I have always held the opinion that, of all the Quadcomm chairmen, Ace Barbers was the most decent and civil. I have said it publicly time and again. But alas! (Ace, alas, get the pun?) something happened along the way (to quote an Earth, Wind and Fire song). He became contaminated by the pettiness and vindictiveness that the small-minded are heir to (meaning, his fellow committee heads).

Thus, Barbers held a press conference denouncing the massive attack of brickbats coming their way from all sides, an assault which they themselves precipitated by being a-holes on national television. Apart from crudely insulting the vloggers back and casting aspersions on their motives, he also called on the National Bureau of Investigation to launch an investigation on those social media content creators — of which there are legions — averse to the Quadcomm.

Not content with a media conference, Barbers used his parliamentary privilege to deliver a scathing speech repeating what he said before the press, and concluding with more insults against the Quadcomm critics.

Had he just insulted us back, we might even have given him some respect. But no, he had to hide behind the mantle of parliamentary immunity when he hurled his pejoratives. What made it worse was that his scurrilous slurs were so totally lacking in imagination and wit as to be akin to nothing more than the ululations of the town idiot.

But then, worst of all, he felt so entitled as to use the bully pulpit of a House rostrum to obligate the NBI — an executive agency — to conduct what can only be a witchhunt against netizens in the lawful exercise of their constitutional right of free expression.

What is preposterous is that Barbers does not even have the assiduity of his assumptions. He wants the NBI to do the dirty job of persecuting his critics when he should properly — if he believed himself offended — file the appropriate criminal and civil cases.

The speech itself was a rambling sort of oratory on a legal hypothesis probably fed him by his fellow House member Dan Fernandez (aka Atty. Google) after spending half an hour on Google.

While Barbers concedes that public officials should not be onion-skinned, he nonetheless asserts that the criticisms should not delve on the personal, but only on the discharge of their functions. He was probably alluding to the netizens having a field day with Fernandez’s serious mangling of the English language, or the reports of his brother’s alleged link to drugs, or the comments on Luistro’s looks.

But the law is not that cut-and-dried; there are nuances to the doctrinal rules that require more than a cursory reading of the results of a search engine. A person’s command of the English language cannot be divorced from his duties, especially when he insists on using English in his statements — all matters of public record — when he can easily use Filipino.

The conduct of one’s siblings in an illegal act may reflect on an official’s integrity and probity. And as to comments on a House member’s disagreeable appearance, Barbers should stop and think that, perhaps, the netizen was simply stating a fact, just like saying that the sky is blue or roses are red. That is why the law never presumes malice when the subject of pronouncements are public officials.

House members, due to the unfettered powers given to them in the Quadcomm by a tolerant leadership, must be beginning to think that they are royalty and covered by laws against lese majeste. Once they start thinking that way, magkakanda leche leche na tayo (we are gonna be f’ed).

Before one complains about being the target of critical commentary, he should consider whether or not he himself is responsible for such bad reputation. Otherwise, all talk of conspiracy, troll farms and such become mere gossip, naught but barbershop tales, kuwentong barbero.