DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL
Oreta in the opposition
Sunday, 10 13, 2002
The role of the opposition in the political arena should be to act as a rein to the ruling party’s excesses or abuses. Opposing just for the sake of being hostile against the government without any valid grounds is retrogressive to society’s progress. Many a time, the nation has been treated to the spectacle of a politician shooting off his mouth just to heighten the drama and add tension and resentment to a current issue. The result is a further muddling of the issue, not unlike Shakespeare’s “tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing.” Eventually, the public wises up to the antics of this kind of politician, and dismisses him as simply an ornery loudmouth.
Opposition, in a democracy, is always in order; but it is best if supported by calm, level-headed argument. When this happens, what we have then is responsible opposition.
Thankfully, it seems that which we have right now in the Senate are men and women who are conscious of their duties as members of a responsible opposition. They are senators who believe in constructive criticism and, sometimes, critical collaboration. This is necessary for the opposition to remain credible before the public they represent.
Consider, for example, Sen. Tessie Aquino-Oreta. She was right when she said she believes that the mainstream opposition’s role is not merely to oppose for opposition’ sake but to act as the vanguard of the people against government’s abuses and poorly crafted policies and programs.
Thus, with our current crop of opposition lawmakers, Malacañang’s questionable schemes are exposed before the public and, at times, thwarted before they could inflict harm on the masa.
Take, for instance, Malacañang’s plan to slash the internal revenue allotment of local government units by 20 percent this year. The IRA reduction was purportedly a part of Malacañang’s desperate measures to plug the runaway budget deficit, which analysts say could reach dangerously close to P180 billion this year.
But with Oreta pursuing a relentless assault against this scheme, Malacañang stopped cold with its plan to withhold the IRA and introduced instead a credit scheme for LGUs to fill up the fund lack. Oreta was concerned that reducing the IRA could derail development projects at the local level and compromise the delivery of basic services like education and healthcare.
With equal concern, Oreta was also apprehensive over Malacañang’s plan to allow LGUs to borrow from government banks to cover the 20 percent cut in the IRA. Oreta pointed out correctly this scheme would only plunge local governments deeper in debt, and infect them with Malacañang’s debt virus – a bug so bad that its contagion has spiked government borrowings nearly 10 percent for the first eight months of the year alone.
Political insiders who know the real Oreta love to speculate what would have happened had Malacañang been obstinate about the IRA reduction. They say Ninoy’s sister would pursue the issue with the relentless ardor that would have done her brother proud. Malacañang eventually backed down and promised local executives, who were in an uproar over the IRA cut, they would get their full allocation by December.
And who can forget Oreta’s able handling of the Senate investigation into the billion-peso bond-flotation scam involving the Code-NGO? Despite attacks by malicious sectors in society on her personal life, resurrecting even non-issues that have nothing to do with lawmaking, Oreta effectively thwarted their designs in diverting the issue, and thereby exposed those who made money out of nothing. Oreta is determined to prosecute all those who connived to fleece the government of billions.
In a country not exactly awash with cash, Oreta is the natural oppositor to any scheme that would defraud the government of much needed revenues. Thus, we again had Oreta railing against the duty-free importation of medical equipment by favored hospitals. Hopefully, the distasteful scheme having been exposed by Oreta, Malacañang will finally clamp down against favoritism that benefits only those importers who are close to the church.
Another instance of the opposition’s determination was the case of Malacañang’s plan to abolish the National Printing Office (NPO) and 13 other governmental bureaus. The scheme would have pushed through without a hitch had Oreta not sounded the alarm about the ruthless possibility of rendering thousands of State employees jobless and the ominous consequences of phasing out a vital agency – the NPO – in charge of printing sensitive government documents, such as election ballots and official receipts.
Oreta’s resolve to get to the bottom of the issue prompted Budget Secretary Emilia Boncodin, co-chairman of the Presidential Commission on Effective Governance which hatched up the abolition plan, to assure government employees before a recent Senate committee hearing that the proposal was just that – a proposal, and nothing else.
Had the opposition not taken on the issue, Malacañang’s plan to narrow 7,000 government employees out in the streets would have pushed through after Christmas.
From the looks of it, Oreta’s voice as a member of a responsible opposition is destined to keep ringing loud and clear. It will not stay silenced under the weight of malicious character assassination that is often abetted by an unwitting media eager to please a public that goes into a feeding frenzy at the slightest whiff of impropriety. The senator has learned to live down a faux pas, and its getting stronger in spite – or rather, because – of it.
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