Tessie learns her lesson: Act senatorial at all times

Act senatorial at all times.

This, opposition Sen. Tessie Aquino Oreta said, was the one lesson she learned from a controversial jig she did on Jan. 16 last year that short of triggered a revolution.

Television cameras caught Oreta in an impromptu dance and hooting back at the Ayala group in the Senate gallery moments after the walkout of the prosecution in the impeachment trial of then President Joseph Estrada.

Oreta was among the 11 senators who voted against the opening of the second Jose Velarde envelope, suspected to contain details of the millions of pesos allegedly deposited by Estrada at the Equitable-PCI Bank.

The group from Ayala, which was rooting for the impeachment of Estrada, was booing her, and she booed back while waving her hands at them and shuffling her feet.

Her "dance" was played over and over again by a television station, and was instrumental in making her an object of hatred and derision for a little while.

Recalling the events that night on the Senate floor, Oreta said that the subsequent furor over that incident has taught her that she should act senatorial at all times. At the same time, she said that she was just being herself.

"Everybody who knows me knows that I always act that way. Magalaw ako talaga," she said.

About 10 years ago, she was in a similar situation when she was caught along with STAR columnist Art Borjal in a boisterous celebration moments after then Speaker Ramon Mitra won over then Defense Secretary Fidel Ramos in the presidential primary of the Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino.

Oreta said that all members of her family supported her during those trying times.

"My family became stronger because of that," she stressed.

More than a year after, she still believes she was right in voting against the opening of the Jose Velarde envelope.

"That envelope was not part of the impeachment process!" she maintained.

The failure to open the envelope led to the walkout of the prosecutors and to the spontaneous outpouring of wrath at EDSA that culminated in the ouster of Estrada exactly a year ago today.

"The constitutional process was short-circuited by EDSA. They should have allowed the impeachment (trial) to continue. Now, what they were shouting before are being mouthed anew, but with different names this time. They are now reaping what they had sown," Oreta said.

She stressed, however, that she would not support any new people power or coup against the Arroyo administration. She said that the President should be allowed to finish her term and that the scheduled elections in 2004 should be the only means to decide her fate.