A basic principle of democracy is that while it upholds rule by the majority, it does not institutionalize the tyrannizing of the minority. To do so, after all, might give temporary political satisfaction to the current majority, but it is a recipe for turning the government into a never-ending political vendetta, because the minority of today could just as easily become the majority of tomorrow. Self-control, then, is a foundational expectation: every child learned to articulate it a la Spiderman. “With great power comes great responsibility.”

The basic challenge to any minority wanting to become a majority is this: that it has a better plan and is a more responsible group of people than the current majority.

This was the point of the minority walkout when the majority threatened to stampede its way to approving a change in its rules, to permit soon-to-be arrested (and already escaped) members to potentially cast their votes regardless of being behind bars or in hiding. Denied even a semblance of parliamentary reasonableness, the minority struck with the only weapon it really had: the denial of a quorum.

Now this is also what divides a minority from a majority: the minority was actually risking something. The majority, according to the Senate’s own rules, could have ordered the apprehension of the minority and their forced attendance to produce a quorum. Except it would have had to order the Senate sergeant-at-arms to do the apprehending, when he himself has been suspended. In any case, the minority was prepared to walk its talk.

The majority, embarrassed by its plan being foiled, decided to deny the minority a quorum, too, last Monday. It wasn’t a clever parliamentary maneuver: merely infant formula during a day of baby talk.

The baby talk began with Senate President Alan Peter Cayetano complaining to Interior Secretary Jonvic Remulla about Sen. Jinggoy Estrada’s arrest: Why do it in the premises and not outside? Still every inch the politician, Remulla shot back that Cayetano had some nerve to make demands when the last senator in his custody made an escape. All that pointless posturing meant people overlooked the real score: Estrada had already made an announcement that he wouldn’t evade arrest. In which case, there was no question of the executive having to use force to break into the premises to apprehend someone resisting arrest, which is the whole point of legislatures insisting on autonomy in their premises.

Eventually, Cayetano, together with Senators Imee Marcos, Rodante Marcoleta, Camille Villar, and Mark Villar, accompanied Estrada when he was brought to be processed by the cops. This gave Cayetano an excuse to be a no-show at the scheduled Senate session, where the minority waited for a majority that never turned up.

Instead, Cayetano fired off another infant formula statement, claiming their absence was a principled move. They were, he said, defending a coequal branch of government and asserting its independence. Then he dared the minority to join his majority in its disappearing act, “I am asking you to join one deliberate act—to let the Senate go quiet, together and by choice, so the country is made to ask why a co-equal branch would fall silent rather than be made to serve.”

There’s a rule lawyers like to mention, which is, never ask a question unless you know the answer beforehand. Cayetano assumes the country will miss the Senate. That’s a dangerous assumption. But it’s one he’s willing to risk because, reading between the lines, if it isn’t a Senate led by Cayetano, then you might as well count the whole Senate out.

Beyond the spitefulness of it, what this really tells us is that the principle the current majority is really clinging to is impunity: after all, without a presiding officer, no one can convene a session; without a session, no one can change either the leadership or merely the committee chairmanships. Certainly, there is no way to compel an unwilling majority to muster a quorum in the manner a majority could compel a dissenting minority to muster a quorum on pain of arrest. The majority, then, has the best of political worlds: it can grandstand without consequences.

Cayetano is banking, perhaps, on athletes waiting to be granted citizenship, generals waiting for their ranks to be confirmed, other interim appointees wanting the same, and groups pushing for their pet bills, to beg, plead, and cry for the majority to come back to work and hate the minority for patiently turning up, day after day, waiting for a session that’s never called to order. Stranger things have happened.

Strangest of all would be the chicken-run majority actually showing up to do what Estrada did only when he was about to be returned to jail: denounce the Palace for what Cayetano claims is interference in Senate affairs. Too late the hero, and too late the claim; what is sauce for Estrada is sauce for Cayetano: the place to denounce the Palace is the session floor of the Senate, where claims need to be backed up because your colleagues can take turns dissecting your assertions.