EDITORIAL - If anyone should go, it is Alvarez

One thing speaker Pantaleon Alvarez needs to disabuse his mind of is that he is not President Duterte. In fact he is very far from approximating the president. Just because Duterte sometimes gets down dirty doesn't mean Alvarez can do the same. More importantly, just because Duterte can get away with it doesn't mean Alvarez can too. How pathetic indeed for him to even think about it.

Women. This is the subject matter that has brought the nation's focus on Alvarez. Very much married, he not only admitted but bragged about having a woman in his life other than his wife. He even went on to justify the boast by saying everybody else does. Duterte has said pretty much the same things not just once like Alvarez but at almost every opportunity that he gets.

This is not, by the way, a brief about ethics and morals. Neither is this an attempt to pontificate about a matter that is at once so delicate and yet so compelling. This is just to point out the difference between two men placed on the same measure and why the scale would tilt one way and not the other. This is just that and nothing more.

If Alvarez has not found out for himself, maybe those who have his ear should point out to him that when Duterte talks about women, he always gets applauded in the end. There is a charm when he does it that even those who may have felt slighted and uncomfortable often end up acknowledging it in good nature and join in the applause, if a bit grudgingly.

Not so with Alvarez. When he said what he said recently about women, those who heard him could probably hear a pin drop. A stony silence greeted Alvarez. No reception could have been as cold as the one given. Aside from charm, Duterte makes his asides about women come on like a joke. With Alvarez, it was dead serious. And because it was dead serious, he came on like he was daring everyone to do something about it.

Well, everyone should do something about Alvarez, not just about his womanizing, but about his entire fitness to be where he is. There is something off about the man and it makes him dangerous and a threat, not just to himself, but to the institution he represents. Women is just one issue against him. The real issue is his fitness to be speaker.