Hooray, Suzette!

Suzette Pido must be a woman of courage. She tells off arrogant legislators and by doing so speaks for all of us too timid to protest the insolence of power.

By now we all know who Suzette Pido is. She and her daughter Joanna took the trouble of traveling from their home in Parañaque to observe the proceedings at the Batasan where the Senate and the House are jointly convened to canvass the results of the presidential elections.

Suzette and her daughter patiently sat through the proceedings Monday and Tuesday. She signed in as a "concerned citizen." On Wednesday, exasperated as all of us are, she decided to pass a note to Rep. Didagen Dilangalen who was furiously filibustering on the floor, delaying the onset of canvassing.

That note is now a classic.

"Shut up! You are wasting our time – Filipino taxpayer."

Considering how many of us feel about the useless acoustics at the session hall, all at taxpayer expense, I should say the lady was pretty restrained in her language.

I know the term "silent majority" is an oxymoron: if it is silent, how can we determine if this is the majority? But if there is such a constituency, Suzette Pido’s short note must now be its battle cry.

And what a battle cry that was! The short note jiggled Dilangalen’s marbles. He ranted and raved such as the House has not seen since that chaotic passage of the articles of impeachment against then president Joseph Estrada. In that episode, too, Dilangalen was the featured freak, competing for top billing with Jose Maria Gonzales, the last of the Conquistadores, who punched the House sergeant-at-arms.

The Gentleman from Maguindanao took down the whole Congress to his level. He threw a tantrum rarely seen outside a mental institution.

That disgraceful show caused sessions to be adjourned, adding yet another painful day to the gross delay in the canvassing that is keeping our whole nation on edge.

Opposition spokesmen tried to contain the damage to their own credibility wrought by Dilangalen’s unseemly behavior. They accused the "concerned citizen" responsible for passing the now historic note as a Palace plant.

If that were true, Palace operatives ought to be hailed for a stroke of genius. And Dilangalen will have to be condemned for being such a cooperative sucker.

At any rate, the bottom line is that the debates at the joint session of Congress were extended for yet another day. That is something President Gloria clearly does not want to happen. That is something that serves the KNP strategy of prolonging the process and getting the people agitated.

Never before has canvassing the results seemed so complicated as the opposition now wants it to appear to be. There is a law that implements the constitutional provision vesting in the congressional joint session the power to canvass results. The opposition wants the joint session sitting in plenary to have the power to review the results indicated by the certificates of canvass (COC).

The law commands Congress as the National Canvassing Board to simply appreciate each certificate each COC and decide to admit the results indicated for tabulation. The opposition now wants the Congress to be able to go beyond that parameter and investigate specific returns at the level of the precinct. That will cause this canvassing process to be vulnerable to such delay that it can go on for months and even years.

In the meantime, government is paralyzed. The terms of sitting officials expire. The nation descends into chaos.

With each passing hour, the opposition’s effort to delay the all-important canvass becomes more and more contrived, more and more desperate. For sheer lack of imagination, the more rabid scenario-builders from the KNP camp are trying to copy previous historic incidents. In this case, they are trying to create the emotional impact of the "second envelope" episode that sparked what we now call Edsa Dos.

They want emotions to build up and then break out like a brittle dam onto the streets. Their operatives are now trying to muster the warm bodies that will mass up on moment’s notice and mount a popular insurrection.

But there are things grossly wrong in the picture there are trying to conjure. Not the least is the fact that their operatives are offering to pay people so that they will consent to be cannon fodder for the desperadoes seeking power for themselves.

The most imminent reason this picture will fail is that the opposition’s point men are themselves discrediting their own cause.

If the scenario of destabilization being woven by KNP and CPP operatives falls flat, we will ironically have to express our gratitude to the likes of Dilangalen. By their demeanor, they have convinced our citizens that the opposition’s cause is not worth fighting for.

But more than thanking Dilangalen, we should praise the valor of ordinary citizens like Suzette Pido whose faith in the democratic process and whose plain sense of proportion could not be shaken.

When bullied by screaming congressmen, demanding that she apologize for passing that worthy note, Ms. Pido refused. She would rather be jailed than say sorry for something that was rightly said.

So many things have been unfairly said about how apathetic or how jaded our citizens have become. So many things have been wishfully said about the need for common citizens to stand up and speak their truths, unafraid of the powerful personages who have conspired to bring ruin to our common sense.

Well, if we bemoan the perception that this is an age that wants for heroes, look again and perceive Suzette Pido. Here is the common citizen fighting bravely to save our common sense.

I don’t think we have ever met, Ms. Pido. But let me tell you this: last Wednesday, seeing what you have done, I sat back on my chair feeling a lot more assured that our democracy is safe and our sensibility relatively intact.

It was an overwhelmingly reassuring feeling. These have been gray days where ill will seems to have the upper hand. These are days that call for ordinary citizens to rise above their ordinariness and grab demagogues by the collar.

I took out some good wine and raised my glass in your honor. That, Suzette, was the least I could do.