If there is a group in the Senate that wants to oust Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, it would have to be — who else, but the Liberal Party (LP) group and no one else, since Noynoy wants to control the Senate, as he now controls both the House of Representatives and, at this time, the Supreme Court Chief Justice and Noynoy appointees, whose appointments have created the perception of the diminished independence and integrity of the high court.
With the LP having succeeded in coalescing with the Nacionalista Party, there was that chance — or so the LPs in the Senate perhaps believed, that they would have near enough numbers to entice more to join them in an ouster move against Enrile—by giving them the more important committees and feeding on their frustrations.
This is, of course, in preparation too, for a bigger LP bloc in the next Senate after the 2013 senatorial polls, which Noynoy and the LPs believe their bets would win.
But as of now, the LP coalesced slate appears to be filled with fairly weak candidates, so much so that there does not seem to be a strong LP bet in the slate.
A guesstimate is that the LP group counts on having at least 10 senators to its side, or 11 at the most. With that number, only two more are needed to get Enrile ousted.
As it always is in plotted Senate coups, the moment the plot is discovered and made public, that move hardly ever succeeds unless of course, Malacañang succeeds in persuading two more to join the plotters — in which case, it’s off with the old and in with the new.
The new, so reports went, is Sen. Ralph Recto, who is said to have not only having denied it, but also declined the seat.
Naturally, the usual suspected LP plotters, such as Sen. Franklin Drilon who many perceive as wanting to get back his old seat,  where he was ousted at least twice, denied that there was such a plot to oust Enrile, although the Senate President himself confirmed that there was such a move to oust him.
But as Enrile has always said, all they have to do is show him 13 votes from the senators, and he will gladly step down, as he had never asked to be the Senate President. It was the senators who had asked him to become their leader, because no two groups could get the required number.
It also has been said that the Reproductive Health (RH) bill imbroglio has nothing to do with the alleged coup plot in the Senate.
Perhaps, but there is no doubt that there is discord in the Senate today, with some pro-RH senators frustrated over what they sense as the anti-RH senators dragging the approval of the RH bill.
While senators all say that Malacañang is not behind this ouster plot due to the RH business, the fact is that any plotter in the Senate knows it would be easy enough for him to cash in on the discord over the RH, along with the ambitions of other senators who have long wanted certain committee chairmanships, as a way of persuading some pro-RH senators at odds with the staunch anti-RH for a change in the Senate leadership.
One cannot discount either the Palace occupant from dipping his fingers into the leadership change — depending on what his LP senators and his LP finance team, have been whispering to him about the need to get that Anti-Money Laundering Law (Amla) amended the way Malacañang wants it amended, which would open the taxmen to take advantage of the amended law and use it as a political tool against the Palace tenant’s foes.
As the Amla and Anti-Money Laundering Council (Amlac) stand, it has already been proved, during the impeachment trial of former Chief Justice Renato Corona, that the law was flouted, to the extent of Amla and its council, Amlac, provided bank documents to the Ombudsman, despite the fact that there was not even a preliminary investigation on that particular case. Also, the bank managers, along with the so-called anti-fraud expert of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, violated the bank privacy law by leaking out the bank records of Corona.
All these put together, may have been, to the plotters, a potent recipe to oust the current leader.
If this has failed, that is not going to stop the same plotters from staging another coup attempt.
It never ends.