WHAT A world of difference the Senate, acting with vigilance, virtue and enough wit, has made bystepping up to the plate and rising to the occasion.
In the last few days, the Senate has squarely confronted a nation’s existential issue . There were emerging problems in the government’s incoherent and, at times, conflicting potpourri of policies and decisions on the anti- COVID vaccines Which one can Filipinos avail of and use with confidence, when and at what price? It was a crux of life or death —no ifs, no buts and no maybes.
Presidential spokesman Harry Roque had further muddled up the tense public conversation when he practically badgered his countrymen—that they couldn’t be choosy about the vaccine. It was plain arroganceand utter disrespect anyway you look at it. And the vaccines’ prices , particularly that of the Chinese brand, were kept under wraps,even if these could be found on the web. So much ado about the pretext of confidentiality, secrecy and intelligence.
The hearing gingerly walked on a tightrope with a preemptive warning shot across the Senate bow , aimed from a sniper’s vantage position. No less than the President himself, who had sworn to abide by the Constitution and, trefore, duty-bound to put the public’s interest first and above all, threatened his co-equal, if not his betters. That alone is proof , beyond an iota of doubt, that his sacred oath has not been observed with fidelity and sincerity as his term recedes.
The deep sense of alarm was widely palpable and shared – in the street and in the session hall.
Did the senators have an urgent, compelling premonition ? As if they anticipated a mob-like, maniacal-like assault on the institution. It was a possibility, conceivably not a remote one, with the President threatening to personally lead the potentialincursion into the Senate if the elders pursued their earlier Plan A. They sagaciously sidestepped the nagging issue to look into the jabbing of Duterte’s praetorian guards with characteristic prudence and political correctness. Better be safe and sour than be sorry.
The bluff was taken seriously. A Plan B was reasonable and rational, given the possible alternative. Hence, the ‘little crisis’ that Duterte dared an equal branch of government to trigger was safely avoided. And, in a virtual experience, Filipinos and other peoples of the virus-stricken world witnessed in their living room an unprecedented, despicable horror thousands of miles away. It might as well have been in the Philippine Senate, courtesy of their own leader, too. Thank heavens for small miracles.
In another time and place, Donald Trump’s cultic egging of his loyal followers to storm the Washington Capitol has cast him among the certified deranged leaders of our time , regardless of ideology, or even the obvious lack of it. There may be others lurking somewhere, waiting for their turn. Even in our neck of the woods.
The Senate hearing on the Administration’s vaccination plan was not heroic only because it was the right thing to do, in the first place, by those who were elected by the people to protect them. Their elderswere promptly being responsible citizens, first, and faithful public servants, second.
The proper office of a representative assembly, according to 18th century political philosopher John Stuart Mills, is to watch and control the government: to throw the light of publicity on its acts. The Senate hit a bull’s eye with its two-day marathon hearing. Yes , the people will get the vaccine of their choice, according to the anti-COVID Cabinet. Yes, the Sinovac vaccine tag will not be as expensive as initially conveyed. The YESes, the officialturnabout, were the mountain top. Sen. Ping Lacsonwas quick to claim the other day that their excruciating effort may have saved the Filipino taxpayers billions of pesos that could have gone ala ‘pastillas’.
Mills has suggested another power of the assembly: if the men who compose the government abuse their trust, or fulfill it in a manner which conflicts with the deliberate sense of the nation, to expel them from office. Well, that maybe a moonshot for the Senate, just like government’s jabbing plan is doubted by Senate Minority Floor leader Frank Drilon. Health Secretary Francisco Duque, long the object of derision by peers and superiors, is still very much around to nettle public confidence on the vaccine.
In a democratic setting, institutional power is still the best bet against any willful popular power with reckless tendency to upset tradition and status quo.This was amply validated in the recent attack ondemocracy in the U.S. by no less than its outgoing president who could not accept the reality of debacle at the ballot, leading to his inglorious exit from power. His farewell becoming a farce. It’s an ongoing concern in the Philippines, and the Senate is leading the way in proving its worth as a respected and revered historical pillar in a republican state where choice is a sacrosanct right.
To be sure, the Senate had its own missteps and poor judgment. Some of its tentative and indecisive postures in the past under the present regime remain under lingering scrutiny, if not cynical suspicion. But its latest exceptional feat in the exercise of independent function as a bulwark of freedom and fairness takes on a redemptive quality. Looking forward, a seminaltipping point for the nation may have been sown in the democratic soil.
We can, still, hope.
