1st District, Makati City

Proving we are idiots

(Privileged speech of Teodoro L. Locsin Jr. on May 12, 2008, regarding the debate on whether the House should pull out its bill on the country’s baselines and the continuing Spratlys issue.) 

WHEN Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago called the House “idiots” in connection with the Spratlys/baseline issue, I trembled for my beloved chamber. Miriam knows an idiot when she sees one. After all, she has worked with the idiots close at hand, especially in the Senate, most of her political life. But now she was accusing us of being idiots. Did she have proof? Not yet.

But this chamber is about to furnish her with some. It seems we are taking seriously her jocular proposal to junk the House version on its third and purely formal reading, and substitute a joint commission to study the matter all over again; in the case of the Senate, for the first time. Only idiots will accept that idea. For two reasons:

Uno. She doesn’t even speak for the Senate since it hasn’t even started to craft a version, least of all adopt her own. So what is there to jointly study? Our completed version and the Senate’s nothing?

Dos. Nowhere and at no time has the abortion of a bill on third reading ever been superseded by a joint commission—or anything else for that matter—just to take it back to square one, before first reading. Except in one 17th matriarchal society in South Africa whose elders adopted a proposal to enlarge the territory of their kraal and the Queen ate them.

But this is now and this is here. There is no precedent in parliamentary practice anywhere and at anytime when a measure was aborted to make way for study period.

Besides, Miriam’s proposal is a redundancy. When and if she ever gets a version passed in the Senate, we can both meet at the bicameral conference committee as a joint commission, for as long as it takes to convince ourselves which version would be best for the country. Once we agreed, we wouldn’t have to go back to square one and reintroduce the common version in both chambers. We would merely take it back for our respective ratifications. That way we will have more time to re-study, in the case of the House, and to finally study, in the case of the Senate, an issue which would be high treason to mishandle.

I know Miriam was just baiting us. That is why I love her mischievous sense of humor. Let us not take the bait and prove we are her idiots after all. Thank you.

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Privileged speech of Teodoro L. Locsin Jr. on May 12, 2008: Proving we are idiots

WHEN Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago called the House “idiots” in connection with the Spratlys/baseline issue, I trembled for my beloved chamber. Miriam knows an idiot when she sees one. After all, she has worked with the idiots close at hand, especially in the Senate, most of her political life. But now she was accusing us of being idiots. Did she have proof? Not yet.