Maybe Bamban, Tarlac Mayor Alice Guo is not a Filipino. Maybe she is involved in illegal activities. Maybe she owns 16 cars. Maybe she has a lover involved in online gambling. Maybe she has selective amnesia, not being able to remember milestones in her life.

So what is the Senate doing investigating her?

Much has been said about the allegations that, although not born in the Philippines and not possessed of Filipino citizenship, she was elected a local government executive. For that issue, her entire life story has been thrown open in Senate hearings for all the country to feast on. As I’ve said, maybe she isn’t Filipino and not fit to be mayor. But then, isn’t it up to the person she beat for the position to file the appropriate quo warranto case to oust her?

As for having 16 cars, since when has that been a crime? If they were fruits of ill-gotten wealth, there’s the Office of the Ombudsman in a sprawling building along Agham Street in Quezon City. I have friends in government who also have a lot of cars. Should they be investigated too?

As for her, or her alleged lover’s (the existence of which she denies) unlawful businesses, there are laws against that in the statute books. Even as to her supposedly being a Chinese spy, the Revised Penal Code can address that problem.

This is by no means a brief for Mayor Guo, whom I do not know from Eve (although, for the sake of full disclosure, I must admit that I find her cute, with an endearing speech intonation, but that’s just me). If she shouldn’t be mayor, the courts can oust her. If she has committed graft, or anything against our criminal laws, the Sandiganbayan can punish her and disqualify her from public office forever. The laws are there.

Which brings me to my point: In the midst of the flurry of questions by our honorable senators — some of whom have demoted themselves to the level of the neighborhood rumor-monger in their manner of interrogatory — is there a law in the offing somewhere?

For so many times, the Supreme Court has declared in landmark cases that the Legislature is not a court, nor is it a police station, an investigative agency, nor a prosecution office. Its powers of inquiry, while vast and all-encompassing, exist only for one thing: to aid legislation.

It may summon resource persons — who incidentally must be treated with respect and whose Constitutional rights must be recognized — and subject them to sanctions for contempt in the proper instances, only to acquire information essential to crafting new laws or amending old ones.

Sadly, some of our senators deem themselves above the admonitions of the Highest Court of the Land, whose pronouncements are part of the laws of the Republic. These senators show no compunction in using the powers of the legislature to promote themselves, aid in their reelection, and/or just become plain mean sadists. The law of karma, however, being as it is, there are times when the practice backfires. Case in point: Richard Gordon.

It is regrettable that while our Constitution’s Bill of Rights and the precepts on the powers of the legislature were borrowed from the United States, the safeguards involving individual rights of persons subjected to legislative inquiries — especially when it comes to contempt powers where, unlike in the United States, congressional committees act as accusers, judges and executioners all at once — had been bastardized beyond belief and recognition.

Fortunately, the High Tribunal has oftentimes stood as the last bulwark for the protection of rights of individuals abused by Congress, but the process before it is long and hard, and many do not have the wherewithal to resort to judicial redress. Unless Congress reforms itself, the reputation and prestige of its members as lawmakers of wisdom and restraint will always be touch and go.