SENATE President Francis Escudero, who ran and lost in the May 2022 vice presidential race, said he has no plans of seeking higher office in 2028.

The senator, who unseated Sen. Juan Miguel Zubiri as Senate chief, made the remark on Monday when asked what his leadership style will be.

"I don't know. I just want to focus on the Senate as an institution. I have no dreams or ambitions of running for higher office as one would usually say or think," Escudero said in a television interview.

"We ran for vice president [in 2022] and [I] lost. That's enough for me," Escudero said.

He added, "I guess I will be focused on the Senate, the institution, the employees, [and] the officials to be able to perform [efficiently]."

Meanwhile, Escudero said it is unfair to link Malacañang to Zubiri's ouster amid insinuations that the Palace got irked by the continuing Senate probe into alleged "leaked" Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency documents that linked then-senator and now President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to drug use.

"That's an unfair accusation not only to me but also to Senator Bato (Ronald dela Rosa). In fact Senator Bato was emotional because he was made to understand that the reason why there was going to be a leadership change was because of him and because of the hearings," Escudero said. "That's unfair because nobody ever accused Senator Zubiri of being a Palace lackey. That he was chosen by the Palace to be our Senate president."

Escudero revealed that Sen. Bong Revilla was "the first [who] actually expressed support" for the plot to oust Zubiri.

Revilla reportedly got offended when Zubiri denied his request to attend the Senate session online because he underwent foot surgery.

But Zubiri explained that under the rules, senators are only allowed to attend sessions through teleconferencing if they were suffering from highly communicable diseases such as Covid.

Sen. Nancy Binay, who supported Zubiri, ridiculed the notion that the Senate leadership would change over a foot.

Despite the uneasy situation caused by Zubiri's ouster, Escudero said he saw himself as a consensus builder.

"As much as possible I would like to build consensus instead of dictating. At the end of the day we are a democracy. And I see myself as just one of the 24 [senators]. I'm not even considering myself as primus inter pares, someone above equals," Escudero said.