Let us remind Congress

By Brian M. De la Cerna

 

All eyes were on the House of Representatives after its controversial decision to deny the franchise application of ABS-CBN.

The Filipinos thereafter had lost confidence in their ability to manage and scrutinize important legislation that will boost our social and economic activity. After weeks of exhausting deliberations, the House Committee on Legislative Franchises junked the consolidated bill adding another number to the current unemployment rate and putting all the network’s news and entertainment shows in peril, with just a snap of their fingers.

Last December 3, 2019, President Rodrigo Duterte warned ABS-CBN that “I will see to it that you are out.” He even said that it was better for the owners of ABS-CBN to just sell the network. Later on, ABS-CBN President and CEO Carlo Katigbak apologized to President Duterte which was accepted by the latter, however, he reiterated that their franchise renewal application lies in the hands of Congress and he respects whatever the co-equal branch of the government decides.

The current House, however, has been little but obedient lawmakers to President Duterte. Many see this as troubling under any circumstances. But it is especially with the president who scoots from incompetence to disgusting executive overdo; who tolerates, even encourages, fascist behavior and who tries to govern through fearmongering and divisive name-calling.

To quote Senator Ping Lacson’s statement on the denial of a legislative franchise to ABS-CBN, “accept it or not, the President’s body language was obvious enough for the House leadership and allies not to read and interpret the way they voted yesterday.”

Our standing constitution expressly seeks to act in the best interests of its citizens through the system of checks and balances and separation of powers. But the Machiavellian leadership style of Duterte cements him at the top of the food chain.

It is not healthy for our country when Congress romanticizes Duterte’s politicized attacks on his people and the free press. Nor it is healthy when Duterte and his supporters mostly silent, or even root him when he lambasts the opposition with dirty rhetoric, or when he swoons over to his “bff”, China’s Xi Jin Ping.

We need people in the House of Representatives who acknowledge and realize our general aspirations, promote the good of all and respond to the beat of our country’s heart. We desire them to be in good faith that can stand against presidential overreach.

The kind of representatives who are capable to unite people amidst political disintegration that is generally plaguing the system. The ones who can compensate, balance, and reconcile. And not as an enabler to a deceitful person as President Duterte, a man who reeks of vulgarities and acts of political mayhem against the laws and the office of the presidency.

Our survival will be based through their labor upon the worship of principles, and not the idolatrous worship to whoever seats in the presidential throne.

When people try to call out Malacañang for its constant meddling with the affairs of the legislative, they will then resort to the basic principle of separation of powers, which refers to the division of government responsibilities into distinct branches to limit any one branch from exercising the core functions of another.

But as always, they have already perfected how to cleverly distance away from every controversy that arises.

The denial of ABS-CBN franchise renewal has been a sly perversion of our democracy by President Duterte and his allies in Congress. For almost four years now we have witnessed how they paved a way for the slow erosion of constitutional safeguards to please the dictatorial tendencies of President Duterte.

What we now have is an extremely dysfunctional president, aided by his Congressional allies that has time and again ignored our democratic norms whenever it interfered with their “personal objectives” and whenever it stops them from being “politically horny”. It only takes one false move and his silver hammer will come down upon their head: never forget how President Duterte put Senator Leila De Lima in jail for being his staunch critic, while his allies in Congress deliberately stepped back upon the sight of his autocratic gaze.

The current House failed miserably at their duty to remain an independent and co-equal branch with the executive. Let this tragedy serves as a lesson for the upcoming election.

Let us remind Congress about the “Sword of Damocles,” it hangs over their heads purposely to remind them that their position is conditional, not absolute and that they are accountable to us, as meant by the constitution. They have to make a stand now. And that “stand” should be of the people, by the people, and for the people.

If a clown at the circus is acting like a clown and you don’t like it, then that is a reflection on us. Something needs to change, but it will not probably be the clown. It is time to elect a Congress that will do better: a set of lawmakers who can actually and sincerely listen to their constituents.

Unfortunately, “presidential enabler” is not a crime.

The author studied political science at the University of San Agustin and aims to earn his Master’s degree in Public Administration at Central Philippine University. He is a former Consortium Secretariat of a Regional Health Research and Development Consortium under the Department of Science and Technology MIMAROPA and Former Content and Technical Writer of Office of the Municipal Mayor Unit of Janiuay, Iloilo. Apart from books and music, he loves “fighting for the rights of our farmers and fisherfolks, because I do believe that the problem in the agriculture sector is structural and not personal.”