Alan Peter Cayetano is an incumbent senator. His term will expire in 2019.

Ever since President Duterte was elected to his present office, Senator Cayetano became a very prominent member of the presidential entourage.

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He has been on prime-time television proudly claiming that he is currently very active helping the Duterte administration craft policy and finding solutions to the myriad problems of the state. His unabashedly making sipsip to the current dispensation on Senate time, from where he draws handsome compensation, perks and emoluments is a blatant violation of the principle of separation of powers. It smacks of out-and-out opportunism.

By being an employee and gofer of President Duterte, he demeans his exalted position as senator, a mandate which he was gifted by the Filipino people to whom he owes a sacred obligation that must be discharged properly. It is not surprising that he has become a “Senator Quietano” to the infelicitous missteps of the current dispensation.

Senator Cayetano should stop straddling the legislative and executive divide. He should realize the blatant anomaly in what he is doing. It is conflict of interest and corruption of the worst kind.

Better still, since he is salivating at the promised foreign affairs portfolio and to make sure that Mr. Duterte will not commit his celebrated flip-flops, Cayetano should resign forthwith from the Senate to become Mr. Duterte’s full-time policy adviser and problem-solver. By doing so, he shall have reduced the number of Duterte lackeys and toadies in the Senate.

CARNELL S. VALDEZ, [email protected]

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