09/06/2026
STATEMENT OF SENATE PRESIDENT ALAN PETER CAYETANO ON THE ALLEGED THREATS TO THE SECURITY OF THE SENATE
We have taken note of reports that certain members of the Senate received information from the NBI regarding an alleged threat to the institution.
If the threat is credible, then every Senator, every member of the Secretariat, and every individual who works within these walls deserves to be informed and protected. Security is not the concern of one bloc. It is the concern of the entire Senate.
So the questions are simple. Why was this information shared with some Senators and not others? What is the nature of the threat, who assessed it, and on what evidence?
And we must be candid about the source of this “threat.” It did not come from the Senate’s own Office of the Sergeant-at-Arms, the office constitutionally charged with protecting this institution. It came from the NBI—and any honest accounting requires us to weigh that source carefully.
This is the same NBI whose personnel, only weeks ago, attempted to prevent an elected Senator from performing his duties, physically assaulted a senate employee, and recklessly provoked an armed confrontation with our own Senate security inside these very grounds—an incident in which shots were fired within the home of the legislature itself. It is the same NBI whose Director, days ago, walked into a contested committee proceeding and publicly proclaimed which faction he deemed “legitimate”—discarding even the appearance of neutrality in an internal dispute of a co-equal branch. And it is the same NBI now offering itself as the sole source of an unspecified threat it refuses to disclose, even to the senators it claims to be protecting.
A clearly partisan NBI that was itself a party to violence within these walls cannot credibly appoint itself the guardian of our safety.
And there is a more basic question. Since when has the NBI been the lead agency on matters of national intelligence and security? Where, in all of this, are the Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Philippine National Police—the institutions actually mandated to assess and respond to threats of this nature? Has this so-called intelligence been validated by the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency, or by anyone in the professional intelligence community? Or are we expected to act on the unverified say-so of a single agency, untested by the very bodies under whose competence this properly falls?
There is also the matter of how such information is handled. In every functioning legislature, and in our own experience, a genuine threat to the institution is shared across the entire body—administration and opposition, majority and minority alike. It is never the private possession of one faction. The moment a “security threat” is briefed to some and withheld from others, it ceases to be a security matter and becomes a political instrument.
And the timing demands honesty. This “threat” surfaces precisely as the testimonies made in the latest Blue Ribbon Committee hearing begins to press for answers from the names it has raised. We are asked to accept that this is coincidence. The Filipino people are not so easily convinced.
These are not partisan questions. They are questions of governance. Which is why we should never take such information at face value—we establish the facts first.
The proper response to any threat is not panic, speculation, or maneuvering. It is productivity and prudence.
Productivity, because the Senate cannot allow itself to be pulled away from the urgent concerns of the Filipino people. Mindanao is recovering from a major earthquake. Families are absorbing the rising cost of fuel and food. Farmers and fisherfolk continue to bear the brunt of a disrupted climate. Critical economic and emergency measures remain pending. These are the matters that deserve our attention.
And prudence, because extraordinary claims demand transparency and verification—especially from those outside this institution. The safety of this body is determined by the Senate’s own officers, on the Senate’s own evidence—not by an external agency’s word relayed selectively to a chosen few. To accept otherwise is to surrender the Senate’s independence under the very guise of protecting it.
And let there be no misunderstanding: the work of this Senate must continue. The surest test of whether a threat is genuine and not a pretext is simple—a real threat is used to protect the Senate’s work, never to suspend it. We will not permit the safety of this institution to become the instrument for silencing it.
The Senate works best when it is independent, transparent, and guided by facts rather than fear. Anything less invites the legitimate suspicion that information is being used to manage narratives, pressure the institution, and bring it under greater external control.
But the Filipino people are asking a sharper question.
At a time when billions in flood control funds remain under scrutiny, why does the national conversation keep shifting away from accountability? Why does attention move away from the testimonies already heard by the Blue Ribbon Committee? Why do new controversies surface precisely when the hard questions begin?
Our people are discerning. They know when attention is being redirected, when an institution is being pressured, and when the important questions are left unanswered.
The Senate must not become a stage where narratives are managed. It must remain a forum where truth is pursued.
Because in the end, this is not about personalities. Not about blocs. Not even about who leads the Senate.
It is about whether the truth behind the flood control scandal will finally come out. That is the question before us. And that is why the Filipino people are watching.
I pray for Mindanao. I pray that we can turn our full attention to the work that matters most—a safe and comfortable life for every Filipino. And I pray for what this institution was always meant to be: a secure and independent Senate of the People.
