According to news outlets, the senators were told by Cayetano upon the resumption of sessions recently that the Taguig lawmaker was already handing out committee chairmanships. It's like he had been appointed "Senate dictator" when he was just one of the candidates for the top post, some senators grumbled.


And just where did Cayetano get his supposed authority to hand out committee chairmanships in the Senate? "This is what Duterte wants", Cayetano reportedly told his colleagues.


Well, a bunch of senators decided that if Duterte really wanted Cayetano to be their leader and to distribute chairmanships, maybe he should tell them himself. So they went to Davao City and asked the president-elect.


The incoming president told the visiting senators that he gave Cayetano no such authority. And when they returned from Davao, they declared that they, almost to a man, were voting for PDP-Laban Senator Aquilino "Koko" Pimentel III as the next Senate president.


Of course, the Senate hasn't actually voted in a new leadership yet, so Cayetano technically still has a chance of being elected. But the fact that no senator is disputing Pimentel's prospective election speaks volumes about how Cayetano's bid is now as dead as President Ferdinand Marcos Sr., whose remains the Taguig senator doesn't want interred in the Libingan ng Mga Bayani.


Duterte has time and again said that he wants President Marcos buried in the Libingan ng Mga Bayani. But he never demanded that the Senate elect Cayetano as its president.



Sources: Various

No Senate presidency for "Senate dictator" Cayetano