The ongoing high-class entertainment is not funny to well-meaning people who share the common sentiment at how the senate had been downgraded. The senators who refuse to understand the legal issues despite expert explanations by resource persons insist on their own confused misunderstanding. The lack of understanding is not merely out of resistance to learn or refusal to understand but more on the lack of knowledge to really understand the intricacies of the law, rules and procedures. It really is not an easy subject to learn the fundamentals of statutory construction as it is to act on stage or take several shoots for the silver screen. Truly, no aspect of human activity is easy to learn as the jokers in the senate argue. But the senate is not a place to display acting prowess as the seats are for the women and men who are learned in legislation and governance.
It is not a place to learn the rudiments of governance and legislation by humbugging stance reading notes fed by expert staff. The oral reading of one who presumes to know the substance of legislative propositions is insulting to the intelligence of well-meaning people who understand the context of legislative deliberations. People had surely been witnessing how one actor senator Robinhood Ferdinand “Robin” Cariño Padilla would take the senate floor with his proposed legislation to purportedly strengthen the powers and functions of the audit commission. He took time doing oral reading of notes prepared assumably by legal staff of his office. When subjected to interpellation by the minority floor leader in bar topnotcher Aquilino Martin “Koko” de la Llana Pimentel III, the actor was seen on live stream media grinning as if taking everything in jest.
The appalling part was when he tried to cite by reading provisions of the Philippine constitution as if lecturing to the interpellator Atty. Koko who quizzed the proponent on the legal basis of the proposed legislation. The actor mentioned his having a battery of experts from the audit commission who were backing him to answer the queries. Taking time to gather ideas to answer the queries, he appears taking a light moment dealing with serious questions from the minority floor leader. It was disgusting to watch such kind of demeanor from a member of the senate who had the temerity to display his lack of knowledge, experience and behavior worthy of a member of the senate.
It is indeed unfortunate that the senate of our generation is composed of women and men lacking in apt preparation for the task of legislation and good governance. Gone are the days when honorable women and men who had prepared educationally and earned experience for the exacting job of legislation. Senators of old were topnotch lawyers, economists, political scientists and graduates of other disciplines.
There are artists who are well-known and famous as they are watched by patrons on stage, television and the silver screen but are mindful of the tasks in governance that they would not dare run for elective office. In our generation, popularity and money had been the main consideration in running for elective public office. It is high time for voters to be mature in making their choices of candidates for elective public office. Certainly, voters may be the root cause to be blamed if we have in our senate or any elective government position nothing but a mere king koy.
comments to alellema@yahoo.com
