Paralysis

Sen. Franklin Drilon isn’t celebrating yet – he’s busy trying to hold on to his post as Senate president. The chamber of horrors called the Senate is still embroiled in a leadership fight, and the man Drilon ousted, Sen. Aquilino Pimentel Jr., is promising to stage a comeback soon.

If Pimentel gets a helpful nudge from Malacañang, will he suddenly have a better appreciation of the administration, the way he suddenly became a vocal opposition member when he lost the Senate presidency?

"There is no bitterness whatsoever in my heart," Pimentel maintained, strengthening the impression that this is all about bitterness. He sounded bitter as he mocked himself for holding the microphone for Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo when she took her oath as President during EDSA Dos. He has sounded bitter since losing the top Senate post.

Yesterday Drilon said the minority would be offered chairmanships and vice chairmanships of certain committees. After apportioning 21 committees to members of the majority, there are still 16 committees to be filled up.

If Drilon can make an offer the opposition can’t refuse, then he may be assured of keeping his post for all of 18 months (oh well, that’s still longer than Pimentel’s tenure), after which his compañero Renato Cayetano is supposed to take over under a power-sharing scheme.

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No wonder we can’t get much work done in our little corner of the world. We spend half the time waging political battles, one-fourth of the time whining, and only the other one-fourth getting some work done. Drilon (and whoever succeeds him) will spend much of his time fending off coup plotters in the Senate.

I can’t blame some members of the minority, however, for grumbling when someone like Ramon Revilla gets to chair three committees: public works, labor, and environment and natural resources. But such is the system of spoils in Congress. Meanwhile, Revilla’s son-in-law Robert Jaworski is with the opposition. Don’t lay all your eggs in one basket – that’s common among many prominent families in this country. You never know when the weather will change here. Erap weather lasted just two and a half years.

After all the committees are apportioned and the leadership battle is settled, the next order of business at the Senate is the investigation, of course in aid of legislation, of First Gentleman Mike Arroyo. This could take several months. When this business is out of the way, it will probably be time for the congressional Christmas break.

When the senators finally get any legislation done, it’ll probably be time for Cayetano to take over – if his deal with Drilon still holds. That power-sharing scheme could easily be a casualty of the constant horse-trading at the Senate.

Oh well, all is fair in love, war and politics.

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Our senators can engage in verbal tussles, back-stabbing and even hair-pulling as much as they want – we can use some entertainment in these dreary days – as long as they do their job.

Given the quality of several of our senators, we have to keep reminding them that legislation is not just politicking, preening for the press and receiving fat commissions from lobbyists. The nation is in deep trouble, and we’re going to sink deeper unless we can all get our act together.

A prophet of boom wants us to look at the silver lining, arguing that the peso’s fall has made our exports cheaper. This is fine if our export markets aren’t themselves suffering from the global downtrend. But consumer spending is down in the United States, Japan and Western Europe. We can’t sell to our neighbors in Southeast Asia since all of them are suffering along with us.

By the time our political situation stabilizes and the Abu Sayyaf and other kidnappers are neutralized, China may have already soaked up all the investments that are fleeing Asian countries including the Philippines.

Congress must work with other branches of government and other sectors for national survival. But work is impossible when there’s paralysis in the Senate.

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BUZZ: When Malacañang was deliberating on the moves that would be undertaken against the Abu Sayyaf in Basilan, Defense Secretary Angelo Reyes wanted to suspend the writ of habeas corpus. Opposing him were Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Avelino Cruz, National Security Adviser Roilo Golez and Justice Secretary Hernando Perez. The three men won, and the administration settled on an "intensified crackdown" to round up suspected supporters of the Abu Sayyaf.