Philippine Senate reopens after 2 days but impasse among senators remain

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — An impasse in the Philippines between two factions of senators that shut the Senate for two consecutive days ended on Wednesday when one side gained a quorum and allowed the upper chamber to reopen.

Senate President Alan Peter Cayetano and 10 allied senators have failed to show up since Monday after two other senators allied with Cayetano were sidelined due to legal issues, leaving the 24-member chamber with just 22 active members.

Cayetano said he and his majority bloc of senators did not show up at the Senate partly as a “protest” and to prevent rival senators from wresting control of the upper chamber. The 11 senators who oppose Cayetano criticized the decision and called on him to resign.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. appealed for the absent senators to immediately return to work, saying the Senate impasse would stymie legislation needed by the poverty-stricken country to overcome an energy emergency sparked by the war in the Middle East.

The deadlock ended when Sen. Francis Escudero, who was previously aligned with Cayetano, showed up in the Senate, providing a quorum which allowed a session to be held before Congress goes into a weekslong recess.

“The current impasse in the Senate is untenable and unacceptable,” Escudero said, adding that “political divisions” had “become too extreme” for the chamber to function.

In a post on Facebook, Cayetano said he remained the Senate president and added that he and his remaining allies in the chamber would not honor changes in committee leaderships his rival senators made on Wednesday.

The Marcos administration said in a statement that it recognizes Sen. Win Gatchalian, who was designated by acting Senate president by senators opposed to Cayetano. “What happened in the Senate...was based on the law and the rule of law,” it said.

Senators opposed to Cayetano said he was desperately backing two absent allies in the Senate — Ronald dela Rosa and Jinggoy Estrada — to maintain his slim majority control.

Dela Rosa, a former national police chief, is in hiding after the International Criminal Court issued a warrant for his arrest as a co-conspirator of former President Rodrigo Duterte, who is facing a trial at the court in The Hague for alleged crimes against humanity. Both have denied authorizing extra-judicial killings.

Estrada was arrested by authorities at the Senate on Monday on corruption-related charges linked to a flood control project. He denies the charge and is in jail awaiting trial.

Cayetano is an ally of the former president, whose daughter, Vice President Sara Duterte, has accused Marcos and his administration for the “kidnapping” of her father by the police and his handover to the global court.

Control of the Senate’s leadership is crucial because it’s scheduled to start the trial in July of Sara Duterte, who was impeached as vice president last month by the House of Representatives, which is dominated by allies of Marcos.

The vice president, who has declared her intention to seek the presidency in 2028, was impeached over criminal charges that include unexplained wealth and publicly threatening to have the president assassinated, allegations that she denies but has refused to answer in detail.

Philippines Sen. Jinggoy Estrada, center, walks through the hallway to announce his surrender at the Senate of the Philippines in Pasay City, Philippines Monday, June 1, 2026, after the Sandiganbayan graft court issued a warrant of arrest in connection with the plunder and corruption case files against him. (AP Photo/Gerard Carreon)

FILE - Senator Jinggoy Estrada speaks on behalf of his father and former Vice President Joseph Estrada during the 90th anniversary of the Office of the Vice President Nov. 14, 2025, at a hotel in Makati, Philippines. (AP Photo/Aaron Favila, File)

AMSTERDAM (AP) — A judge in Amsterdam on Wednesday rejected an appeal by a Jewish organization to block two performances by the rapper Ye, formerly Kanye West, ruling that the concerts are not a threat to public order.

Ye has drawn widespread controversy in recent years for a series of antisemitic remarks, leaving Dutch authorities under mounting pressure to cancel the gigs on June 6 and 8.

The Central Jewish Council filed the emergency lawsuit on Tuesday, arguing that Ye should be banned from the country for voicing admiration for Adolf Hilter and selling T-shirts featuring swastikas.

According to the Amsterdam District Court, there were no grounds to bar Ye from performing. “There are no indications that West’s presence in the coming days will lead to concrete public order dangers,” the court said in a statement.

The Central Jewish Council expressed disappointment with the ruling. “The feeling we are getting is that it is okay if you are antisemitic,” Chanan Hertzberger, the organization’s chair, told The Associated Press.

Lawmakers in the Netherlands supported a motion to bar Ye from entering the country but the country's immigration minister said there was no legal basis for such a move. Ye's remarks were “reprehensible” but there was “no reason to bar him," Bart van den Brink told journalists last week.

The 48-year-old was set to perform his first European dates in more than a decade. In April, he was barred from entering the U.K. over his remarks, setting off a series of cancellations. Shows in Italy and Poland have been scrapped.

More than 100,000 fans turned out in Istanbul on Saturday evening to watch Ye’s first performance in Turkey.

Concert organizers say 70,000 tickets have been sold for the two upcoming shows at the Gelredome in the eastern Dutch city of Arnhem.

Ye apologized in January through a full-page advertisement in The Wall Street Journal, stating that his bipolar disorder led him to fall into “a four-month long, manic episode of psychotic, paranoid and impulsive behavior that destroyed my life.”

FILE - Kanye West performs at the Coachella Music & Arts Festival on April 20, 2019, in Indio, Calif. (Photo by Amy Harris/Invision/AP, File)