With due respect to many opinions to the contrary, we do not see anything inappropriate with that call made by President Aquino to Senate President Franklin Drilon, in between his bilateral and multi-lateral talks in Beijing. That was our head of state, as well as head of the government, checking on the progress of legislative work. That was also the head of the party in power, or the most senior leader of the government's ruling coalition, trying to express his assessment on the speed of legislation, a pace that could have been hampered by too many investigations. The president has not broken any parliamentary protocol much less breached the so-called separation of powers.
There has been no president, from the time of Aguinaldo and Quezon, to the golden era of Osmeña, Roxas, Quirino, Magsaysay, Garcia, Macapagal, Marcos, and President Cory Aquino, who did not coordinate with both houses of Congress, in order to harmonize legislative agenda, synchronize timing and schedules and coordinate on speed and directions for the whole country. Even President FVR, Erap, and GMA used to convene the Legislative-Executive Coordinating Council in order to have teamwork in government. The president, as overall leader, should not be prevented from communicating his thoughts to an ally who heads the Senate. It was an official coordination while the head of state was on a foreign mission.
To our mind, when PNoy made that call, he was acting as a true leader, making a suggestion to leave the rest of the inquiry to the Ombudsman and the Sandiganbayan which have already assumed jurisdiction over the matters. The doctrine of separation of powers, to our mind, has not been breached, much less has the independence of the legislative body been compromised at all. There was no damage caused. Nothing confidential was conveyed. And we should not weaken our leader by any sophomoric discourse on some general principles in political law. Instead, our gentlemen in the Senate might be in a better course to listen to the president and not answer him back, while the whole APEC and the entire ASEAN was at a hearing distance.
That call was far from the infamous "Hello Garci'' scandal. There was no order to violate any law. There was no instruction to breach the trust of the people. It was an expression of disenchantment, to say the least, at the pace legislative actions are going in the Senate. While the House passed the National Appropriations Act with a sense of focus and a sense of urgency, the Senate appears to be derailed with too many investigations and too little legislation. The Christmas Season is here and the Upper Chamber has not officially approved the budget. That could have triggered that presidential call. No president should even be questioned by any one when he makes efforts at putting all our acts together.
If it was Prime Minister Najib Razak calling the Malaysian parliament, or PM Abe calling the leader of the Japanese Diet, it would be a non-issue. If it was President Barack Obama calling the Republican leader in the US Senate, no one would raise any objection. If President Reagan would even call PM Margaret Thatcher, who headed another sovereign state, or President Carter calling Russia's Michael Gorvachev, why can not a Philippine president call the Philippine Senate leader on matters of state and of government? Why do we worry a lot about high-sounding political theories and fail to see the mundane realities that beset our country and people? Why? Come on, guys.