by Gio Franco Gomez
I’m still having a hard time selecting from this coming midterm election’s senatorial candidates. Despite all these TV commercials, senatorial debates, news reports, and proclamation rallies, I find good reasons as to why selecting the names I will shade on the ballot remains a difficult task.
The fault – for the most part – isn’t with me as a voter, nor is it with the candidates. The fault is with the institution – and I argue, its very existence.
The Representation of the Repressed Nation
The Philippine Senate’s purpose is to decide on behalf of the country. Those 24 seats are supposed to represent the voices, sentiments, and discourses of citizens of the entire archipelago.
This purpose was already enshrined in the 1935 Constitution, which mandated 24 senators to decide on political matters while representing the 15 million Filipinos at that time. In 2013, however, these 24 still decide on behalf of the now 100 million, which to me, is quite unfair.
Moreover, a total of 31 families have been repressing – instead of representing – us for the past 4 Congresses.* It’s really not unimaginable how this happens. Given the (mostly financial) prerequisites of running for Senate, it’s becoming harder for any willing citizen to run for office at this level. And because, as I argue, being a senator is starting to become irrelevant, it’s also become harder to get someone capable to run interested in those positions. Those 24 seats are nothing but limiting.
Now, the question for me is beginning to shift from “whom should I vote for?” to “should I even vote for Senate at all?”
Extra Drag
The Senate’s mandate is to create laws and exercise oversight functions over the executive. . Any decision made at the House goes through further scrutiny at the hands of the senators. The Senate is also called the “Upper House” while the House is called the “Lower House”, despite the fact that the House is, by sheer number larger than the Senate. This seems to presume a superior role of the Senate because of its national scope in relation to the House. But do they deserve this judgement?
Where have we been getting the most outrageous arguments in recent legislation? Senator Sotto has been under fire for both his methods and matter. For proposals such as the RH Bill and the Cybercrime insertions, Senator Sotto’s voice was most audibly heard. But somehow, we were obliged to watch through his antics, given the pedestal we put him on. Clearly, too much influence is held by each of these senators, and this type of attention is what they will get for as long as this institution is unshaken. And while Lapid’s honesty about his educational background during the Corona trial was admirable, it is definitely not an indicator of the Senate’s superiority to the House.
Extra-Curricular
I’m also beginning to find it harder to point fingers at Senators whenever they seem to engage in suspicious and ridiculous acts such as talking about their love lives (of both past and present), appearing on TV commercials, and flying to other countries (like China, perhaps) many (around 16) times over. Are they running out of things to do with the position they are holding?
Currently, around four incumbent senators have been appearing in TV shows and sitcoms (senators Estrada, Sotto, Revilla, and Lapid). I’ve also heard candidate Legarda talk about her crush on fellow candidate Honasan during this year’s campaign. We should also count candidate Escudero’s recent ordeal with the parents of Miss Heart Evangelista.
While we can accuse them of engaging in irrelevant issues, they are also caught with a lingering dilemma up in their heads: if I were a senator or a senatorial candidate, what do I do with all this attention and power if everyone else in government can do my job anyway?
Misplaced Advocacies
There are those who have good intentions and advocate for certain causes such as environmental protection, food security, and anti-political dynasty laws. But then again, these, to my mind are redundancies and blurs in the system. So to our dear senator-advocates: let DENR, DSWD, and Civil Society work for these advocacies; or better yet, help them put these causes forward! Creating laws will not directly address these problems.
In the advocacy list, this is how I see our incumbent senators and senatorial candidates:
- Pia Cayateno on Sports (when she recently intervened in the issue on the UAAP rules)
- Loren Legarda on the Environment
- Bam Aquino on the Youth
- Jack Enrile on Food Security
- Richard Penson on Anti-Dynasty Laws
- Richard Gordon and being an “Action Man”
While this reality seems harmless and noble, deeper thinking can really get you wondering: why do you have to run for senate to put forward your causes? What’s even more questionable is when they use these advocacies as their banner campaign statements. If I were to be extra stringent, forwarding these advocacies doesn’t have a room in legislation.
It seems to me that apart from representing the citizens in the legislation process (which is also, by the way, the duties of the district representatives), senators have also acquired a ceremonial function. And to my mind, this is a weak argument to favour the existence of the institution.
Too Costly
Lastly, this particular political exercise has been proving to be very costly. The need for a national voting base pushes candidates and supporters to the limits of their pockets. While campaigning by local candidates may be just as costly, especially those from the bigger cities in the country, the political returns of spending are much more uncertain at the national level.
The 200 million pesos worth of pork barrel (and I refuse to call it any other name) of each of the 24 senators is another proof of this costliness. In fact, there are those senators who refuse to touch even a cent from their pork. To my mind, the pork that district representatives receive can be – by a hair – easier to rationalize.
I frankly don’t see this institution ceasing to exist altogether soon enough. People still seem to see the sense of why the Senate is there, especially after having been drowned in their television sets during the Corona trial, and now as political ads have started swarming air time. But my position stands. I am starting to feel uncomfortable towards the very existence of the Philippine Senate. I am skipping that senatorial ballot.
Source:
*Analysis by Dr. Nicole Curato: http://halalan.up.edu.ph/the-philippine-senates-exclusive-genetic-make-up/
Gio Franco Gomez is a third year undergraduate student of Political Science in UP Diliman.
