MANILA, Philippines (The Adobo Chronicles, Manila Bureau) – Filipinos saw it all on live TV, or via the trending Internet: Senator Antonio Trillanes turning off the microphone of Senator Alan Peter Cayetano in an attempt to silence the lastter while he was interrogating the Senate hearing witness on the alleged extra-judicial killings.

Trillanes has apologized to Cayetano since then.

But in yesterday’s regular Senate session, Trillanes again had the strong urge to turn off the microphone of Senator Manny Pacquiao when the boxing icon was proposing a motion to declare the chairmanship of the Senate committee on justice (headed by Senator Leila De Lima) vacant.

As Trillanes got up from his seat to approach the podium where Pacquiao stood, the boxer-senator clenched his fist as if ready to punch Trillanes in the face. (It would have been a knockout, witnesses say.)

That scared Trillanes and he sank in his seat throughout the entire proceedings, only to abstain from voting when the motion to oust De Lima was called on the floor.  De Lima was eventually ousted.

When asked by The Adobo Chronicles, Pacquiao he never had the intention of punching Trillanes.  “I clenched my fist in solidarity  with our President, Rodrigo Roa Duterte,” he said.  The clenched fist has been a signature gesture by the president and his supporters.