Senator Erwin Tulfo wants his colleagues to respect his judgment. He should try respecting theirs.
After Pia Cayetano, Robin Padilla and Camille Villar voted to revive a challenge to his qualifications before the Senate Electoral Tribunal, Tulfo portrayed them as backstabbers. The tribunal rejected the motion for reconsideration, 6–3, citing procedural defects. He won. Apparently, even the dissent was too much.
Only weeks earlier, Tulfo had asked the impeachment court to reconsider whether four sitting senators should count when computing the votes needed for conviction. Those senators were Rodante Marcoleta, Jinggoy Estrada, Loren Legarda and Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa.
On September 23, the court accepted his appeal and adopted a computation based on senators legally and factually capable of participating. His intervention helped establish a basis for excluding absent colleagues from the membership count used to determine a constitutional threshold.
They remained senators, but could cease to count for that purpose. Tulfo expected that position to be considered a legal argument. Yet when three colleagues took a legal position adverse to him, he treated it as personal betrayal.
The majority in the electoral tribunal had the authority to dismiss the petition. The minority had every right to disagree. Their votes did not remove Tulfo from office or establish that the allegations against him were true. They favored allowing the challenge to proceed.
Under the SET’s procedure, a petition that survives initial screening proceeds to summons and an answer. The respondent can contest the allegations and raise grounds for dismissal. Allowing a case to proceed leaves its outcome open.
Tulfo can defend the dismissal. He can argue that the petition’s defects justified ending the case without further proceedings. But disagreement with him does not prove malice. A senator serving in a tribunal owes a colleague an honest judgment, not a favorable vote.
That distinction should be familiar to someone who challenged the impeachment court’s 16-vote threshold.
Tulfo argued that retaining all 24 senators in the computation could effectively turn absences into votes against conviction. His critics answered that the Constitution requires “two-thirds of all the Members of the Senate,” and that inability to participate does not erase membership.
Whatever one thinks of those competing arguments, Tulfo’s intervention had consequences. It helped make the absence of four senators a basis for reducing the number of votes required to convict. He cannot expect that action to be assessed on its legal merits while dismissing his colleagues’ adverse votes as treachery.
The two proceedings involve different legal questions. The standard of conduct should be the same: explain your position, defend your vote and answer the opposing argument. Do not assume that anyone who votes against your interests must be acting in bad faith.
If Tulfo believes the three senators were wrong, he should say why. Calling them backstabbers tells us that he resented their votes. It does not tell us what was wrong with their reasoning.
He was willing to question whether four colleagues should count. He should be able to accept that three others would not vote his way.
Tulfo cannot claim independence of judgment for himself and demand personal loyalty from everyone else.