Tulfo: Cayetano shifted caucus to majority-only before Senate gunfire

MANILA, Philippines — Sen. Erwin Tulfo said Senate President Alan Peter Cayetano changed a planned all-member caucus on Wednesday, May 13, into a majority-only meeting, which is why minority senators had already left the premises when gunshots rang out in the Senate.

In an interview with DZBB on Thursday morning, May 14, Tulfo said Cayetano told senators earlier in the day that the caucus would include the minority. "Pero nagbago noong bandang hapon, majority na lang," he said. ("But it changed by the afternoon, it became mostly the majority.") "So umalis na rin ako. I believe mga kasamahan ko sa minority left after the session." (“So I also left. I believe my colleagues in the minority left after the session.”)

Tulfo said he was already home having dinner with his family when shots were fired inside the Senate past 7 p.m. The majority caucus that pushed through was set to tackle committee assignments. This was the unfinished business from Monday's coup that installed Cayetano as Senate president and vacated all committee chairs.

Sen. Risa Hontiveros said in a statement Thursday morning that the minority senators had gone home after the session along with their staff. She said she had a scheduled flight to a province for a  conference.  

"Please don't politicize the fact that Senate employees went home, who are doing an honest day's work," Hontiveros' Facebook post read. 

Hontiveros also urged Dela Rosa to submit to arresting authorities to prevent renewed tensions from flaring up again. 

The senators' accounts explain why only majority senators were locked inside during the shooting, a detail unclear in initial reports that described senators huddled in caucus when the gunfire began.

The lockdown came hours after the Supreme Court declined to immediately stop the arrest of Sen. Ronald "Bato" dela Rosa, who has been under Senate protective custody since Monday.

Dela Rosa returned to the chamber Monday after a six-month absence to evade an International Criminal Court warrant over his role in the Duterte administration's drug war.  

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. clarified in a video address last night that he ordered the National Bureau of Investigation to vacate the Senate and to stand down. The gunshots did not come from government forces, Marcos said. 

There was no order to arrest Dela Rosa last night, the president added. 

The president said he's ordered an investigation into the source of the gunshots from last night.