Probe-happy Senate not probing Gringo?

"I knew somebody would ask that sooner or later," a senator replied to my title question. "Can I just say we forgot?" he laughed nervously while entreating no attribution. So all I’ll reveal about his identity is his gender, via pronouns. But I’ll admit that his answer got me all the more convinced that the Senate is an old boys’ club. It will find fault with anything, inquire into affairs of anybody, conduct a hearing anywhere – but never if on one of its own.

Our Senate has been probe-happy of late. Give a senator a tabloid and he’ll readily spot a story from which to spin a sensational privilege speech. The speech is referred to a committee that will hold hearings in aid of legislation and, more importantly, in front of television cameras. In the end, however, the public never gets to know the outcome of the inquiry. But our happy senator savors the final report – a sheaf of papers consisting of clippings of the news items he generated from the exercise.

In recent weeks there were Senate probes of pyramid schemes and schoolhouse costs, of noontime TV shows and a tonic drink. While it is said that the Senate has the power to investigate anything imbued with public interest, people can’t help but suspect it’s more for publicity interest. More so since executive branch agencies are empowered and equipped to investigate such matters anyway. Even more so if the senators choose only the headline-makers, never such boring stuff as curbing the brain drain or spurring technological research. As they say, everything is just "in aid of election", which is just around the corner.

The Senate’s flavor of the month is Jose Pidal. A few years ago, it was a bikini-loving movie starlet whom nuns so cruelly refused enrollment in an exclusive Catholic school. Never belittle the public interest in an alias bank account of a private citizen, senators today harrumph, as they did back then about the public interest in entering a private school. But the fact stares them in the face that they have not dared touch on the single biggest threat to democracy and government in years – the Magdalo coup d’etat.

Sure, the senators had the five ringleaders of the Oakwood-Makati takeover brought to Congress for investigation. But apart from letting them yell their voices hoarse about corruption that they couldn’t substantiate, the senators did not inquire further into the much-reported political mastermind behind the attempted coup.

The Departments of Interior, of Defense, and of Justice have gathered damning evidence. Sen. Gringo Honasan not only had inspired the coup participants with his National Recovery Program, but also exhorted them to grab power by force. First one, then six, finally twenty-six AFP junior officers – mostly from the elite Philippine Military Academy – swore that he had a blood compact with them for omerta in case they’re discovered. In at least one such ritual, repentant officers averred, Honasan said the only way to reform is to bring down the government with arms and to build up a junta also with arms. Loyalist officers have traced to Honasan five buses that rebels rode from camps in Cavite to Oakwood.

Those statements were made under oath by officers and gentlemen. All Honasan has done by way of reply is to first go into hiding, then hold secret press interviews, and finally resurface to deliver a privilege speech – not under oath but behind parliamentary immunity.

In that speech, Honasan denounced the Arroyo administration for supposedly harassing him with trumped-up charges and manufactured evidence. Interestingly, it was one privilege speech that never was referred to any committee for mandatory investigation. It just went into the Senate records.

It wasn’t for lack of Senate pals who willingly would cuff Honasan’s supposed tormentors in the administration. It looks more like a quid pro quo: "Okay, Gringo, here’s the deal; let off steam with a speech, but expect no inquiry to follow because somebody might ask that you be investigated as well."

And so, seven weeks after rebel soldiers ringed a private facility with bombs while awaiting the promised civlian supporters, our senators have forgotten what Honasan did. No different from how, as Sen. Joker Arroyo noted, the Senate forgot at the height of the Oakwood crisis to express solidarity with democracy and civilian rule, but instead echoed the rebel’s rantings.

Yet Honasan warrants investigation, at least by the committee on ethics. For, what can be of bigger public interest than the use of senatorial powers and perks to visit military camps and lead a putsch? What proof is still needed if more than two dozen witnesses testify to Honasan’s role, in contrast to a sole witness in the Pidal inquiry who recanted within a week?

It would take a senator to rise on point of collective privilege to show the evidence against Honasan and move for investigation. Or an aggrieved party – the owners of Oakwood, the Makati business community, civil society groups, loyal officers, misled soldiers - can file a complaint. The ethics body will have no choice but to act on it.

It’s a different story, though, when the body comes up with findings. For four months in 2001 three other committees jointly examined Sen. Ping Lacson’s criminal past. Majority of members signed to have him formally indicted by the justice bureau for narcotrafficking, kidnapping, smuggling, and undisclosed wealth. Twice, the committees tried – but failed – to have the joint report approved in plenary. The first time, a senator jumped from the majority to the minority while another was undergoing surgery in the US, thus tilting the balance and triggering a leadership coup. The second time, Lacson himself stood up to preempt the report with his Pidal yarn – which immediately triggered an inquiry, by the way.

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