Editorial: Philippine Daily Inquirer
The apparition had an old refrain on its lips, made familiar from overuse in last year's battles over constitutional reform. The Senate is useless, the song went. Why bother with it at all?
Perhaps columnist Alex Magno, a professor at the University of the Philippines and a government-appointed development banker, picked up the tune best. The other day, he wrote: "Even if the opposition wins a slight edge in the Senate race, that is ultimately meaningless." In his view, every senator becomes a "free agent" upon proclamation; the lack of party identification and discipline he had on other occasions excoriated is even more pronounced among senators, he said. "They are too imperious to be subject to party discipline, too ambitious to yield to a higher goal."
This must come as news to even the administration's own candidates, because—judging from the events of the last two years alone - the Senate as an institution effectively stood in the way of the administration's more controversial policies. The administration's own Joker Arroyo argued for the Senate in crucial Supreme Court cases.
In truth, the frequently fractious Senate pulled itself together long enough, and often enough, to confront Malacañang over patently anti-democratic policies. While some senators objected or were not heard from, the Senate's opposition to these policies was institutional in character.
Magno credits the "two-party tendency" of senatorial elections - as contrasted with the nature of the "consistently multi-candidate presidential race" - with creating senators who see themselves as above the occupant in mere Malacañang. This, he wrote, is why "the Senate often tends to become a dysfunctional unit in the arrangement of governance." He is too generous to the framers of the Constitution. Even before martial rule (in other words, back when presidential elections had an intensely two-party cast) the Senate was already and frequently described as a chamber of independent republics. But is it, in fact, dysfunctional?
The case of the fertilizer scam, the alleged electioneering scheme which reportedly benefited President Macapagal-Arroyo when she ran in 2004, belies Magno's claim. The reason former agriculture undersecretary Joc-Joc Bolante is in detention in the United States is precisely because of the Senate's dogged pursuit of the truth behind the scam.
At this point, advocates of the parliamentary system will begin a numbers game, contrasting the flood of legislation from the House with the trickle from the Senate. But history should have the last say: We wager that, years from now, the Arroyo administration's assault on our civil liberties, its narrowing of the democratic space, in exchange for continuing political survival, will be recognized as the main narrative defining Philippine politics at the beginning of the 21st century. In that narrative, it will be the Senate, not the House, which will be acclaimed as choosing history's side.
In the end, Magno's argument against the Senate rests on the conviction that, well, independence of mind is not a becoming quality of a legislator. "The rest of government is forced to deal with each senator as an autonomous power in an unstructured universe," he wrote. This, again, must come as news, this time to the likes of Bong Revilla and Lito Lapid. If these non-performing administration senators had only known that they could in fact act as autonomous powers, holding poor Malacañang and a hard-pressed House hostage, just imagine what they could have done. Oh, the horror! Or at least, the horror vacui.
The truth is: The Senate matters, precisely because it plays a key role in our democracy. (And in the Arroyo era, that role is to counter Malacañang's increasingly assertive conception of executive power.) Judging from the results of the 2007 vote, the people of the Philippines share the same view.
May 26, 2007
Philippine Daily Inquirer
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