THE Saturday Forum at Annabel’s is usually a staid affair, where resource persons are asked to talk on the issues of the day without going into heated arguments or debates. But last Saturday’s edition was different, for we witnessed fireworks between Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV and former Sen. Francisco Tatad on the issue of the ongoing Senate probe into the controversial Makati City Hall Building 2, which, critics allege, has been grossly overpriced during the term of former Makati mayor and now Vice President Jejomar Binay.
Trillanes was our main guest at last Saturday’s forum. He said corruption in Makati involves amounts larger than those in the P10-billion pork-barrel scam involving nonexistent non-governmental organizations. While three senators have been charged with pocketing hundreds of millions of pesos in kickbacks from the pork-barrel scam, Binay is accused of skimming P2 billion from just one project, Trillanes pointed out.
Asked to comment on observations that the Senate investigation was politically motivated, Trillanes said: “If I fall short on evidence, I will fall flat on my face. The public will not forgive me for instigating the investigation. But if we come up with evidence, it would justify the investigation.”
Because Binay is a potential president, he reasoned, he should be scrutinized all the more: “We’re establishing a pattern of behavior, the propensity to commit corruption.”
A prospective Binay presidency “could probably be worse” than that of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, Trillanes said, adding that “there’s a lack of transparency, and this is just Makati. What more if he’s in command of the national budget?”
“I can see how senators are being cowed into not investigating. He’s just the Vice President, and they’re already afraid of him,” he said.
According to Trillanes, the Senate hearing on alleged corruption in the Makati city government was being done in aid of legislation, to find out how the local-government procurement process could be improved to prevent corruption.
After Trillanes finished expounding his views on the allegedly overpriced Makati building and moved on to other topics, particularly the modernization of the Armed Forces, the territorial dispute with China over some islands in the West Philippine Sea (South China Sea) and his opposition to the implementation of the Kindergarten to Grade 12 basic-education program of the Department of Education, we asked Tatad, a regular attendee in the forum and whom we consider our “resident public intellectual,” to react to Trillanes’s views.
Tatad began by saying that, during his term as senator, not once did he attend a committee hearing, as he felt the primordial duty of the Senate was to tackle national issues and craft laws.
The former senator then said the Senate had lost its moral authority to investigate anyone after some senators were accused of being bribed to convict impeached Chief Justice Renato Corona.
“When Senate hearings become a police precinct, I’m dismayed and I don’t participate. Whether the Binays are guilty or not, there’s the Ombudsman. Let the judicial process take its course,” Tatad said.
The political temperature in the news forum, attended by a bigger number of media participants than usual, heated up by several degrees when Trillanes said: “The statement that there is already a case in the Ombudsman is a refuge of the corrupt.”
“Nobody has ever accused me of corruption,” Tatad emphasized.
Trillanes said, “I didn’t say that.” But Tatad riposted: “No, no, no. I have no record of corruption.”
Trillanes stressed that, aside from crafting laws, senators must articulate the sentiments of the people on national issues, and the Senate’s oversight function is part of the system of checks and balances inherent in a democratic society.
“It’s very unfortunate that if during your time—with all due respect, Senator Tatad—you did not [take] part in committee hearings, because you missed out on the proper function of a senator,” he said.
“Please don’t tell me about the role of a senator,” Tatad curtly told Trillanes.
“In my 30 years or so in the Senate, I was probably the only one who produced two books on speeches I delivered on the floor of the Senate on important issues. The plenary hall is where you discuss national issues; there is no such thing now,” the former senator said.
After this heated exchange between Trillantes and Tatad, the forum’s regular moderator, Party-list Rep. Jonathan de la Cruz of Abakada, concluded the proceedings, as we had already used up the three-hour slot that was graciously allotted for the news forum.
No doubt, last Saturday’s edition kept the media participants on tenterhooks, even for a brief moment. We can expect more verbal skirmishes from both sides of the political fence as we approach 2016.
‘No-el’
THE United Nationalist Alliance says Malacañang’s retracted comment on the uncertainty of the 2016 elections is “not just a slip of the tongue, as Palace Spokesman Edwin Lacierda claimed, but “reflective of the conscious efforts of Malacañang and the (Interior Secretary Manuel) Roxas (II)-(Budget Secretary Florencio) Abad faction in the Liberal Party to derail democratic processes in order to perpetuate President [Aquino] in power.”
UNA Secretary-General and Navotas City Rep. Toby Tiangco pointed out that “where there’s smoke, there’s fire.”
What Lacierda actually said during a recent media briefing was that the public should just wait for who the President will endorse for the 2016 elections, “if it would push through.”
The opposition promptly seized on this statement to say that there is, indeed, a conspiracy to keep P-Noy in power beyond 2016.
“The President has neither decided on [a] term extension nor on endorsing a candidate. In both instances, [the] 2016 elections will push through,” Lacierda later told the media.
A slip of the tongue or an insidious plot to allow P-Noy to usurp power beyond his mandated term?
Let’s hope that the situation is cleared soon enough by P-Noy himself, as the uncertainty is likely to fuel more public outrage—and possibly even political unrest—in the months ahead.
E-mail: ernhil@yahoo.com.
1 comment
Between the words of Trillanes versus Tatad, I will take Trillanes’ words everytime, anytime.