The power of Congress to conduct investigations is inherent in the legislative process. That power to initiate inquiries in aid of legislation is broad. And our solons in both houses of Congress are fully aware of this. But, broad as their power of inquiry is, they should remember it is not unlimited. The honorable members of Congress have no general authority to expose in their hearings the private affairs of individuals without justification in terms of the functions of the Legislative branch of government.
Conceding that the recent congressional investigations might be useful in enacting laws, the questions, statements and actuations of some congressmen and senators give rise to more than a suspicion that the primary goal of these committee hearings is lustful exposure rather than getting useful information. Solons in the vogue for telenovelas, for example, gave more time to questions with sexual undertones meant to humiliate and shame somebody in public. And committee members would burst out laughing when the witness responds with lurid details about his private affairs.
Sadly, nobody even bothered to listen to the embattled lady’s reaction. Calling the House justice committee hearing a spectacle full of lies, she said “no woman deserves to be betrayed, to be treated with so much disrespect and without dignity, before the public eye, by any man she is with or had a relationship with.”
A wise man profoundly described the drama that unfolded at the recent House justice committee hearing: “Instead of proving that the lady has committed an atrocious fraud, the solons succeeded in telling the public, on national TV, that the fraud she is accused of is atrocious.” In other words, what the solons have elicited from their star witness can’t stand scrutiny in a court of law.
Congress should avoid slandering a person with the intention of destroying public confidence in that person in its committee hearings. Unfortunately, the honorable members of the House of Representatives and the Senate have shown on national TV that their investigations, in aid of legislation, are way far too different from anything resembling responsible leadership. Needless to say, responsible solons have the ability to transform and enrich the lives and living standards of Filipinos by the quality of laws they pass. How we wish they would focus on the job they were mandated to do.
“All Congresses and Parliaments have a kindly feeling for idiots, and a compassion for them, on account of personal experience and heredity,” wrote an American writer named Samuel Langhorne Clemens, better known by his pen name Mark Twain. He is the same man who claimed that “fleas can be taught nearly anything that a congressman knows.” His observation among American congressmen during his time may prove still universally valid today based on the recent actuations of some of our honorable lawmakers.
There’s a general consensus that people get the kind of leaders they deserve. But how can Filipinos protect a revered institution like Congress from itself when its own members are the ones pulling the wagon down the road to ignominy. We know there are members of Congress who collectively embody the principle of parliamentary accountability. These are the people who can carry with them the spirit of fairness in all the things they do. May their tribe increase.