Philippines' Marcos urges Senate to return to work as gridlock deepens ahead of break

Philippine President Marcos Jr. called on the Senate to "get back to work," expressing disbelief on Wednesday that an impasse in the upper chamber has stalled urgent legislative duties ahead of a congressional break.

The Senate has been paralyzed by a widening divide between the majority and minority blocs after the latter called on Senate President Alan Peter Cayetano to resign. No plenary sessions have been held in the past two days after members of the majority skipped attendance.

"It’s a very, very sad situation to have to watch. The country needs assistance. People need assistance. How can we provide that assistance without the proper legislation to back it up?" Marcos told reporters, saying the government was considering submitting a supplemental budget to combat rising energy prices.

"These events that we have been witnessing have thrown the Senate and its leadership, the whole Senate, into disarray. It has discredited the leadership, and it has stopped the essential business of legislation in government," said Marcos, in a rare intervention into legislative affairs.

Cayetano's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In a video on Facebook, he said the Senate has told the president's office it was ready to take up priority bills, but said the executive branch was not prepared. On calls for his resignation, he said if the minority bloc secured more support they could vote him out.

The breakdown began last month when Senator Ronald "Bato" dela Rosa, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court, reappeared after months out of public view to cast a decisive vote to install Cayetano as president of the chamber just as it was to receive an impeachment complaint against Vice President Sara Duterte.

Dela Rosa then slipped away early on May 14, hours after chaos and gunfire erupted following an appeal for help, claiming that his arrest was imminent.

Cayetano is a close ally of the Duterte family. Former president Rodrigo Duterte, Sara's father, is in ICC detention in The Hague and will face trial charged with crimes against humanity. Dela Rosa is wanted on similar charges over his role as the top enforcer of Duterte's bloody "war on drugs". Both Duterte and dela Rosa deny the ICC charges.

"The Senate should be a stable political body, not a theatre or spectacle, because at the end of the day, it is the public that will suffer," said political science professor Jean Encinas-Franco, adding the impasse sends a negative signal to investors.

"It creates a sense of chaos," she said.

Programs stall, investments are delayed, communities remain underserved, and families face rising costs as reforms are stuck, the Financial Executives Institute of the Philippines said in a statement that outlined the costs of what it described as "institutional paralysis".