Political change

SUDDENLY, out of the blue, politicians who nourished or held some information of the politics or long held secrets about some intimate political passions of the past have somehow emerged from their silence and quite unexpectedly started to talk.  The result was rather surprising to countenance. Many among the public did not expect such sudden mixture of political voices, many of which were long held in awe and high respect and honor because of age and experience.

But there they were—the voices captured in print almost in one full page in the “Nation” section of this daily. I never expected that such an august name as Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, who had long sat as the top guru of the Senate, would be tackled like an ordinary politician and member of the higher legislative body. It seems that as a neophyte senator, Sen. Antonio Trillanes was keeping himself out of the way of the more seasoned and more prominent member of the Senate, keeping himself as nondescript as he could be. But try as he must, “time and circumstance conspired” to drag him out of his hiding place.

In a sense, the neophyte senator who appeared to me as keeping out of the way of the Senate top-gun members in the last four years of his Senate membership was finally forced out of his shell, no longer able to play the role the “bullied,” enduring the bullying of the big guys in Congress. Well, perhaps, it was really destined to be that his being considered as a “nonentity” member of the Senate should come to an end. For as Sen. Trillanes said he felt shoved in a caucus “for the nth time.”

The young senator’s bully turned out to be no less than the Senate president himself, having been ignored in an important caucus tackling the House bill splitting the four-district of Camarines Sur. The bill was reportedly being lobbied by the province’s four congressmen whom Trillianes think was favored by the  Senate President. In the forum which Enrile called to discuss the split, the neophyte member may have felt ignored by the young Senate member, for he criticized Enrile’s handling of the forum.

That was what triggered the Enrile-Trillanes political exchange. Trillanes said he came out of the caucus “feeling trampled upon by a bully determined to get his way…My neophyte instincts were telling me then to just keep the peace and just get out of his way…But then the public servant in me just couldn’t let the thing pass.”  And so, he went on to say that he had lost his trust and confidence in Enrile.

The image that Sen. Trillanes wrought in my mind was one of youth seeking to change the leadership of the old order with the more vibrant new one. And why not, perhaps the vigor of the young could offer a better deal over the grizzled leadership of the old. It is possible that the other members of the Senate are just waiting for the opportunity when someone would have the gumption to shake rafters of the Upper House so another leadership would materialize and “give birth” to a new leadership.    

In politics as in other things, there is always an end to something. It can be in the Senate, too.