Sunday, January 21, 2007 Malilong: Three families in the Senate By Frank Malilong The Other Side
THERE are more than 80 million Filipinos. There are 24 seats in the Senate. By the time the May elections are over, six of these seats could be playing host to the behinds of a father and son; a brother and half-brother; and a sister and brother.
Imagine this: three families holding 20 percent control of the Upper Chamber and, by extension, of the lives of the more than 80 million inhabitants of this country. Only in the Philippines!
One could wish that Aquilino Pimentel Sr. and Jr., Jinggoy Estrada and J.V. Ejercito and Pia and Allan Peter Cayetano had enough sense of delicadeza to persuade them against trying to extend their family dining rooms to the halls of the Senate. Alas, it seems that when God distributed that gift, He forgot to append a “no return, no exchange” card on the wrapper. As a result, many of the recipients cashed their shares in or traded them for other gifts.
But we cannot entirely fault them. While election to the Senate appears, at this point, to be a breeze for Pimentel Jr., Ejercito and Allan Peter, they do have to go through a process. As any member of a political dynasty will tell you, they still have to offer themselves to the public.
The process is called election. And it is flawed.
No, the problem is not that we cheat in our elections although that is part of it. One can only cheat enough. I mean if you land number 30 in the Senate race, for example, you cannot jump to number 12 through cheating without getting caught or lynched or, hopefully, both.
The bigger blame is on us, the benighted voters, who reject deserving candidates like Solita Monsod and the late Haydee Yorac and go for the tragic (and comic) characters who have done nothing good and useful in the Senate except to serve as the strongest argument for its abolition.
The blame is on the masang tanga, who will, almost as surely as the sun sets in the west, make possible any of the following scenarios to happen in the next Senate:
Jinggoy, rising to interpellate JV after a privilege speech: “Will the gentleman from Lot 3, Block 2 please yield to a few questions?”
Pimentel Jr., after a scolding from his senior: “I rise on a question of personal privilege.”
Allan Peter to Pia: “I move, Mr. President, that the lady from our neighborhood stop using the title Companero when referring to herself because she is not her father’s only heir.”
