It was supposed to be a “let- bygones –be- bygones” and “ see- you -later” party.
Not for the implacable Dick Gordon. Instead, it turned out, for him, a gripes session or a pity party of sorts.
The vivid impression it brought across is sad and worrisome: there are no more than 9 senators in the land ( not including the new ones, tyro and comebackers,) who can qualify as patriots, who qualify as statesmen. The rest? They don’t care.
For Gordon, the Pharmally controversy as reported by the Blue Ribbon Committee, which he chaired and cherished like a true patriot and statesman, not just as a simple but accomplished legislator, has been a defining moment for the Philippine Senate.
It was his swan song, the day his colorful political career must have written finis in the time of a small-town despot with whom he had a love-and-hate kind of back-and-forth conversation. And that’s because he appeared to have stood up on principle, not partisanship.
The Pharmally issue probably has been his greatest challenge, and it was the equivalent of Julius Ceasar’ crossing the Rubicon. He knew he was going to burn whatever portion of the bridge was left to go back to political correctness.
What was it that whetted his appetite ? Massive corruption in a time of national disaster and, more importantly, big fish in government caught with hands in the cookie jar, and no less than the highest official of the republic who fit Machiavelli’s model perfectly. In other words, one who is more feared than loved, and the surveys indicated those vital statistics time and time again, ad nauseam.
Gordon’s report indicted his political nemesis and other government officials. There was not only corruption of humongous proportion – P11 billion not snitched but plundered from public and, more seriously, betrayal of public trust. It recommended that the full force of the law be applied, regardless of who they were, regardless of what the surveys said.
Gordon was epic Don Quijote fighting the windmills of La Mancha.
The crime took place in a time and place of a great plague, the COVID pandemic and in a poor country like the Philippines whose democratic way of life was under attack incessantly and systematically. Gordon’s report contained all that.
“There is a crime here that goes beyond denunciation; there is a sorrow here that weeping cannot symbolize; there is a failure here that topples all our success,” John Steinback wrote in his Nobel Prize winning novel; “ The Grapes of Wrath. Was Gordon’s gripes his grapes?
Had 11 senators signed the report, the required number, it might have gone to the Senate plenary. Who knows what would have happened, even if one of the accused officials was allegedly promoted to the Office of the Ombudsman as next in command. By the way, there was time when the audacious Rene Saguisag, once a senator and ex-future Supreme Court justice, warned not to shake the hands of the anti-graft body’s head. Or risk losing fingers.
Alas and alack, Gordon was not only frustrated but flabbergasted. Only nine senators signed the report. The rest clammed up. Gordon did not hold punches. They can’t do that. Whether they were in favor or not of the report, they were obligated, it was their duty to sign the report. The president-elect’s
sister at least had an explanation:she didn’t understand why her brother’s predecessor was indicted in the report.
Of course. A former dictator in the not-so-distant past was allowed to be buried in the sacred ground of the Libingan ng mga Bayani. Of course. She didn’t understand Gordon’s report the way she probably didn’t understand why journalist Karen Davila was still in town while a Marcos has been elected president. She didn’t understand Gordon and Davila’s reason: both love their country.
Gordon made it clear: the Senate is no longer the same institution when he first found it. There were the Magnificent 12 then that kicked out the Americans from Clark, although a violent volcano instead of a vehement group of intrepid politicians actually did it. It is now divided by two worlds, he said. One world wants to ferret out the truth. The other isn’t, plain and simple, if it is now somehow covering the plunderers’ track. Now, the Senate has Mug 15. The terrible tribe could increase.
Suddenly, he is also out of job, for now. His political nemesis has made good his promise. He was like a strong wind in the political landscape that blew him out of the Senate. Gordon not only worked his butt on the Pharmally issue but also sided with his nemesis’ pain in the neck, Vice President Leni Robredo. Both got their political dues in the woodshed, mercilessly. Shylock succeeded in getting his pound of flesh.
At least two things are in Gordon’s mind today. The first one is, politics has zero relation to morals, as much as manners have nothing to do with them. The other one is, his Pharmally obra maestra will probably become a Mona Lisa: it will lie and will die there. Quid pro quo. The exiting president has asked that the incoming one be supported, in accordance with the latter’s call for unity.
Eat your heart out, Dick. The victors write history and, as a matter of consolacion, you may like your chances better. Like your country, good luck.
