For more than a decade, the South China Sea has been ASEAN's diplomatic traffic jam. Everyone knows there is a problem. Everyone agrees it matters. Yet the moment the conversation turns to China, the convoy grinds to a halt.

The Philippine Senate has a remarkable talent for proving that history never really leaves the chamber. It merely changes surnames.

The Senate has been regarded as the last bastion of democratic dissent—a chamber where statesmen stood their ground, challenged power, and refused to let their voices be drowned out by political pressure or executive overreach. It was where difficult questions were asked, unpopular truths were spoken, and silence was treated not as a virtue but as a surrender.

If anyone still believed the Philippine Senate had reached rock bottom, the May 25 session suggested there was, in fact, a trapdoor beneath the floor.