Et tu, Brute?
GENTLEMEN, ready your daggers. The erstwhile Senate president looked shell-shocked at being ousted by his colleagues.
Two of the senators — the stocky, bald one and a woman — were weeping as the ousted Senate president acknowledged in his farewell speech how both of them stuck by his side and remained loyal to him. The woman senator reached for paper towels to wipe away her tears. The bald senator, a former police chief, had his hand over his mouth, looking anguished.
Later, he was even seen crying on the shoulder of the former Senate president’s wife, who was in the gallery when her husband announced his resignation. The two shared a consoling hug.
He really must be upset, the ousted Senate president thought. I’m the one with the dagger in my back, but he’s the one sobbing. I mean, I’m in this pickle because he had to go and investigate allegations that the president was a drug addict. Man, he must be feeling really guilty right now. Well, at least he voted for me.
Only he didn’t. In a press conference afterward, the bald senator admitted that he voted for the other guy.
“They approached me after the battle was won, and they already had 14 signatures,” the bald senator said. In the end, he said, he chose to vote with the other senators from his party.
Explaining why he cried during the outgoing Senate president’s speech, the bald senator said, “I cried because I failed him. I failed to win the war for him. When he gave me a salute, I was not able to control myself. I really cried because, being a good soldier, I wanted to tell him, ‘Sorry boss, I failed to win the war for you.’”
The ousted Senate president was stunned to learn of his betrayal.
“If yesterday I was heartbroken, today I was dumbfounded. I still can’t get it, I can’t comprehend what is happening.
I’m dumbfounded. At least he knew that I defended him as chairman of the committee that was tasked to probe the controversy. And because of that, I was sacrificed. I was removed from the position of Senate chief,” he said. “I am in shock. That’s politics. I mean, there are no permanent friends, only permanent interests. It’s very surreal. It seems like I’m in the Twilight Zone.”
A day later, the new Senate president boasted about how easy it was to remove his predecessor.
“It wasn’t that hard. It only took me four days to get enough votes,” he told a separate press conference. “There were already many complaints about him,” he added — referring to the man he had so fulsomely praised a day earlier, at his valedictory.
That day, he thanked the man he ousted for his patience, diligence, and his love for the country and the Senate as an institution. “My hats off to you, Mr. Senate president,” he said, addressing him by that title for the last time.
Now, the new boss promised the Senate would remain independent. The president, he said, played no part in the Senate shake-up — then he rushed off with a group of senators and their wives to a dinner at the Palace hosted by the first couple.
The ousted Senate president said it was time to move on, but said he needed time to process what the bald senator had done to him.
“I could not process what happened. I said, give me time,” he said he told the bald senator. “You even hugged my wife! Why did you have to hug my wife?”
The new Senate president must not have been paying close attention.
“The change of Senate president is always arrived at through … gentlemanly conduct,” he said. “The Senate president is not removed, only resigning. So, there is no need for declaring [the position] vacant so it’s seamless, it’s not messy.”
Surely, the resigned Senate president must appreciate the distinction as he pulls the gentlemanly dagger out of his back.