COTABATO CITY (MindaNews / 29 June 2026) — There is a silence in Philippine politics that always comes before a big political defection. It is not the silence of doubt. It is the silence of a done deal. The deal is simply waiting to be revealed at the right time. Before a senator even crosses the floor or a mayor changes political party affiliation, it is all over. The public sees a show. They do not see the negotiation. This is what makes party switching so damaging to democracy.
Two recent cases show this. One is the collapse of Alan Peter Cayetano’s Senate majority in June 2026. The other is Cotabato City Mayor Bruce Matabalao’s move from the UBJP to the new Bangsamoro Federalist Party (BFP), in the same month. The Senate case is well documented. The Cotabato case is not as clear. Still, it raises real concerns. We should treat the two cases differently.
Senator Chiz Escudero came back to attend a Senate session on June 3rd, following weeks of supporting the bloc of Cayetano (Tamayo, Valente, 2026). With this, the numbers changed, enabling Senator Sherwin Gatchalian’s bloc to proclaim that the Senate presidency was vacant. After two weeks, another Senator, Joel Villanueva, quit the bloc of Cayetano and pledged his support to Gatchalian, making it 13 (Oliquino, 2026; Sarao, 2026).
This was not just guesswork about secret deals. Senator Panfilo Lacson said Senator JV Ejercito personally secured Villanueva’s vote. Ejercito told Lacson late at night on June 16 that “it’s done” (Tamayo, 2026). This is a real example of private dealing, and sealed the night before a public vote. Earlier reports had already marked Sen. Villanueva as an easy target due to his involvement in a corruption scandal (Oliquino, 2026). We don’t know if he was offered anything in particular. But we know this kind of pressure was already going on in the Senate before his switch.
Escudero and Villanueva both said they were not taking sides. They said they just wanted the Senate to keep working (Oliquino, 2026). But Cayetano later said he understood “the pressures that were brought to bear” on Villanueva, without saying what those pressures were (Oliquino, 2026). That line, paired with Ejercito’s late-night call, suggests something real had been offered.
Cotabato City is different. Mayor Matabalao won twice under the UBJP, the political arm of the MILF. He resigned on 10 June 2026. The following day, he joined the BFP and was appointed vice president of the party (Cabrera, 2026b). He said the decision came after months of private reflection, including time during his Hajj pilgrimage.
No report shows a broker arranging Matabalao’s switch, the way Ejercito arranged Villanueva’s. He has denied the obvious version of a bribe claim. What we do know is that this decision, which pulled half the city council and several barangay officials with him, was made entirely in private for months (Cabrera, 2026b). Even his own party only learned about it when his resignation letter arrived. There was no public debate. Voters never got a say.
One detail adds ambiguity to the situation. In April 2026, Matabalao posted that no one had pressured him to switch parties, and that he remained loyal to UBJP (Matabalao, 2026). Weeks later, Chief Minister Macacua visited his office, saying the goal was to reconcile with a former running mate (Dimapalao, 2026). Soon after that visit, Matabalao defected to the very party that already backed Macacua’s own political plans. No report explains that gap. It is a fair question, not proof of a deal.
This pattern is not new. Scholars have long studied it. Hutchcroft and Rocamora (2003) showed that Philippine parties act as temporary vehicles, not carriers of belief, which is why leaving them costs so little. Kasuya (2009) described how politicians chase whoever holds power, a pattern visible in the leadership posts handed out after the Senate reorganization. Teehankee (2013) called this turncoatism “balimbing,” after the outcome of the multi-sided political contest, because parties are built around people, not platforms. Quimpo (2008) framed this as a system where private bargains get unveiled later in the language of conscience.
The real danger is not that politicians switch parties. Some movement is normal. The danger is that the public never sees the moment that matters: the negotiation, or at least the deliberation. Voters can judge a record. They cannot judge a private talk they were never shown. Until parties build real discipline, and the press starts asking who brokered a deal and when, citizens will keep watching politics as a finished show, not a process they were ever part of.
(MindaViews is the opinion section of MindaNews. Datu Al-Zahid Hanok Salik is a faculty member of the College of Arts and Sciences, Mindanao State University—Maguindanao. He is a Master’s student in Political Science, specializing in International Relations, at Universitas Islam Internasional Indonesia. His thesis is titled “The Unbroken Path: Imamanism and Historical Continuity in Bangsamoro Political Thought.”)
