The president was in Beijing, in the midst of his diplomatic missions, when he called Senate President Franklin Drilon then made a very crucial statement about the on-going Senate investigations of the vice president. He was saying, in effect, that the Blue Ribbon Committee should already wind up with its inquiry in aid of legislation, and should now leave the prosecution and trial with the Ombudsman and the Sandiganbayan respectively. The president also said that, like any one among us, VP Binay enjoys the basic right of presumption of innocence. In saying those, PNoy was not being a politician. He was acting as a true leader. And we should better put those words to heart.
Of course, one honorable senator was quick to react to PNoy saying that the president should not intervene in a legislative matter. Of course, we know that the executive cannot dictate on Congress how to do its job. But with due respect, he might have been legally right but, we are sorry to say, he was not politically correct. For one should not answer back to one's president especially when the head of state and head of government is on a foreign mission. The president was saying those things as titular head of the majority coalition, and the gentleman is a member of that coalition. We all differ in colors and in principles but when our president says one fundamental marching order, we just have to defer to our leader.
The president appears exasperated that there are too many investigations in the law-making chamber and too little legislation that could provide solutions to the nagging problems that the country faces today. The people, too, are sick and tired with too much talks and too little solutions generated by the wise men and women in the Upper Chamber of Congress. If it is true that the Senate is spending fifty million pesos a day, as claimed by Governor Jonvic Remulla, then the honorable senators should account for some reasonable return on the peoples' investments for their operational budget. Why don't they publish a performance report by the end of this year and let the people decide on their performance?
We humbly submit that legislatures are created to make laws. Investigations are not their cup of tea, neither their essential much less primary functions. There are courts, prosecutors, and other pillars in the administration of justice. The president is correct. Since cases have already been filed in courts, then parliamentary courtesy demands that the legislative departments should stop their investigation. Senators and Congressmen should look around the nation. People are hungry and angry, jobless and homeless. What legislative measures have they passed to address the worsening poverty, unemployment, homelessness, and hopelessness among the people? The problems are just too many and we have done too little.
During the times of Senators Recto, Tañada, Salonga, Diokno, Ganzon, Mitra, Tolentino, Soc Rodrigo, and Ninoy Aquino, and even in the earlier era of Senators Filemon and Vicente Sotto, M L Quezon, and Speaker Sergio Osmeña, they excelled in their legislative work, in the brilliance of their initiatives, in the eloquence of their privilege speeches and in the elegance and depths of their debates. But they never used their powers to act as accusers, prosecutors, and judges, nor putting people on the spot via national television. When President Noy was a senator, he focused on what senators are for: to make laws. And now he is our leader giving direction. The least that we could do is just to follow. We could not embarrass our head of state while he is attending two vital foreign missions. Tsk tsk.
attyjosephusbjimenez@yahoo.com