THE sight of the country’s senators raising their hands to declare their vote of confidence in the senate presidency of Juan Ponce Enrile was the surest sign that Noynoy Aquino’s Daang Matuwid is running parallel to another thoroughfare, the Congressional Expressway.
The Congressional Expressway is decidedly not the straightest and smoothest road in our hapless republic. It matches Kennon Road in Baguio for its spectacular liko-liko and the old South Road to Bicol for their lunar baku-bako.
Some of my most knowledgeable and well-intentioned friends, whose love of country are beyond reproach, have described Aquino’s presidency as the best that the Philippines has ever experienced. I do not doubt it. The other day, in Los Angeles, a group of very savvy businessmen were talking about the record spike in the stock market and the fact that international businesses now consider the Philippines a most attractive place to park their funds in.
To the casual listeners, the performance of Aquino and the stock exchange would be cause for admiration – until they view that in context.
In a world experiencing economic turmoil, the Philippines is a relatively good place to park one’s hot money in, but that doesn’t say enough about funds being committed to the country as direct investments. Hot money tends to look for the most advantageous places to park in and will just as quickly fly out as it flies in, depending on the economic outlook.
More direct investments are what the Philippines needs. In this respect, we still have a lot of catching up with the Asian tigers. But our country is certainly in much better shape than in the past, and the future looks good – assuming that the momentum, initiated by the Aquino presidency can be maintained.
Which brings us to the Aquino presidency.
Asked by Leo Aromin, editor and publisher of the Filipino American Journal in Phoenix, Arizona, for my opinion on the subject, for use in a special year-end report that he was writing, I replied:
“Things are indeed looking up in the Philippines, helped along by the efforts of the Aquino administration to follow a Daang Matuwid, or Straight Path.
But there will always be liko-liko and baku-bako in the course of the remaining four years of his tenure because political,business and military power structures that have been in place for decades cannot be uprooted by even the most well-meaning president.
“Aquino himself is surrounded by these power elite and the Senate and House of Representatives is controlled by them. But because the Philippines is an attractive investment destination for those willing to take the usual risks (because of our strategic location in Asia, the size of the consumer market, our natural resources and our manpower), a lessening of the liko-liko and baku-bako is reason enough to invest some more.
“After Aquino’s term, it’s anybody’s guess all over again. Back-sliding is the story of our beloved country. In the past, for every two steps that we took forward,we slid back three steps. We can only pray that, after Aquino moves us two steps forward, the country will only slide back two steps – kaya, tabla.”
Which brings us to the raising of hands in the Senate in response to Enrile’s fishing expedition concerning his tenure as senate president.
He obviously fished for a vote of confidence and his colleagues dutifully bit the hook and allowed themselves to be hauled in.
The still simmering feud between Enrile and Miriam Defensor-Santiago, sparked by the uneven distribution of largesse by Enrile, drawn from the national till, has just begun to give the public a peek at the skeletons inside the halls of the Philippine Senate.
Noted columnist Conrad de Quiros, in his usual colorful language, wrote: “It’s not just that Enrile wasn’t going to take it lying down, being depicted as lying through his teeth, it’s also that Miriam isn’t exactly invulnerable to attack. The pot is perfectly right to call the kettle black, but so is the kettle to call the pot black. Unfortunately for Miriam, the thing that got her to mount her high horse and sally forth to slay the ogre does not put her at a great advantage. It had to do with money, which all of them are sullied with.”
Santiago had called Enrile’s generous distribution of the country’s millions to his fellow senators as illegal. Most of the recipients have kept a prudent but deafening silence, hoping perhaps that the furor will quiet down. But not Ping Lacson who, feeling alluded to, tried to justify the cash disbursement. He promptly got caught in the crossfire.
Wrote columnist senator Kit Tatad: “For saying there was nothing wrong with the cash transfer, Sen. Panfilo Lacson, chairman of the Senate committee on accounts, instantly won the tag, ‘fugitive from justice’ and Enrile’s ‘attack dog.’… Exercising his right of reply, Lacson returned Santiago’s compliment by calling her a ‘crusading crook’ who pretends to be what she is not.”
Have the funds, ostensibly intended for “maintenance and other operating expenses (MOOE), been pocketed by the senators?
Tatad, a former senator, pointed out that “no elective or appointive public officer or employee shall receive additional, double, or indirect compensation, unless specifically authorized by law, nor accept without the consent of Congress, any present, emolument, office, or title of any kind from any foreign government.”
But we can all be assured that the senators – and, not the least, the members of the House of Representatives, who also helped themselves to year-end bonuses – will overwhelm any opinions to the contrary and will insist that distributing “savings” from their legislative budgets among themselves is perfectly legal. The legislature is notorious for passing self-serving laws.
The partitioning of millions, not just during the Christmas season, but throughout their terms of office, is as “legal” as the justification that Marcos had for declaring martial law and for staying on as president and dictator for as long as he could. A compliant Supreme Court even confirmed it.
But that is exactly why there is no reason to feel optimistic about a post-Aquino era or even about the current Aquino presidency. Aquino, for all of his claims to building a straight path, has also allowed the zig-zags that have been the trademark of the legislature.
Proof of this is the obstacle course that the Freedom of Information Act has had to navigate, in spite of all the promises of transparency in governance that marked his presidential campaign.
The recent version of the FOI, said to be awaiting a vote in the House, has already been described by disheartened reformists as so full of exceptions and of provisions subject to the discretion of public officials, that there might as well be no law at all.
And Aquino is allowing this to happen – so typical of the kind of governance that he has begun to manifest. A governance of exemptions, starting with an anti-smoking thrust and an electoral gun ban that exempt him.
This is not surprising. With so many skeletons rattling in the legislative closets, as well as in many government offices and bureaus, a law that truly opens up their files and records to public and media scrutiny will only be allowed by Congress pagputi ng uwak.
Or when John the Baptist returns to smooth out the baku-bako and make straight the liko-liko of the Congressional Expressway.
