COLUMN: FIRST THINGS FIRST– Toward a productive senatorial debate – By Francisco S. Tatad

The first batch of candidates attending the ABS-CBN Harapan 2019 Senatorial Town Hall Debate pose for a group photo after the face-off on Sunday. The candidates were grilled on various issues affecting the country and how they would perform if elected.

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FIRST THINGS FIRST

 

WE are now in the middle of a senatorial campaign and the voters must contend with a number of absurd and ridiculous things.

The Commission on Elections has trimmed down the list of senatorial candidates from over a hundred to 62, from whom the voters are expected to pick 12 new senators on May 13 for a term of six years. Many can hardly name six worthy candidates. A senator is entitled to serve for two consecutive terms, but one candidate is running for a third term, in the company of two blood brothers with different surnames, and one former senator who is disqualified by law for failing to submit his statement of campaign contributions and expenses in two previous elections. It looks like the first requirement is for someone to violate some laws in order to qualify for election as lawmaker. A former senator and movie actor who had to hire someone to interpret the English texts of senatorial proceedings is also being billed as a “sure winner.”

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The country’s two notorious polling firms have managed to pick the voters’ alleged top choices even before the official campaign period began on February 13, and it’s now a question of who has the machine and the money to sustain the crooked fiction of the fraudsters. The propaganda surveys are no longer mere devices to condition the mind of the public on what election results to expect; far better than that, they announce in advance what the cheating machinery will announce as the “genuine results” of the fraudulent electoral process. They no longer merely predict what the Smartmatic automated system will deliver, they decide what the system will announce. This is the bastardization of the electoral process.

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The initial forums
Some institutions have organized “senatorial forums” to test the quality of the candidates. And individuals who have not spoken on anything most of their lives are now asked to define their positions on matters of public interest. The organizers or moderators ask the candidates to define their political platforms as though each individual candidate were a political party with a program of government, even though in reality even our political parties do not have their own programs of government. And each candidate tries to give the impression that they have a solution to every problem before it arises, or even if it does not at all arise. The ubiquitous Bong Go tops this list. He may or may not even be familiar with the basic rules of parliamentary proceedings, but he wants to assure his audience he’s ready to scratch every itch.

In reality, a senator does not enter the Senate with his or her own legislative priorities. Whether in a parliamentary or presidential system, the legislative agenda is provided by the Executive — the President in the case of the presidential system, the Cabinet in case of parliamentary government. And after the budget, which is the most important piece of legislation for any government, there cannot be more than 20 important laws that a parliament or congress can enact each year. It is therefore ludicrous for a senatorial wannabe to talk of filing a hundred legislative proposals to solve all the nation’s woes.

The number of bills
When I was in the Senate, one hardworking colleague refiled under his name over a hundred bills and resolutions which had been unacted upon in the previous Congress. This enabled people to say he was the author of the most number of bills and resolutions in the Senate. But this had little or nothing to do with a legislator’s work, which is not reckoned in terms of the number of bills authored or sponsored. To begin with, no law is ever enacted on the basis of the work of one legislator alone; every legislation is the work of the entire Congress, with the support and approval of the President.

I want to illustrate this statement by citing the case of the late Sen. Arturo Tolentino. He was the last great parliamentarian to sit with us in the Senate; one of the greatest minds of his time. It was his last term, and he did not have to author a single bill or resolution, but every time he rose to pose a simple parliamentary question or seek clarification on any bill being sponsored on the floor by then Sen. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, he shed so much light on the discussions that you wished every other senator were a Tolentino.

Since the May 2019 elections do not threaten to replace the Duterte administration whose term expires in 2022, even if the opposition candidates should win, a debate on programs of government cannot possibly be usefully undertaken by the senatorial candidates, without two presidential candidates participating. No senatorial candidate is expected to have a program of government, so it would be pointless to ask a candidate who is not supporting DU30, “What is your program of government?”

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Change after DU30
Why? Because, for as long as DU30 is the president, there is no chance for an opposition personality to introduce his own program of government, unless like Juan GuaIdo, the head of the Venezuelan national assembly, he plans to proclaim himself the interim president. For this reason, it is unnecessary for Liberal Party candidate Manuel Roxas 2nd to say “I can work with the DU30 government.” The way I see it, he is running precisely because he wants to work with the DU30 government.

If elected senator, Roxas will be just one opposition senator among many; he will have to work with DU30, even if he doesn’t like it. But a meaningful debate among the senatorial candidates can still be organized between the DU30 camp and the opposing side, by defining the major issues involved, and asking the candidates to speak to all the issues.

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Senatorial issues
There will be no need to examine whether it is worthwhile keeping DU30 in office — that will come in 2022 when his term expires. But the senatorial debate could decide whether or not certain policies of DU30 should change. These should include:

—DU30’s brutal war on illegal drugs and the extrajudicial killings;

—his policy of appeasement toward China with respect to the nation’s territorial claims in contested West Philippine/South China Sea waters;

—his antagonistic tendencies toward the Church and religion; and

—his inclination to threaten with violence people he doesn’t like or who disagree with him.

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Gangsterization of our politics
I would like to hear the candidates speak their minds on what the Indian-American conservative author and filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza calls the “gangsterization” of our politics.

By this term, the person who criticizes or exposes the health secrets of the authoritarian leader is not his critic but his enemy; he must therefore take him out. I apparently fell into this category when I wrote about his reported recent kidney transplant, which has not been denied.

This is very much a current issue. I refer to it not because I am the one DU30 had threatened to slap in the face for exercising my resourcefulness, and whose wife he had threatened to abuse for being my wife, but simply because it is a fundamental issue which cannot go undiscussed. It should not happen at any other time, but not particularly at this time when we are preparing for a new election. But not a single candidate for national office or a major news outlet or commentator appears to have noticed it.

Although I do not expect others to fight my own battles, this threat against me could somehow become a threat to others. It may be easier to simply pretend the problem does not exist, but if one who has borne storms, floods, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and political adversities allows himself to be easily cancelled, who else will remain? I look forward to hearing one or two of those who have not lost sight of the truly important issues of national interest. They have to speak out. This may be the only way to have a truly productive national debate.

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