

Pro-democracy coalition Tindig Pilipinas filed a complaint against Senator Pia Cayetano before the Senate Ethics Committee, according to a Wednesday report by RH 28 Raymund Dadpaas.
“We respectfully request that the Senate Committee on Ethics and Privileges initiate an inquiry into Sen. Pia Cayetano’s actions and determine the appropriate response under the Senate’s rules and disciplinary authority,” Tinding Pilipinas wrote.
“We respectfully submit that the weaponization of edited media is malign in and of itself, but doing so while serving as a senator-judge in an impeachment court, at the expense of a fellow lawyer and lawmaker, is breathtakingly reprehensible,” they continued.
The complaint concerns Cayetano’s social media post containing a “misleading” spliced video of an exchange between prosecutor and lawmaker Chel Diokno and Cayetano’s brother, Senate Minority Leader Alan Peter Cayetano, before the impeachment court.
Tindig Pilipinas claimed that the integrity of the Senate, sitting as impeachment court, was put at risk by the spread of the video.
Senator Pia Cayetano’s conduct, the group said, “undermines the integrity of the impeachment proceedings and raises serious questions regarding her compliance with her ethical, professional, and constitutional obligations.”
In the video in question, Senator-judge Alan Peter Cayetano asked Diokno whether the subpoena for Vice President Sara Duterte’s financial records was a “fishing expedition”—a pejorative term for a broad, vague search in the hopes of unearthing incriminating evidence.
To this, Diokno replied that the subpoena could only be considered a fishing expedition if the prosecution did not have a reasonable basis backed by evidence to warrant a further search.
However, in Senator Pia Cayetano’s video, Diokno’s explanation was deliberately left out, “maliciously invert(ing) his statements,” the group said.
