled that when he heard about the issue, he and Sotto approached Pimentel to inform him about the sentiments of their colleagues and how the problem could escalate.

They informed Pimentel that he needed to talk to the concerned senators and address their respective concerns at the local level.

“What we want is the solidarity of the majority bloc so that we would remain solid,” Lacson said.

Then there were attacks against the Senate coming from the leadership of the House of Representatives, which Lacson said should have elicited a strong response from Pimentel as leader of the Senate.

Lacson said the members of the majority held several meetings to discuss these concerns and the possible change in leadership at the Senate.

During those meetings, Lacson recalled the senators were unanimous about their choice of Sotto as Pimentel’s replacement.

Lacson said the change could have been done earlier but Sotto was concerned that the impeachment trial of Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno could still push through and this would require a lawyer to serve as the presiding officer.

At the time, Lacson recalled someone suggested that Sotto could still be installed as Senate president and if the impeachment trial would push through, an interim majority leader, who is a lawyer, could preside over the trial in place of Sotto.

According to Lacson, it was during the recent birthday celebration of Sen. Juan Miguel Zubiri at his home when the decision to install Sotto was finalized.

At the time, the Supreme Court had already decided on the quo warranto petition filed against Sereno so the concerns of Sotto were already addressed.

A resolution to elect Sotto as the new Senate president has been signed by all members of the majority bloc, except Sotto and Pimentel.

Sen. Grace Poe signed the resolution yesterday, the 15th senator to have done so.

A caucus among the members of the majority bloc is scheduled for tomorrow, when the senators would have the opportunity to express their sentiments to Pimentel and the Senate president would be allowed to confront them and air his views.

Pimentel has indicated he would want to stay on until the start of the filing of the certificates of candidacy in October this year, but said he would respect whatever decision his colleagues would make on Monday.