Who is more powerful, the President or a congressman?

When I was a disc jockey, many years ago, I remember that a radio station I worked with always aired, with accompanying subdued musical underscoring, quotable quotes from famous personalities. There were anonymous ones though. Among the easier quotations we once plugged that I can recall were written in simple words: “Listening is the beginning of understanding.” If it was attributed to any writer, that author escapes me now.

The other day, there were two middle aged gentlemen talking in the van-for-hire that I took from Maasin City to Ormoc City. Listening to them helped me begin an understanding of some present day events. Perhaps because of the noise, they conversed quite loudly such that most of the passengers were, like me, forced to listen. Few others preferred and managed to doze off. The topic of the conversing partners was not the usual subject we hear nowadays. Rather than discuss about impeachment, a common conversation menu in most places, those chaps focused their thought on the question that one of them, in long sleeves, asked: Who is the most powerful man in the country?

Like many others, I was simply all ears to their banter and did not bother to butt in. Despite the temptation to throw in a word or two, I chose not to join the fray especially because I was more engrossed on how their discussion of the topic would develop.

The stouter of the two stated that the president could be the most powerful man in the country. He was literal in his answer to the question. He meant the attributes of physical power when he went thru a long exposition on such matters as the president being the commander in chief of all armed forces. His all encompassing argument was that if the president wanted anything done, his army could do it quickly. Of course, the libertarians, more knowledgeable on the limits of the emergency powers of the president, would not let that statement go unchallenged.

Just the same, as if to drive his point home, the stout guy mentioned about the situation of ex-President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. Without citing concrete basis for us listeners to comprehend his claim, he said that President Aquino marshaled his forces to put the former president in jail. I was about to straighten the fact that the arrest of the former Malacañang occupant was issued by a court of law, but I held my tongue thinking that the stout guy must have meant that the filing of the cases against Arroyo was the handiwork of the president’s men.

When the stout man appeared to have ended his presentation, the one in long sleeves asked if Congressman Ruben Ecleo could be more powerful than the president. There was an apparent mischief written on his face when he raised that query. In his narration, the sleeved-guy said that this congressman has two pending warrants for his arrest. Of course, he showed to us no warrants, but he was certain that one such warrant was issued by the Sandiganbayan for a final conviction and that other was ordered by a Cebu court.

As if looking for explanation from anyone else, the sleeved-man recalled that there was, at the onset of the Cebu criminal case, a court directive to bring the congressman to the jurisdiction of the court. And how could that happen? By arresting him. Yet, when police forces tried to implement the order, some armed men exchanged firepower with the policemen resulting into several deaths. He punctuated his position with: “Are the police, who easily placed under arrest former President Arroyo for certain nebulous charges, the same forces who are afraid to arrest a congressman convicted for some crime? If it were so, then the congressman is more powerful than the president. But, if the police are not afraid, their inaction must have presidential blessings.”

I do not share the flawed logic of the sleeved-man. But, listening to him made me understand that the police have, by their failure to catch a criminal, shown that something more than incompetence predicates this embarrassing situation.

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