If tales were a DNA, you could come down pat on why Senate President Alan P. – kumpanero, he thoughtfully made it clear during bis oathtaking– has mentioned with nostalgia a former Senate President with a term of endearment.
He longingly called the late JPE – Juan Ponce Enrile, to many on both sides of the political fence, as a beloved uncle. He owed him big, politically and financially. Where would APC be without JPE or his influence, forget about the alleged 37 million he still owed the man, the so=called architect of martial law. The incumbent Marcos must have known this, too.
Once upon a time, JPE said the ambush against him before the onset of martial law, was a fake. It was stage managed , as a prelude to the declaration that would install the first Marcos president as dictator.
It became a legend In Philippine politics, until a book JPE asked a journalist to write flatly disabused the claim.. It was a lie, a big fat like only a politician could say without batting an eyelash. American humorist Mark twain once wrote that politicians and diapers should change often and for the same reason.
JPE may have denied the so-called fake ambush, it still stick or stink.
Comes now the new kid on the block as a Senate President. He wants the new chairman of the Blue Ribbon Committee, either the notorious Marcoleta or the beauteous Pia as chair, to investigate what the whole world knows what it was.
The Senate, according to APC, was under attack after a shooting binge that scampered the senators, mostly the Duterte block, into safety along with others who didn’t know what the shooting for. The Ombudsman has already suspended for six months without pay the Senate’s sergeant at arms for initiating the so-called shootout between him and the alleged agents of the National Bureau of Investigation.
A new media briefing by the Secretary of the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) said that ACP’s earlier claim that there was a senate attack was a lie. Photos and testimonies would bear that out. How the Blue Ribbon Committee qould dispute that, there should be more photos or testimonies to do that.
In short, it becomes now the word of the executive department against the Senate. Bonaparte once said that morality is on the side of the heaviest artillery., Or, look who’s talking, as in a former senator is now declared a fugitive after being coddled by a sympathetic Senate,another senator now a person of interest for alleged helping the fugitive senator to escape and another senator more lame as a lameduck for being probed anew for flood control mess involvement.
Two senators from the majority have already understood the new writing on the wall: the Senate president has been declared of less weight so the defection has happened. What’s next is what anybody who believes In Murphy’s Law will happen: if something can go wrong, it will go wrong. It’s now a 12-11 equation in the power game in the Senate. Another Move will tilt the political calculus.
When you find your self in a hole, one wise man cracks, you stop digging. APC’s desire to have the Senate attack investigated by his own is another step at digging. The mindset is counterintuitive. Will the committee’s findings stand in the face of what the police say or Malacanang says?
JPE’s family or his daughter has something to say about APC’s encomium ab out a dearest uncle. It’s bad timing and for the wrong reason. NO one can be happy about using a well=guarded reputation as a deodorizer for one’s wrong action . Others call it opportunism. Or a refuge for convenience. EITHER WAY, IT violates the law on truth in ADVERTISING: never hang you dirty linen in public.
The Senate now faces another challenge to its credibility or the lackof it. It’s earlier claim that it is or was under attack—tense is important– is now seriously discredited. The impeachment can go one of two ways, acquittal or conviction. In the early days , there was the idea of smothering it ouf of the Senate by virtue of an overwhelming voice of pro-Duterte senators.
It’s changing with impeachment now officially on the dock.. Dismissal is no longer an option. There may be other way of out it but it’s dicey. Anything that will bring suspicion may arouse an indignant public into another EDSA, the same massive public discontent that triggered the 1986 People Power Revolution and the ouster of Erap Estrada as president. The sitting Marcos president must have learned the lessons of history, and so have many sitting politicians.
The beat in may people’s pulse today is the impeachment for the vice president is nothing short of conviction. The sixteen top n`otch lawyers hired to defend Sara Duterte may find their hands full against the ample pieces of evidence the House prosecution`has brought to impeachment court. Unless the Senate has another hat do bring to the court, evidence is the only way. Anything else is public opprobrium in the making.
Never mind that Senator Roland Dela Rosa is still hiding somewhere while the NBI keeps insisting he’s being tracked and will soon be captured. Never mind that former President Duterte will out for nother 5 months before his trial starts In November. Never mind that the next presidential election will be in 2028.
The interregnum will be a long introduction to new history. Before any of these will happen, the Senate may have already decided on the impeachment of the vice president. Between now and then, the Senate president would have found out the difference between an original and a mere political copy cat. It could be life changing.
