Wednesday, December 24, 2008 Honeyman: The theater of the absurd By Neil Honeyman An Independent View
THERE are those who characterize Congressional Inquires as vaudeville. This is unkind... to vaudeville whose specialty acts of burlesque comedy and song dance usually, but not always, surpass what we see in our Legislature - Tessie Oreta notwithstanding.
We prefer the term "The Theater of the Absurd." Where else is the futility of human struggle in a senseless world better portrayed? Had they journeyed here, Samuel Becket, Eugene Ionesco and Harold Pinter would have found vindications of their work. Not that they needed it.
The ostensible purpose of Senate Inquiries is, of course, to aid lawmaking. But this is often forgotten in the mountain of submitted information, mostly incompetent, irrelevant and immaterial (as Perry Mason's nemesis endlessly recited).
The Senators' task is to draw conclusions from the evidence and, when necessary, draft legislation. For example: 'Whereas not all Comelec Chairman have the probity of Christian Monsod. Whereas... It is hereby resolved that Comelec Commissioners be forbidden from engaging in any negotiation for any government contract under any circumstances.' It's that simple. Wake up Alan Peter Cayetano!
Legislation is enacted to plug loopholes, forbid the wrongful and, where appropriate, change the rules to reduce corruption opportunities. We see an obvious current example in the United States.
When a Senator resigns, the State Governor is empowered to appoint his successor. [N.B. There are 100 US Senators who are elected on a State basis - two for each State. Unlike here where our 24 Senators are all elected nationally]. Thus when Senator Obama of Illinois became US President-Elect, it was within the gift of the Governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich, to appoint his successor. A hocus pocus opportunity which, prima facie, according to FBI technology, Blagojevich took advantage.
Later, New York Senator Hillary Clinton accepted the President-Elect's offer to be the next Secretary of State, thus creating another Senatorial vacancy. No one is accusing New York Governor Paterson of impropriety (it was his immediate predecessor Governor Eliot Spitzer who, a few months ago, resigned under unfortunate circumstances) but his decision is made difficult by the opportunistic (nothing wrong in that-opportunism is the stuff of politics) candidature of Caroline Kennedy, who only recently came out of the woodwork when Senator Hillary Clinton was campaigning for the Democratic Party's nomination for the Presidency.
Both the Illinois and the New York examples point to democracy's need to trust the collective sophistication of the electorate to decide who should fill the vacant Senatorial positions for the remainder of the terms. By-elections seem to be the most appropriate way forward and, who knows, there may be changes to legislation to implement this.
The Theater of the Absurd - American Style
The American stage is configured differently from ours. Senators have a considerable height advantage. It is difficult for the most combative, truculent, aggressive, confrontational and uncooperative witnesses to maintain these attributes when they are permanently gazing upwards at their interlocutors. The media, with their considerable impedimenta, sit at the base of the stage where they are not seen by the solons but are a distraction to the witnesses.
But senators are not always the victors. In 1953, Senator McCarthy, chairman of the powerful Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, overreached when he took on the army. McCarthy accused a named soldier of being homosexual (this was in the days when homophobia was prevalent and 'gay' still meant 'carefree', 'bright', 'lively'). The Army's legal counsel, Atty. Welsh, stood and calmly said: 'You have just ruined a young man's life. Have you no decency, Sir? Have you no decency?' In that instant, public opinion swung against McCarthy's witch hunt of communists and homosexuals and the United States took faltering steps towards maturity.
Here we have a physically level playing field but we are not without senators who hector witnesses. A few years ago, Sandra Cam, was helping senators with their inquiries when Senator Gordon, a few weeks before his much-vaunted conversion to being an independent, started to browbeat her. He elicited the unsurprising information, apparently crucial to the Senate's legislature agenda, that Ms Cam was no longer virgo intacta. This was too much for her legal advisor, erstwhile Solicitor-General, lawyer Chavez. He stood up and, unlike the US Army's Atty. Welsh, lost his cool and excoriated the unchivalrous senator. Ms Cam put her hand on Chavez's forearm as if to say: 'Sit down Frank, I can handle this posturing poltroon.'
Understandably, the chairman of the hearing, Senator Drilon called a recess during which we observed the damsel shed a few tears. We hope it was because she recalled the bittersweet memories of a lost love, rather than the ridiculous charade to which she was exposed in Senate.
We are comfortably ensconced, alongside other failing and failed states, together with war zones, in the bottom quartile of the corruption league table. We hope that the future Senate hearings will ferret out the corrupt and cause us to be promoted to the third quartile amongst the merely 'highly corrupt'.
History may show that our corruption nadir was reached when a Senate hearing established that Romulo Neri instructed Jun Lozada: "Moderate their greed."
Then the theater of the absurd becomes, simply, theater.
