Friday, August 10, 2007 Editorial: New Senate’s travails
REPORTS the say that the just organized and settling down Senate is in deep turmoil because of perceived unfair division of the spoils should not really surprise anyone.
The Senate is behaving as it normally does every time a new Congress settles down to organize itself.
It is actually no different from the House.
The choice as Senate President of Manny Villar, who does not actually belong to a group representing a clear majority in the chamber, ensures the incipience of immediate trouble.
Suspicion and doubts on the motive behind his every political decision or act would becloud the good intentions he nourishes in his heart.
The fact that his assumption to the Senate top post was construed as a first step towards his arduous climb to the presidency has instantly placed Villar as someone marked “Must be Stopped” by the presidential aspirants among his peers.
And there are, more or less, half a dozen of them in the 23-member Senate.
Impeachment
This should bring us down to brazen reality.
With the House of Representatives electing to have traditional politics dominate the guidelines for its operation, President Arroyo should not find any problem there about her impeachment.
It should be much more so in the Senate.
Without the House “feeding” the Senate with the “raw material” from which it could fashion an impeachment case against her, Arroyo’s life in the Palace will remain stable until 2010.
Villar’s maneuver
The Senate will thus be left to its own device, that is, for each of the presidential aspirant to pursue strategic maneuvers to gain ascendance against their rivals.
Thus should prod Villar to focus on designing his own mesh of political ties that would allow him to retain his post.
Right now, with the accusation that he has been unfair in the division of political spoils aside from his being perceived as being an ally of the administration and former president Joseph Estrada, Villar is in deep bind.
Expectation
In the face of this reality, what in the Lord’s name, can we expect from the 14th Congress by way of performance along the needs of a developing nation?
Let’s face it.
Unless and until our lawmakers in the Senate and House focus on the goals set by the nation’s electorate, then our nation will have no hope at all.
