The Senate is now below the gutter level

I’ve been raring to make a comment on the very ugly verbal tussle between former Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile (JPE) and Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago who used the power of privilege speeches to demolish each other’s reputation in front of nationwide TV coverage. Let me say that it was Reality TV at its worse! Sure, the Facebook fans of Sen. Miriam Santiago supposedly reached a million hits, which gives her the edge over JPE, but then these fans do not realize that these two Senators not only damaged themselves… they have damaged what little is left of the Senate’s reputation, which has been tainted with corruption through the PDAF.

In short, while millions are cheering on Sen. Santiago to further demolish the reputation of JPE (JPE also returned the favor to Maid Miriam last week) what both of them have done is bring the Senate even below the gutter. It was already in the gutter when Sen. Jinggoy Estrada admitted to the public that they were “bribed” with PDAF money worthP50 M-P100 M apiece just to ensure the conviction of former Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona. Now who bribed the Senators? You already know who!

So where do we go from here? Sure it is easy to call a truce so that people will forget what that circus was all about. But what the Senate need is not a truce, rather it needs to reform or transform itself in order to restore their very tattered reputation. First and foremost that we need for reforms in the Legislative Branch is to curtail the power of the privilege speech. I’m not giving out suggestions on how this should be done, but by God, they must stop using profanities in making these privilege speeches… or might as well totally abolish this privilege given only to the Legislative Branch.

A second and perhaps the most important reform of all is for the Senate to be voted by regions and not at large as is being done today. By so doing, it gives all regions in this country representation in the Senate, unlike today where families having a name recall get to be elected over and over again. Now whether this can be done by enacting a law, it is up to the Legislative branch. Of course, nothing beats making reforms through a Constitutional Convention (Concon) but there is no more hope for that under the Aquino regime which continues to deny our people those badly needed political reforms that would have completed the EDSA Revolution.

If we do not see these reforms in the horizon, we are seeing the 2013 presidential elections to be won by the same political families that have ruled since the EDSA Revolt in 1987. To those people who no longer have any confidence in our system of governance, they are faced with a blank wall, where the 2016 elections will produce the inevitable. This means…three more years of much of the same thing… called the status quo. So it is time to ponder and think of what this nation needs today. All I can say is… the key word is Transformation! We will talk about transformation in the days to come.

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Yesterday morning, I watched a portion of ANC’s coverage of the Congressional hearing on the calamity that fell upon our nation brought about by Super Typhoon Yolanda. Congressman Rodolfo Biazon gave a dissertation of what Congress needs to do in order to correct the problems that ensued in the aftermath of the super typhoon. Meanwhile National Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council (NDRRMC) Executive Director Eduardo del Rosario gave a presentation to the Congressional body.

While they were all in unison saying that the idea is not to pin the blame on anyone, ordinary people watching this discussion tend to believe that doing so would mean… this is nothing but a whitewash committee. Again, this is another flaw in Congress where they do not want to “hurt” anyone. Perhaps these legislators are scared that doing so would point to the office that the late US President Harry Truman declared in marble on his desk “The Buck Stops Here!” which to us is the Malacanang Palace.

But the bottom line here is crystal clear. The NDRRMC failed in its mandate. P-Noy may have boasted on nationwide TV on Nov. 7 that his government was prepared for this disaster…but in truth, they fell flat on their faces. Worse of all, they passed the buck to the local government units (LGU) instead of having the humility to admit their own lapses.

Yesterday, I featured Ivan Vuarambon, head of the Swiss Agency for Development & Cooperation (SDC) for my talks how, Straight from the Sky. What I got from that talk with Vuarambon was an insight on Swiss preparedness and efficiency. Two days before the typhoon struck, they already held meetings and accepted the possibility of their agency going to the Philippines. When they saw on CNN that we were badly battered, by Saturday Nov. 9, the first teams were already flying to Manila. Perhaps the NDRRMC should ask the Swiss to lecture them on disaster preparedness.

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