E·N·Q·U·I·R·Y
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL
Ampaw
Sunday, 02 15, 2004
The word “manapatize” has not only become a catchword which has passed into the Filipino vocabulary to mean “to fabricate.” It has also spawned a lot of ugly variations. Its latest transmutation has taken us from the realm of fakery of flawed logic. We have the current Senate majority leader to thank for this etymological development.
A majority leader is supposed to be learned in parliamentary rules, practices and precedents. He is expected to guide the deliberations of the Senate, which draws on his experience to set everything in order. His leadership inspires confidence among his colleagues. After all, he is the chairman of the powerful Committee on Rules, which sets the tone of the proceedings in the chamber. If he knows his rules, everything goes well; if he does not, then that is when the big problem starts. As the Senate now faces.
It is on days like these that we pine for the good old days when the Senate has a majority leader in the mould of a Romulo or a Tatad; or, most recently, a Legarda. Today the Senate has a majority leader who is still wet behind the ears, and seemingly nothing in between, who is groping for the rules, prompting no less than Senate President Franklin Drilon himself to remark in disgust after once abruptly suspending the session: “Kabado naman itong si Kiko!” Drilon did not know he was near a live microphone, so that this remark was plainly heard by everyone in the session hall.
Why Senator Francisco Pancrateus Pangilinan became the majority leader is a big poser, but that is a subject for another column. What is of interest now is how he has led the administration senators into a committing another big mistake, which is what they do all the time. But this time they should not forgive Pangilinan for not realizing he is facing a monstrously laughable embarrassment on the 9-0-9 voting on the Manapat report.
Here we have on one side the parliamentarian non pareil of the Senate, Atty. Aluino Tolentino. Tolentino has sat through nine congresses over the past 40 years, and listened to the debates of the senators. With his exposure to parliamentary rules, precedents and practices, Tolentino is the man everyone in the Senate relies on for advice. Tolentino can rattle off the rules with ponderous authority without batting an eye and without skipping a beat. Drilon himself once gave Tolentino the highest compliment a superior can give his subordinate, by recognizing Tolentino as his “walking encyclopedia” on legislation. In an opinion, Tolentino had enlightened the entire Senate on why a 9-0-9 can only result in the adoption of the report and that the recommendation made therein must now be implemented.
And what do we hear from the majority leader? He denigrates Tolentino as just another subordinate who is not to be believed. Pangilinan comments as if his mighty position gives him the license to claim that whatever he says is authoritative, and that whatever Tolentino his subordinate says has no bearing at all. In this case, Pangilinan limply offers a mathematical solution to a parliamentary problem.
Tolentino cites the precedent of the Bar Flunkers Bill, but what does Pangilinan claim to refute it? He simply says a majority of 18 is 10; ergo, with 9 voting for the report, none voting against, and 9 abstaining, there is a standoff.
It is not that simple, Mr. Majority Leader. Try again. Forget for a while your biases or the collar around your neck that is attached to a leash that leads to that Palace by the stinking river. Take a deep breath, and clear your mind so that only the ability to think rational thoughts remains. Read Tolentino’s opinion without thinking of the consequence on the disqualification case against Fernando Poe, Jr., and you will learn that the votes of those who abstained are not to be counted for or against the proposition or for computing the legal votes cast.
Yes, indeed, under precedents, a senator is required to vote on a question, unless excused; and when he is excused, and abstains on a proposition, he is considered as not having really voted at all.
Tolentino had put it very succinctly in his opinion, thus: “Votes of abstention do not count. They are in legal contemplation a nullity. The 9-0-9 voting on the report could not, therefore, result in “a tie.” Only the affirmative votes and negative votes are to be considered. A situation where there are nine affirmative votes and no negative votes obviously is not a tie.” The nature and consequence of abstention is that this vote is never registered and would not count at all in the final reckoning of the votes. There would have been a tie had there been an equal number of affirmative and negative votes. Had Senate President Drilon and the eight others voted against the report, there would indeed have been a tie, which would have resulted in the motion for the adoption of the report being defeated. But a tie never ensued, when nine senators voted to adopt the report while the other nine abstained.”
The Senate Parliamentary Counselling Service was tasked to prepare a contrary opinion. It has been nine days since the debates, but the staff of that office are finding it impossible to come up with a precedent to the contrary, because they are they are the same subordinates who earned their parliamentary spurs under Tolentino, and who bravely fed details of the Quiem Case and the precedent of the Bar Flunkers Bill to the senators who voted in the affirmative to adopt the report.
So, left with no authoritative precedent that can be cited to denigrate the opinion of Tolentino, Pangilinan is now simply mouthing the ampaw official line put forth by the embarrassed and contrite Drilon: that the Manapat report is simply that, a committee report. And you know what ampaw means? It is all buffery, and no substance.
But then, again, Pangilinan and Drilon have forgotten that a committee report that has the imprimatur of nine senators in a legal quorum of 12 is a report of the Senate as well.
The blunder that all the administration senators committed, with the exception of Senator Juan Flavier who voted for the report – that of abstaining when they could have easily voted against it – would hound them forever. But for now, they are putting up a brave front, to cover up their blunder, even as they sheepishly rationalize to their masters that everything is under control. No, sirs, everything is going out of hand for your side. The report is being implemented, and the nation knows you botched it.
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