Improving the Senate: Alejano, Hilbay, and Diokno

COMPARED to the public’s perception of the House of Representatives (HoR) and the Supreme Court, the Senate provides some semblance of being the “check” against the executive department.

The HoR is perceived as the President’s rubber stamp. Many of its members are just too eager to gratify him and will do anything to achieve this. Remember the one-peso budget initially given to the Commission on Human Rights after President Duterte lambasted the agency; its absurdity betrays many members’ arse-licking. And many believed that, if not for the President’s declared animosity against Senator Leila de Lima, the HoR investigation against her, using drug-convicts as witnesses, would not have happened.

As to the Supreme Court, the high esteem which it enjoyed is gone mainly for a number of controversial decisions – Ferdinand Marcos’ burial in a heroes’ cemetery, former President Joseph Estrada’s absolute pardon of his over 500 million plunder-conviction, former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s and former First Lady Imelda Marcos’ exoneration from their corruption cases, former Senator Juan Ponce Enrile’s grant of bail, and, most recently, Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno’s quo warranto ouster. Many regard their resolutions as kowtowing to the President’s desires.

While many HoR members may be seen as hopeless bootlickers and while the Supreme Court continues to be packed by presidential appointees, the Senate appears to be the remaining institution with the guts to check executive abuses. But the key phrase is “appears to be.”

Its role as a fiscalizing institution is weakening.

For example, the Senate’s failure to assert its constitutional prerogative in Chief Justice Sereno’s impeachment was a great disappointment. It improperly considered non-assertion of authority against the Supreme Court as a manifestation of respect for a co-equal body, when in fact such omission was nothing but shameful passivity. It did not do enough to legitimately pressure the executive department in Senator Leila De Lima’s “persecution.” There seems to be no strong manifestation of objection as to how the West Philippine Sea issue is, to many, being mishandled by the President. The TRAIN Law was approved providing impetus for unabated rise in inflation.

This coming election may be the key to stop the erosion of the Senate’s respectability. What do you think candidates such as Freddie Aguilar, Lito Lapid, Bong Go, Imee Marcos, Larry Gadon, Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, Gary Alejano, Florin Hilbay and Chel Diokno, will contribute to the Senate? The people’s choice will determine whether our future senators will either be a bunch of spineless lackeys or a courageous assemblage of independent-minded legislators.

The Senate is a thinking institution. Though senators need not be geniuses, they must nevertheless have a more than average, reasonable, and respectable knowledge and grasp of economics, politics, and most of all the law. From the Senate, substantial legislation and resolutions – not useless and inane bills like changing the last line of our national anthem and street names, licensing journalists, and regulating selfies – must emanate.

For now, it is encouraging to see intelligent, untainted, and patriotic people aspiring to be senators.

Representative Gary Alejano is one of them. He graduated from the Philippine Military Academy, obtained his master’s degree from the University of the Philippines (UP) and attended special programs in Harvard. His readiness to die for the country is tangibly evidenced by a scar at the back of his neck resulting from a near fatal injury caused by a mortar explosion in a battle against terrorists. His HoR service is impressive.

Another one is Florin Hilbay – lawyer, UP iskolar-ng-bayan, Yale graduate, constitutional law professor, and number one bar-exams topnotcher. As former solicitor general, he headed the legal team in winning the West Philippine Sea case against China at the Hague. Son of honorable parents – an industrious mother-kasambahay and a father-messenger/shoe-shine man – Hilbay made sure that their sacrifices were not in vain.

And then, Jose “Chel” Diokno, a courageous human rights lawyer. He finished law, magna cum laude, from the Northern Illinois University, headed the Free Legal Assistance Group, authored books, is a former dean of the De La Salle University College of Law. He has followed in the footsteps of his father, former Senator Jose “Pepe” Diokno, in providing legal services pro bono to the needy and/or the persecuted.

It is time to restore the Senate’s majesty and dignity in the May, 2019 election. It may be our only hope against a conniving autocracy.We must vote discerningly to improve the Senate and, ultimately, save democracy.