By Danilo P. Padua, PhD
As a concerned Filipino, I am very interested in what is happening in our Congress, especially in our Senate. After all, what happens in Congress may affect us all.
I was so edgy with how our Senators were conducting themselves in the last couple of months. It was really chaotic- their work maybe described as self-centered, self-preservation for their political future. conveniently forgetting that they should be working for the Filipino people like you and myself.
They have disrobed themselves of the prim and proper attitude of elected national officials. They have forgotten how to behave in front of the public, how to conduct themselves appropriately in a supposed honorable hall. They have become like a bunch of unruly kids seeking to impose their own will even though such volition was far from par for the course.
They are treating the Senate like a comedy show. Imagine a senator in hiding for several months and not working, yet getting the full benefits due to a sitting but active senator without doing anything except to hide. The same senator suddenly appearing in the senate hall as if by magic-all because somebody was hungry for power.
Then, a comedy script materialized. The senator decided to run when an arrest warrant was being served. He stumbled in the stairs as he was furiously running up without anyone touching him. But he firmly decried that he was wrestled down by NBI agents.
Then a “grim” scenario was created in order for the same senator to disappear in the wee hours of the morning not by magic, but by some sort of a hidden wand of someone gifted with a new might. As he was disappearing in full view of CCTVs, the power boy and his allies were all having fun doing live streaming. If that is not orchestration, I don’t know what or how to call it.
The following day a melodrama unfolded, complete with crying without tears, bewailing the supposed insensitivity of the opposite block of power.
And then the swordplay among kids ensued in the Senate, abandoning in the process, their avowed duties as lawmakers.
The world took notice of the comedy. We can not fault them of their thinking that we had become a laughing stock in the eyes of the world.
With the senators’ condescending attitudes and actions befitting a high school club, the term august body is no longer an apt description of the Senate.
Former esteemed senators like Claro M. Recto, Eulogio Rodriguez, Lorenzo Tanada, , Jovito Salonga, Jose Diokno, Blas Ople, Arturo Tolentino, Edgardo Angara, Raul Roco, Miriam Santiago, and Juan Ponce Enrile must be irritably churning in their graves like an agitated feline because of what the Senate had become..
The Legacy of disharmony or disunity is apparent in the present Senate, at least up to June 16, 2026. That is about 28 days-the total duration of the Senate Presidency of Alan Peter Cayetano. Cayetano was even heard as saying, “diyan kayo (new minority), at dito kami” (new majority).
During Cayetano’s short tenure, no law was enacted nor any resolution was passed even if there were urgent bills on the table for action. That is great disservice to the people.
I have always voted for Alan Cayetano and his sister Pia in their Senate runs, not because they are both U.P. graduates like myself, but because I believed that they have the tools to become good lawmakers. But now, times have changed and the wind is moving to another direction.
Last June 17, 2026, the lead characters of the comedy flipped. The erstwhile minority became again the majority, and vice versa. Win Gatchalian became the new SP.
A lot of people are hoping that things will switch to the interests of the people, not hunger for self perpetuation in power.
While the Senate Hibernated for almost a month previously, the senators are expected to do much better. The former “majority senators” even boycotted Senate sessions. No such thing is expected of the current one since many of the former “majority senators” are now professing that their attendance to the Senate sessions is due to their desire to work, work, work. Don’t fail the people.
Senate order restored? I hope sanity will follow suit.
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