She rose to the podium to use her tears as an emotional smokescreen for a criminal Senate jeopardized by obstruction of justice.
Do I personally know Senator Pia Cayetano so well that I can judge her? No, and even if I did I won’t.
Since Rodrigo Duterte came to power in 2016, however, Pia Cayetano has unveiled to the Filipino public a political persona that is an adequate barometer to define the essentials of her politics, including indications of the backroom polities she maneuvers through.
In 2016, Pia Cayetano rested on laurels as a champion of women, as advocate against gender discrimination, as protector of senior citizens and the elderly. This was a senator steeped in rights protection.
But there was a turning point in 2016. On May 12, 2016, the Duterte camp announced that Pia was called to Davao City to join the Duterte presidential transition team. She was the only woman in the team. Pia said her role in the team was to ensure that women would have a voice in the next administration.
She was amply rewarded for that role. Having won as representative of Taguig City’s second congressional district, Pia was made one of the House’s 12 deputy speakers. The reward was only the partial truth. Lest we forget, she was close to the appointing power as sister of Duterte’s failed vice presidential candidate.
Yet at that point there was nothing from Pia Cayetano to indicate she had the familiar narcissist egomania of her younger brother.
And then blood spilled on the streets of Duterte’s Philippines. The very people Pia protected as a rights advocate were perishing – women, children, the elderly, the downtrodden – murdered in cold blood without the benefit of due process.
The Pia silence was a major point of controversy that directly conflicted with her brand of human rights. Overnight she became a political survivalist by avoiding risking her family’s political standing in hewing closely to Duterte.
The women’s rights fighter was pressed by the media on Duterte’s misogynistic remarks. Pia chose to do a pathetic Panelo pirouette – the president was “merely joking.”
In cases like this, there emerges a political metastasis. Her silence was labeled as complicity. Her reputation was damaged.
And then she chose to return the favor as part of mutual back-scratching transactional politics. In 2021, Duterte certified as urgent the law that would legalize the presence of Mainland Chinese offshore gaming hubs. The next day, the POGO Tax Law (R.A. 11590) was passed, principally authored and sponsored by Pia Cayetano. She said the passage was a major win.
Four years later, Pia’s law engendered human trafficking, kidnappings, forced labor, cybercrime, financial anomalies, and corruption. The social and financial costs were heavy, thanks to Duterte and Cayetano.
This April of recent memory, Pia was a member of the Blue Ribbon Committee that investigated the multibillion peso flood control scandal. One of those who refused to sign was, there you go – Pia Cayetano.
The audacity of this fake rights warrior to cry in the Senate because “no one checked on them.”
The audacity to ask for our tears when she shed not even a single teardrop for the thousands of voiceless Filipinos destroyed by state bullets in the bloody carnage of her madman Rasputin.
The audacity of this senator of Duterte’s sycophancy repute who has lost any semblance of good governance moorings.
The gall is stunning, Pia Cayetano.
The views in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of VERA Files.