The coalition of the charged—those actually charged, facing charges, or related by affinity to those charged—has fugitive Sen. Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, Sen. Bong Go, Sen. Francis “Chiz” Escudero, Sen. Jinggoy Estrada, Sen. Joel Villanueva, Sen. Mark Villar, Sen. Camille Villar, and Sen. Loren Legarda: eight in total. The old-majority-turned-new-minority has Sen. Vicente “Tito” Sotto III, Sen. Bam Aquino, Sen. Raffy Tulfo, Sen. Erwin Tulfo, Sen. Francis “Kiko” Pangilinan, Sen. Risa Hontiveros, Sen. Panfilo Lacson, Sen. Juan Miguel Zubiri, Sen. Lito Lapid, Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian, and Sen. JV Ejercito: 11, with Gatchalian considered a compromise candidate for the Senate presidency. This leaves the Duterte Diehard Supporters (DDS): Sen. Pia Cayetano, Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano, Sen. Imee Marcos, Sen. Rodante Marcoleta, and Sen. Robinhood Padilla: five.

The political math involves a range from 13 to 16, because 13 are needed to elect a new Senate president and 16 are needed to convict in an impeachment trial (any less means an acquittal). For there to be a change in the leadership, the new minority needs two more votes. As such a move would dramatically isolate the DDS, it stands to reason that a potential conviction is only short of five senators.

Whether two or five, where can these votes come from? This is where the poster boy of the coalition of the charged emerges. Here, the political value of Legarda, considered a lone wolf, is fairly low, not so much because she seems to have mortally offended Sotto, but because she lacks friends to bring along. Ironically, even if she switches back, the minority will only be 12, one shy of being restored as the majority.

This puts Escudero front and center, not so much because he has friends, but because he represents a group with shared interests. By all accounts, he is considered the leader of his core bloc: Estrada, Villanueva, and the Villars. Despite it being widely expected that Gatchalian would clinch the Senate presidency, Escudero reportedly torpedoed the deal by putting himself forward for the job in exchange for his core bloc’s votes.

Back when the current minority was still the majority, Pangilinan and Aquino made a pragmatic decision: to join it, so they could get committee chairmanships. This meant leaving Hontiveros in the then-minority, so that Pangilinan and Aquino could do something substantial about the advocacies that returned them to the Senate. It also meant that political purists condemned them, alleging they lacked principles.

It was actually what happened down the line that disproved their supposed lack of principles.

The day the old majority became the new minority, farmers’ groups who’d made their way, at great sacrifice, to testify before Pangilinan’s committee were turned away on the day of the Cayetano coup. The reason? All positions, and not just the Senate presidency, had been declared vacant. There was no committee chair to convene a meeting to hear them. And with those vanished chairmanships, other advocacies evaporated, too: everything’s been reset, including committee agendas. Neither Pangilinan nor Aquino showed any sign of abandoning the former majority when it became the new minority.

In the days since, while some new committee chairmanships were announced, other plum posts remained vacant. Ejercito said he was offered to be the majority leader, but declined, opting instead to join the new minority. Better late than never.

Villanueva, who has been useful to Cayetano (if the story that he denied Legarda the Senate presidency she expected by making the motion to elect Cayetano is true), may have aspired to be majority leader as a worthy reward. But the position as of press time remained vacant, supposedly to give the besieged Senate president yet another bargaining chip to keep his post. So not only is there no late offer, but it may never come.

So, back to the dilemma. Should “he who is the cause of the cause is the cause of them all,” Escudero, the man whose lack of “forthwith” brought us to the slimy pit in which the Senate is stuck today, be rewarded because he’s willing to do to Cayetano what he, Escudero, did to the Constitution? If it were only a matter of glittering titles, maybe, but it’s a title with power, and that includes ruling on motions during the impeachment trial.

A case could be made, and justly too, that Cayetano is now so odious, Escudero is less stinky by comparison. Anyway, Escudero can go anytime if he does anything stinky, too. It might even serve as a powerful warning to all sides that no one’s vote should be taken for granted. The current minority has to choose whether it’s willing to exchange the possibility of a conviction, for the certainty of an acquittal. If the coalition of the charged is kept out of power, it could ensure the possibility of a conviction.

If it’s allowed to return to power, you do not have the certainty of conviction; you also don’t have the certainty of acquittal. But you have the possibility that those currently disgraced can claw back a certain amount of respectability based on their performance during the impeachment trial. A foregone conclusion versus offering the possibility of redemption: where is the intersection of politics and principle?