Our Senate is simply shameful

I hate sounding like an old man because I am not that old just yet. But I am old enough to remember, even if only from stories told me when I was growing up, about such great men as Claro M. Recto, Lorenzo M. Tañada, Camilo Osias, Ninoy Aquino, Manuel Quezon, Sergio Osmena Sr., Manuel Roxas, Jose Laurel, Jose W. Diokno and few who are still living such as Arturo Tolentino, Jovito Salonga and Emmanuel Pelaez who served in the Philippine Senate. Of course there are also such trapos like that senator who uttered the words "what are we in power for."

But I get the feeling that the Senate today is nowhere near the quality of Senates past. They remind me more of the Municipal Board of Manila when I was covering it in the early seventies. It was daily carnival time in City Hall. My late uncle, Mao Chanco, who covered City Hall before I did, used to call them "clowncilors". I think we have elected enough clowns to the Senate to make it a circus as well.

That is a real tragedy. I have always looked up to the Senate as a gathering of statesmen. When I covered the Senate, I got the impression that it served as a kind of a quality control mechanism in the passage of laws. You can't expect much from the House, given the parochial interests of its members. But the Senate is supposed to be composed of people whose perspective is national, with lofty ideals. I think of them on somewhat the same plane as our Supreme Court.

In other words, no petty politicians need apply for election to the Senate. But then again, after we elected Butz Aquino to the Senate following EDSA 1 on his sole qualification of being Ninoy's kid brother, I had a feeling we will never have the Senate of old ever again. More actors, basketball players and even a professional comedian were elected to the Senate. So why should we be surprised it is what it is today, in a word, shameful?

Maybe it is a failure of the Senate's leadership. Maybe it is because the Senate does not have a leadership that can inspire awe from its members and the citizenry. There is even no decorum in the hearings with people (including senators) eating, using cell phones or otherwise distracted from what should be a formal proceeding. It is a sorry and shameful mess, as I have said.

The biggest failure of the Senate today is that it lacks focus. I realize that most of the senators are focused on 2004, but that's not the focus we need right now. We need senators focused on what's wrong with the country and thereafter, focused on solutions to make things right. Is that too much to ask?

This lack of focus was evident in that riotous hearing of the Barbers committee. They should have focused on the alleged money laundering activities of fellow senator Lacson. The questions should have focused on the proof to back up this allegation. Instead, they asked questions that are not on the agenda and when the answers they got were not to their liking, they detained the witness, seriously violating his civil rights. In the meantime, the money laundering issue remains suspended.

Our senators are wasting our time and taxpayers' money with their circus. They are not even entertaining. I realize that as ambitious politicians senators need to also cater to the tabloid "sound byte" mentality of media today. But what about the crisis in our midst? If they go on their merry way, those who want to trash our democracy may have a potent argument to abolish the Senate, in fact, to abolish Congress and junk the Constitution in favor of a return to authoritarianism.

Given our past experience, I don't believe a dictatorship will be better than our crazy democracy, but there are those who are exasperated enough to believe the argument that we don't know how to manage a democracy. I get very little comfort that our national leaders who should know better, are acting like juvenile delinquents amidst rumors of coups and a military takeover.

I am usually skeptical about matters I cannot rationally explain. But I can't shrug off an uneasy feeling I got when an astrologer friend, who has accurately predicted many national events, told me she sees an authoritarian streak in our future that could last 28 years. The only consolation she gave me is the statement that a prediction is not necessarily destiny if we act accordingly.

So, wake up guys. We don't have all the time to play your silly games. Be the statesmen our senators ought to be. How can the business sector gain confidence in government with clowns like that as our national leaders?

Money laundering

The issue that the Barbers committee should have concentrated on was money laundering. That hearing should have been used "in aid of legislation" to gain insights on how it is being done here. This is a serious crime with widespread impact on all our lives individually and as a nation. The role of Ping Lacson, if indeed he has a role, should be determined by the proper judicial body. The Senate's interest is to craft the relevant law.

I just got some background articles on what exactly is money laundering. According to John McDowell, Senior Policy Adviser, and Gary Novis, Program Analyst, Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, US Department of State, "money laundering is the criminal's way of trying to ensure that, in the end, crime pays."

Criminals – be they drug traffickers, organized criminals, terrorists, arms traffickers, blackmailers, or credit card swindlers – resort to it because they have to disguise the origin of their criminal money. It is the only way they can avoid detection and the risk of prosecution when they use their ill-gotten wealth.

Simply put, money laundering is a process that makes crime pay. Among its other negative socioeconomic effects, money laundering transfers economic power from the market, government, and citizens to criminals.

I don't know about our honorable senators, but it seems very clear to me that this money laundering business is something that merits their focused concern. Let us keep partisan politics in the backburner for now. There are more important things we have to work on first.

Life's lessons

And now, here's Dr. Ernie E.
A six-year-old comes crying to his mother because his little sister pulled his hair. "Don’t be angry," the mother says, "Your little sister doesn’t realize that pulling hair hurts."

A short while later, there’s more crying, and the mother goes to investigate.

This time the sister is bawling and her brother says, "She knows now."

(Boo Chanco's e-mail address is [email protected])