Koko Pimentel’s rejection

“He may be a Bar topnotcher, but he couldn’t even properly argue his own election case before the Supreme Court.

“It looks like Koko Pimentel has run out of options. The year 2022 marks his rejection by the electorate.

2022 marks the year the Filipinos rejected the egotistical, arrogant and reckless Senator Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III.

The PDP Laban political party, which was co-founded by Pimentel’s late father, was a virtual non-entity in the national political scene for decades, until 2016 when President Rodrigo Roa Duterte ran under the banner of the party and won by a landslide.

Koko Pimentel was just a senator of minor consequence before 2016, yet he was treated as a stalwart of the PDP Laban because he is his late father’s namesake. That, however, was enough for Pimentel to comport himself like a spoiled brat within the party.

Due to his partisan ties with President Duterte in the PDP Laban, Pimentel was installed as Senate President soon after President Duterte assumed office in mid-2016. Pimentel, however, was unseated as Senate President after less than two years in office due to his mediocre leadership.

In 2019, Pimentel ran for a third consecutive term as senator and won, but in violation of the constitutional ban against three consecutive terms for any senator. Only his good luck in the Senate Electoral Tribunal saved him from getting ousted from the Senate.

By his own admission in 2019, Pimentel can only sit in the Senate for no more than 12 consecutive years. Since he assumed office in August 2011, Pimentel must vacate his seat in the Senate in August next year.

Where will Pimentel go from there? In 2001, he lost when he ran for mayor in his native Cagayan de Oro City. He may be a Bar topnotcher, but he couldn’t even properly argue his own election case before the Supreme Court prior to his election to the Senate.

During the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, a newspaper (not the Daily Tribune) criticized Pimentel for breaching quarantine protocols after it was discovered that he accompanied his pregnant wife Kathryna Yu-Pimentel to the crowded Makati Medical Center when he was already infected by the Covid-19 virus.

In early 2022, Pimentel denounced the PDP Laban leadership after it announced its full support for the 2022 presidential run of ex-Senator Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. He wanted PDP Laban to endorse Senator Manny Pacquiao for the presidency.

Soon thereaf ter, Pimentel put up his own faction of the party, with Pacquiao and a few pro-Pacquiao party members joining him. That notwithstanding, the overwhelming majority of the members of the party stood behind Energy Secretary Alfonso Cusi as the president of the real PDP Laban.

Last 6 May, the Commission on Elections (Comelec) declared the Cusi group the bona fide PDP Laban, thus leaving Pimentel and Pacquiao sour-graping in the sidelines.

Earlier in August 2017, PDP Laban put up PDP Cares, a humanitarian arm of the party. Speaking for the party, Pimentel publicly promised that

PDP Cares would never get involved in partisan politics.

Almost five years later, Pimentel reneged on his promise and entered

PDP Cares in the 2022 partylist race. In an attempt to create a political dynasty, he made his wife Kathryna the first nominee of PDP Cares.

Moreover, there are mounting issues on whether Pimentel used the funds of

PDP Cares, raised when it was still a humanitarian agency, for the campaign expenses of Pimentel’s wife.

From the available results of the 9 May 2022 elections, PDP Cares will not get any seat in the House of Representatives. Pimentel’s wife’s defeat does not, however, exempt her from submitting an accounting of expenditures to the Comelec, something the PDP Laban leadership under Cusi ought to monitor to make sure that funds raised by PDP Cares for humanitarian purposes were not embezzled.

As expected, Pimentel’s sister, Human Rights Commissioner Gwendolyn Pimentel-Gana, is already making public statements suggesting her dislike for the coming administration of Bongbong Marcos. Her term as commissioner, however, expires soon.

From all indications, it looks like Koko Pimentel has run out of options. The year 2022 marks his rejection by the electorate, and heralds the coming end to his plans to establish a political dynasty.