MEL STA. MARIA | Let it stay on the record: Ladies and gentlemen, these are the senators we have

By: Mel Sta. Maria

Atty. Mel Sta. Maria is the resident legal analyst of TV5. He is dean of the FEU Institute of Law and also teaches at the Ateneo School of Law. He co-hosts the daily program 'Relayson' on Radyo Singko 92.3 News FM.

Over two weeks, we saw and heard Senators Juan Ponce Enrile and Miriam Defensor Santiago exchange sharp, heated, humiliating and scandalous words and accusations against each other. 

Enrile, without expressly naming Senator Miriam Santiago, alluded to her as a "Peeping Tom", a "bitter and offensive hater." Enrile was responding to Sen. Santiago's grilling days earlier of controversial businesswoman Janet Lim Napoles, who is at the center of the pork barrel scam. 

Santiago advised Napoles to speak out, telling her this was her own best protection, then essentially warned her that certain senators were capable of murder. It was pretty clear whom Santiago had in mind.

Enrile, taking to the floor, referred to her actions as "panloloko sa inosenteng kababayan natin" (making fools of our innocent people.) Then he took his own swipe at Santiago.

He alluded to her bar-examinations ratings and condescendingly said that "she got 76 percent."

"That meant that she obtained low grades in all her bar subjects," the former Senate President said. "In fact, I remember that she got a grade of 56 percent in Ethics, the easiest bar examination subject."

Senator Santiago took her turn again. She referred to Senator "Enrile's arrogant, tyrannical attitude to young people", his "illegal logging operations". She called him "psychopathic and urgently (in need of) treatment for his sex addiction." She went on. Enrile, she said, has "corrupt journalists in his payroll, corrupt military officials who constitute his private army, his minions in the customs bureau and the internal revenue bureau, both of which he used to head and consider to be his fiefdoms, as well as key appointive officials in local government and the diplomatic service, who serve as his sycophantic spies."

All the speeches had nothing to do with any proposed law. Nothing was "in aid of legislation."
The Senate, with the express or tacit approval of all the Senators, was simply made a venue for Enrile's and Santiago's vitriol against each other. Timidly, the other Senators just sat there, marveling - perhaps intimidated - at what they saw and heard. They were impotent to stop the scathing speeches. The other senators, in other words, were accomplices to these distasteful events.

Who won? I leave that to those who witnessed the scandalous events. But who lost? No doubt, the Filipino people. What a waste of taxpayers' money.

Now Senators Sergio "Serge" Osmena III and Tito Sotto seek to strike from the Senate record both speeches, calling them unparliamentary and offensive - which is true.

But why delete or expunge from the record of the Senate these distasteful speeches? Nothing can be achieved by doing so. The argument that the Senate should be cleansed by unparliamentary acts is a smokescreen, a red herring.

Let these speeches remain in the Senate records. Let them stand as testimony to the kind of senators we have at this particular point in our history.

The speeches are invaluable official evidence for future generations of Filipinos. Future Filipinos will find in their researches and studies how our present senators used, failed to use, misused, and/or abused the Senate as an institution. Let this be a record to guide future senators in their decorum, to advise them on what they should not do and not say, or what they should do and say, while serving the republic.

The record will indict all of us as well. If future generations, after examining these speeches and other records of other shameful developments in the Senate, wonder why the Filipino people in 2013 voted such people to the Senate, then these speeches would have served a very good purpose. They will hopefully conclude that shameful events in Senate history should not be allowed to be repeated. Maybe they will vote more wisely.

I remember when President Lyndon Johnson was about to be sworn in as the 36th US President in Dallas. First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, wife of the just assassinated President John F. Kennedy, was asked to witness it. She hesitated but, sensing its historical significance, she  agreed but only after insisting that she wear the pink suit that was still stained with the blood of the late President Kennedy, killed just hours before. She wanted the nation to remember a historic event, however gruesome. She did not want to hide the truth of that shameful and dreadful day in US history.

Only in knowing historical truths can future generations understand the impact of events. This move to delete the Enrile and Santiago speeches from the Senate  initiated by their co-senators is, pure and simple, an attempt to hide a historical truth from official records, though distasteful it may be. 

It is in itself a shameful and unwise proposition. It smacks of senate hypocrisy of the highest order. It will not achieve anything. The Senators should not deprive the people and future generations of official evidence exhibiting their own shameless failings, arrogance, ineptitude, and impotence.


Jacqueline Kennedy said, "I want them to see what they have done to Jack." Let all Filipinos see what the honorable Miriam Defensor Santiago, Juan Ponce Enrile, and all their timid peers, are doing to the Senate of the Republic of the Philippines.

http://www.interaksyon.com/article/76485/mel-sta--maria--let-it-stay-on-the-record-ladies-and-gentlemen-these-are-the-senators-we-have