Drilon, however, may have overlooked the biblical admonition that it is he who is without sin that should cast the first stone. Loyalty, if we go by Drilon's track record, has not been one of his strong suits. He is actually the biggest of all political turncoats.


In 1995, Drilon ran and won under the Lakas-Laban coalition, but bolted Lakas in 1998 to join the Laban ng Makabayang Masang Pilipino and supported Joseph Estrada in the presidential race. While he was installed as Senate president in July 2000, he turned on Estrada in October of the same year. In 2001, he was one of the senators who voted in favor of opening a second bank envelope that was expected to pin President Estrada down in his impeachment proceedings - then cried when he was outvoted and impeachment lawyers walked out of the session hall in protest.


As Senate president in July 2001 after Estrada's ouster, Drilon joined the Liberal Party in 2003.


He actively supported President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo when she sought a fresh mandate in 2004, but broke with her in 2005 when her election to office was stained by allegations of cheating.


On July 8, 2005, Drilon joined the so-called Hyatt 10 - Arroyo Cabinet members who resigned to protest the alleged cheating - and demanded that she resign. The turnaround must be among the most abrupt in Philippine political history: just a few days before that, he famously told Mrs. Arroyo at a rally in his hometown of Iloilo that if Manila didn't want her, she should consider moving Malacañang to Iloilo "where we love you".


Drilon's filing of the bill must have been motivated by recent defeat at the polls of the presidential candidate of his Liberal Party - and the ensuing hemorrhage of members from the erstwhile ruling party to President Rodrigo Duterte's winning PDP-Laban. Under the Drilon bill, political turncoats will be disallowed from running under any political party for any elective position in the next succeeding election after changing affiliations.








Sources: 

<ol class="article-sources">
<li>
Various news outlets
</li>
</ol>

The turncoat who is seeking to penalize turncoats - The story of Franklin Drilon