Your Honors, I plead for as much benefit of the doubt as was given Rep. Umali be given Rep. Banal.
To begin with, they are both stalwarts of the Liberal Party. Therefore, we need to be a little more liberal in appraising whatever they have to say.
When the Liberal Party-led prosecution panel asked for a little more “liberality” on the part of the impeachment court, the prayer appears to have been tacitly granted. The panel was allowed to shuffle the articles of impeachment, present witnesses at random, allow senators to reinforce the prosecution, tolerate the Palace performing the role of propagandist for the complainants and suffer without comment the President’s rather elastic understanding of due process.
To be sure, Your Honors, there has been enough unjust speculation and unwarranted extrapolation intending to prejudge the Respondent in the separate court of public opinion. However, Your Honors will understand that there is dire need to keep the proceedings interesting to keep the general public from tuning out.
Should the public tune out, Your Honors, viewership for the proceedings will plummet. When that happens, the trial will cease to be an efficient venue for those among you intending to use this as an opportunity to establish overwhelming name-recall in time for reelection. That will be a waste of the large amount of public funds expended to keep the proceedings going.
The Senate President did betray some amount of exasperation when he admitted he cannot control the behavior of the senator-judges, being merely primus inter pares. Do not try too hard, Mr. Senate President, in keeping some modicum of order, fairness and dignity in these proceedings. We care for your health.
After all, Your Honors, the testimony thus far of Rep. Jorge “Bolet” Banal (LP, 3rd District, QC), you might agree, appears pretty solid.
Banal is a ranking member of the House secretariat supporting the impeachment panel. He plays a vital role in the effort to bring justice and transparency to our land. Presumably, he bears the great responsibility for ensuring the nourishment of the prosecution panel, seeing to it there is enough paper for all the photocopying that needs to be done and controlling the petty cash for all the sundry expenses incurred by a grand show like the one we now witness.
It will be such a waste for our people’s future to demolish his political career at this time. Our political system, as you know, is not producing enough leaders for the next generation — which is why the Senate (and for that matter, the Palace) is populated by offspring of past leaders. We are hoping that what the political system cannot do, genetics might accomplish.
Rep. Banal is a new face, although admittedly maybe not a new mindset. He does not rely on the names of his parents to get elected. That must be enough virtue to begin with.
Unlike Umali, Banal is slim and fit. Together, however, they might yet compose the Laurel and Hardy of our politics. It will indeed be more fun in the Philippines!
On the night of Monday, January 30, Banal and some of his colleagues went out to “unwind” after a tough day at the trial. He then, as a noble humanitarian gesture, let off his driver and took the car home. There is, therefore, unfortunately no available witness to corroborate his version of what happened next.
Upon reaching his gate, Banal found a piece of paper stuck there. That piece of paper, by happenchance, is a facsimile of confidential bank documents possibly helpful to the prosecution’s floundering cause.
Being a secure subdivision, which no ordinary mortals may enter at leisure, there was no need for CCTV coverage of the scene. We will agree, Your Honors, that this is a sad fact. It was a rare opportunity to capture on video the truth that fairies do exist. Humanity has suspected that for centuries.
The facsimile neither indicated the name of the bank from which the purported signature card came from nor the particular branch from where it emanated. Notwithstanding, Banal was able to divine that information and the very next morning paid PS Bank on Katipunan a visit.
This only shows, Your Honors, that Banal is a man of exceptional intuition. With nothing on the page he found, he knew exactly where to go and who to ask. The country needs more men of intuition to lead it, you will agree.
A truly minor matter has been raised about why Banal did not promptly share his discovery with his colleagues on the prosecution panel. But when he went to PS Bank, the pretty manager firmly refused to cooperate with the congressman. Your Honors, men do not generally advertise it when they are rejected by women. Banal’s secretive behavior after the incident is completely ordinary.
Some truly malicious observers insist that Banal’s nervousness as he stood before the impeachment court suggests he was lying. Your Honors, if we routinely allow women to lie about their age, why can’t we tolerate men who lie about small ladies?
Your Honors, there is really no need to insist that lying before the court is such a grievous offense. That cannot possibly be more important, as Umali says, than observing parliamentary courtesy by accepting as true any version of the universe offered by colleagues. They too are duly-elected representatives of the people.
Instead, Your Honors, we humbly request the Senate to conduct a public hearing on fairies, especially those that break into bank vaults and insert bank documents on gates. They pose greater harm to our economy than bird flu.