Unfinished business

Guarding one’s political honor has always been a risky human undertaking, often to misperception or misinterpretation if seen in the prism of Philippine political topography. In the Filipino parlance, we say “sala sa init, sala sa lamig” or “damned if you, damned if you don’t.”
In doing what he declared to be the dictates of his conscience, Sen. Chiz Escudero is being called names, labels unfairly heaped on him by detractors. Escudero resigned his posts as chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance and as co-chairman of the Joint Congressional Oversight Committee on Public Expenditures last July 28.

This was on the day President Benigno “Noy” Aquino III submitted to the 16th Congress the proposed 2016 General Appropriations Act (GAA), after the latter’s state of the nation address (SONA). Escudero, in so many words, cited his sense of propriety as a public official, or “delicadeza,” more than anything else.

Undeniably, Escudero’s unexpected stepping down from the two powerful posts at the Senate is pivotal of the next moves he would make.
It came days after he met with President Aquino, first on one-on-one basis and later, together with fellow Sen. Grace Poe for more than five hours of talks. President Aquino has been trying to get both Poe and Escudero to join the administration’s political machinery for the next presidential elections in May 2016.

Eventually, P-Noy formally “anointed” Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) Sec. Mar Roxas II as Liberal Party’s presidential standard-bearer in next year’s elections. Last Friday’s formal endorsement in an event they dubbed as “Gathering of Friends” at Club Filipino in Greenhills, San Juan is meant to obviously go around the election rules against premature campaigning.

P-Noy and Roxas met again yesterday in an LP-led gathering which they now called as “Show of Force” for their presidential candidate at the Gloria Maris restaurant, also in Greenhills. P-Noy said he sees nothing wrong or illegal if he campaigns for Roxas. Likewise, the President insists he has every right to ask Roxas to stay in his Cabinet even after the DILG secretary submitted his courtesy resignation last Monday.

The Chief Executive rationalized this saying his anointed successor still has to “finish a lot of things” at the DILG. Just what this unfinished business Roxas has at the DILG, the President did not elaborate. The President disclosed he asked Roxas to “complete urgent tasks and ensure smooth transition” while he is looking at several names to replace the latter at the DILG.

Now we have here Escudero, also a public official who has the “delicadeza” to vacate his influential positions amid his possible run for higher office in next year’s elections. But certain quarters are casting doubt on his intentions. With the paramount aims of preserving his integrity amid dirty politics, Sen. Escudero chose to do something that may be seen by political opportunists as a deed unwise or behavior worthy of an idiot.

Rather than be besmirched with senseless talk of dishonoring the 2016 GAA bill deliberations with his political ambitions, Sen. Escudero took the rightful step of resigning his posts. This mere act of resigning from the two key Senate committees says a lot about Sen. Escudero. His sense of restraint and strong commitment to political decency, in one word: “delicadeza.”

But vacating his posts, Escudero of course did not abdicate his duties and responsibilities as an elected senator of the Republic. He must continue performing his sworn duties and fulfill all of his official commitments. He vowed to even work harder for the checks, balances and safeguards to ensure the 2016 GAA bill would be compliant with the Supreme Court rulings on Priority Development Assistance Fund (PDAF) and the Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP).
Sen. Escudero’s sense of “delicadeza” is an important building block of his advocacy to promote, uphold and ensure full public accountability in all public offices. To look at his “delicadeza” with political mischief says a lot about the people who mouth this nonsense.

To date though, both he and Poe have yet to make up their minds on their respective 2016 plans. Since both have been topping pre-polls surveys, their allies and political foes as well are sensing a looming Poe-Escudero tandem or vice versa.

As of yesterday, Roxas has yet to pick a vice presidential runningmate. He too is keeping an open mind that President Aquino may still be able to convince Poe or Escudero or both for a unified administration slate in next year’s elections. The problem, however, seems to be LP diehards frown on the two senators who are not affiliated with LP and independent of any political party.

The final reckoning, however, is on October 12 to 16 for the filing of certificates of candidacy (COC) before the Commission on Elections (Comelec) of all wannabes running in next year’s elections.

By law, Roxas, and other candidates who are holding appointive offices for that matter, are automatically considered resigned once they file their respective COCs.

But for Roxas, he will be also deemed to have withdrawn his pending protest before the Presidential Electoral Tribunal (PET) once he files his COC to run for the presidency this time. He ran but lost to Vice President Jejomar Binay in the May 2010 elections.

Roxas protested before the PET his defeat to Binay during the country’s first-ever automated election system that saw the victory and installation into office of President Aquino. The PET started hearing the protest and counter-protest in Sept. 2010 when it designated retired SC Justice Bernardo Pardo as hearing commissioner.

In his PET petition, Roxas claimed he should have won the election if only the Comelec counted the “null” votes, which supposedly largely belonged to him and would have made him overtake the final 727,084-vote advantage of Binay.

Binay lawyers have asked the PET to dismiss the poll protest of Roxas for lack of merit and for being allegedly invalid. The Binay camp countered poll results were affirmed 99.6 percent accurate in the random manual audit conducted by election watchdogs.

With less than a year before the next elections, the 15-man PET, chaired by Supreme Court (SC) chief justice Ma. Lourdes Sereno, have yet to rule on pending protest. The face-off between the two arch rivals in 2016 will settle this unfinished business.