The Senate presidency

ENQUIRY
DEMAREE J.B. RAVAL

The Senate presidency
Sunday, 07 11, 2010

Except for the occasional upset stomach, there seems to be nothing wrong with the health of the new President. The new vice president, too, is obviously hale and hearty, especially now that he’s not going to have rashes because he’s moving to the Coconut Palace. So the talk of a yet to be elected Senate president eventually succeeding to the presidency is a long shot—nay, impossibility—within the next six years of the Aquino administration.

What is important here and now is the issue of qualification and acceptability. Can the next Senate president succeed in maneuvering with skill and care the expected internecine dissensions of our present crop of senators as they discharge their role in nation building, pursue an agenda of reform and change, at the same time uphold the independence of the chamber?

This ability to keep things on an even keel should be the primary consideration in the determination of who should lead the Senate in the Fifteenth Congress.

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Closeness to the President of the country is a disqualifier. A senator who himself admits to having asked the permission and blessing of President Aquino to run for Senate president only betrays his dependency on the President. Notice the word: dependency, as in a need for an authority figure so strong that it becomes necessary to have this figure prompting and guiding one in order to function properly.

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And I fear what would happen if the relationship turns into a co-dependency. Political analyst Leina de Legazpi says, “Surely, we’ll have a pattern of detrimental executive-legislative interactions within a dysfunctional political relationship.” Or as one senator succinctly points out, “If you have a Senate controlled by Aquino, where is the [expletive muffled] independence?”

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Tough talk makes a good campaign pitch. So the chosen candidate of the Liberal Party (LP) for Senate president says he will constitute an “activist” Senate, one that “seeks solutions to the nation's decades-old ills.” But these words are mere sound and fury, cock-and-bull, when measured against past performance.

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For instance, can a senator do well as Senate president and truly lead a Senate of the people, when he had been responsible for foisting on the nation a bogus president when he just smugly noted the massive fraud in a previous electoral exercise?

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May a senator, who has contributed nothing significant in the various investigations in aid of legislation conducted by the Senate, be expected to be an activist leader of a Senate that is transparent and accessible to our countrymen?

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May a senator responsible for squelching many activist initiatives of the Senate—for instance, the pursuit of criminal action against those responsible for the forgery of documents in the National Archives to question the citizenship of a presidential candidate—be expected, like the anecdotal tiger, to change his predatory stripes and now maneuver the Senate to take a different tack in similar situations confronting it?

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May a senator who, because of his immaturity and lack of anything between his ears, dawdled and dallied and did not have any significant part in the harvest of legislative initiatives contributory to education upgrading, poverty alleviation, peacebuilding, etcetera, have the expertise and gravitas to claim that the Senate under his leadership would be productive at all?

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The nation needs a Senate president like this like it needs a hole in the head.

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What the nation needs is an independent reformist Senate. It is the only institution that can stand up to the other institutions of government. No institution could effectively perform a check-and-balance function other than the Senate.

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And at the helm of the Senate must be an intelligent senator with an independent mind, someone who could ride into the storm with concentration; present with determination a genuine and strategic legislative reform agenda; see things with clarity and foresight; and with calm tenacity, prioritize laws that will propel the country’s growth, create jobs and ensure the delivery of basic social services.

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That’s a tall order, but it fits nicely with what Senator Edgardo Angara said in a recent statement: “For the Senate presidency, we’re looking for someone who will uphold the dignity and independence of the institution, who will lead a reformist agenda and someone who will not just criticize for the sake of criticism. We will pick someone who will act for the higher interest of our country and the Senate as an institution.”

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Way back in the Ninth Congress (1992-1995), Angara led a Senate independent of the Executive. That Senate then was an activist legislature, churning out a host of reform bills signed into law by President Ramos (who belonged to another party), and catapulted the country to new heights, not the least of which was being brought right to the doorsteps of the exclusive club of tiger economies. Despite this legislative-executive rapproachement, Ramos was not spared the knives of the senators probing into the shenanigans in his administration.

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We are now in the Fifteenth Congress, 15 years later. The LP of President Aquino has only 4 members in the Senate. Obviously, they cannot elect a Senate president. If the mood of the voters who elected the 20 other senators not belonging to the LP is to be honored in these people-empowered times (“Kayo ang boss ko”), the choice of Senate president should not be on the behest of Malacañang. The LP should not tamper with that, by bringing the weight of President Aquino or the presumptive closeness of a party member to him.

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Let a non-LP senator be the Senate president. Only with him can the Senate be truly the people’s voice, an effective and productive partner of President Aquino in nation building. Last but best of all, with a non-LP Senate head, the people would have the calm assurance that no quarters will be given to accommodate, or play footsie with, any one in or out of the Executive department who might be tempted to reprise a Jocjoc, a Garci, or a Neri.

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