JV EJERCITO NAMED THE PROBLEM. THEN HE SAT DOWN.

March 18, 2026.

Press conference.

Ejercito said something that should have been the beginning of a conversation, not the end of one.

He told reporters the ethics complaint filed against Senator Ronald "Bato" dela Rosa would likely be dismissed.

Not because it lacks merit.

But because the Senate has no no-work-no-pay rule.

He said it with the confidence of someone who had just identified the real problem — and then he sat down.

THE COMPLAINT AND HOW IT GOT THERE

On February 25, 2026, the civil society group Wag Kang KuCorrupt filed a formal ethics complaint before the Senate Committee on Ethics and Privileges against Senator dela Rosa.

The complaint was submitted to the committee chair: Senator JV Ejercito himself.

The group's co-convenor, former Finance Undersecretary Cielo Magno, argued that dela Rosa's continued failure to show up for work "constitutes not only a clear dereliction of duty but also a grave abuse of the privilege entrusted to him by the Filipino people."

Dela Rosa had not attended a Senate session since November 11, 2025.

That absence had already stretched past three months by the time the complaint was filed.

Senate President Pro Tempore Ping Lacson had flagged the same gap in January — noting publicly that there is no rule in the Senate that sanctions a senator for prolonged absence.

By March 18, this was not a new observation.

Ejercito was confirming what Lacson had already said, six weeks earlier, and what civil society had already built their complaint around.

HE TOLD US WHAT TO DO. THEN DIDN'T DO IT.

At the March 18 press conference, Ejercito said this:

"If any member would propose that the rules be amended or proposed the inclusion of such provision — the no work, no pay — then we can make the necessary amendment."

That sentence is the whole thing.

He identified the fix.

He described who needs to do it.

He is a member of the Senate.

He chairs the committee that received the complaint.

And then he waited.

Two days later, on March 20, Ejercito appeared on Super Radyo dzBB and offered a mild update: Senate President Sotto had given instructions to the Rules Committee, headed by Majority Leader Migz Zubiri, to study a possible rules amendment.

Study it.

Not file an amendment.

Not bring it to the floor.

Study it.

Meanwhile, the attendance record had already been written.

Dela Rosa missed 31 of 58 session days in the 20th Congress' first regular session, the most of any senator.

No amendment has been filed.

THIS IS A SMALL THING. THAT'S THE POINT.

Here's the line I cannot get past:

The fix Ejercito described requires one senator to propose it.

One.

He chairs the relevant committee.

He is the person who received the complaint.

He is the person who stood at a press conference and explained exactly what needed to happen.

And he is not the person who has done it.

Over in the House, this was apparently not so complicated.

House Majority Leader Sandro Marcos filed HB 7432 — the No Work, No Pay for Members of Congress Act — on February 3, 2026.

A House member filed the bill.

The Senate chair of the ethics committee is still waiting for someone in the Senate to move first.

And so we wait.

We wait for someone else to go first.

THE ACCOUNTABILITY LOOP THAT GOES NOWHERE

Here is what the accountability process looked like in this case.

Step one: a senator stops showing up to work.

Step two: civil society notices and documents it.

Step three: civil society files a formal ethics complaint, following all the correct procedures, to the correct committee.

Step four: the committee chair acknowledges the complaint, notes it is sixth in line, and says it will likely be dismissed unless the rules are changed first.

Step five: the committee chair says a member needs to propose the rule change.

That's where the loop ends.

Not with accountability.

Not with a reprimand or a hearing or even a scheduled amendment.

With a referral back to the same body that produced the problem.

Civil society did everything right.

They documented the absences.

They filed the complaint.

They followed the rules.

The system absorbed all of it and produced nothing.

THE THING ABOUT SMALL TESTS

There is a principle worth stating plainly.

If an institution cannot be trusted with a small, procedural fix — the kind that requires one person to file one proposal — it is unlikely to be trusted with anything larger.

This is not a constitutional crisis.

It is not a sweeping anti-corruption overhaul.

It is a rule that says: if you do not show up, you do not get paid.

Most Filipino workers live under this rule every day.

The Senate does not have it.

And the person best positioned to move it along has chosen, repeatedly, to describe the problem instead of solving it.

That distinction is real.

Describing problems is not the same as addressing them.

A NOTE ON THE SENATOR BEING PROTECTED — ACCIDENTALLY OR OTHERWISE

On March 20, Ejercito addressed the criticism that had followed his earlier remarks.

He was direct: it was not bias, and it was not a cover-up for dela Rosa.

"It's a procedural issue," he said.

That is almost certainly true.

But here is the thing about procedural inaction: the effect is the same as intentional protection.

If the rules do not cover dela Rosa's absences, and no one with the power to change the rules moves to change them, then dela Rosa continues to collect a salary and avoid accountability.

Whether that outcome was intended or not is, in a practical sense, beside the point.

The result is what it is.

Accidental protection is still protection.

WHAT RESPONSIBLE LOOKS LIKE

Ejercito himself described the sequence that would have worked.

A member proposes the rule change.

The committee takes it up.

The full Senate approves it.

The complainants refile.

The case proceeds.

He described every step.

He did not take the first one.

That gap — between naming the solution and taking it — is the accountability failure this piece is about.

The complaint was filed in good faith.

The process was followed.

The senator who chairs the committee explained what needed to happen.

And then the Senate waited for someone else to go first.

If Ejercito files the amendment, this becomes a story about a system that caught its own gap and fixed it.

Right now, it is a story about a system that found the gap, pointed at it, and moved on.

Those are very different stories.

The Senate still has time to choose which one it wants to be.