Alongside dismissive insults and petty personalized sanctions against former senator Francis Tolentino, China’s startling action also spoke loudly about the mediocrity of some of our senators.

But first, China was unmistakably petty when it sanctioned Tolentino last Tuesday. Not only did China’s Foreign Ministry truculently tag Tolentino for his “egregious (outstandingly bad) conduct on China-related issues,” he was purposely barred from the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong and Macao right on the day Tolentino stepped down as a senator.

China’s paltriness, though, had a smart-alecky smugness to it. By disparaging Tolentino as a mere civilian, China preempted a substantive response from the Palace.

But a peeved senator, probably concluding that China was overtly intimidating fellow Filipino politicians, demanded the Foreign Affairs department summon the Chinese ambassador.

Civilian Tolentino, however, remained unfazed and took China’s move against him as a “badge of honor,” which he hoped would redeem him after his previous feeble stance on China’s intimidation in the West Philippine Sea during the Duterte regime.

At the same time, too, he hoped it would finally mute China’s recent charge that he used the anti-China card for his electoral “self-interest” during his midterms campaign.

Aside from that, China was also furious at Tolentino for exposing the alleged use of local troll farms by the Chinese Embassy to spread disinformation. Tolentino had also claimed Chinese spies were hiding inside the government.

But China had even more cause for its anger against the former vice chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations for what he did as a sitting lawmaker.

During his tenure as a senator, Tolentino principally authored two landmark laws on the WPS that China strenuously objected to: the Maritime Zones Law and the Archipelagic Sea Lanes Law.

The Maritime Zones Act specifically set the limits or extent of the country’s exclusive economic zone, while the Archipelagic Sea Lanes Act categorically identified the sea lanes through which foreign ships and aircraft may pass.

Both laws not only concretized the country’s historic 2016 Arbitral Award but also put to lie China’s sweeping sovereignty, security, and development claims over the entire South China Sea.

With regard to domestic politics, both laws signaled that at least some of our saner senators had regained their composure regarding the Senate’s broader constitutional responsibility to uphold its collaborative role in determining the country’s “independent foreign policy.”

Previous Senates, unfortunately, sidelined their constitutional role, especially during the Duterte regime. Duterte-era senators largely abdicated their duty by remaining silent about, or worse slavishly following, the former strongman’s parlous pivot to China.

To validate their posture, they employed the stale argument that the former strongman was the “chief architect of the country’s foreign policy” and “the sole organ and authority in foreign relations.”

Worse, these same zombie Duterte-era senators beseeched everyone to submit to Duterte’s foreign policy whims without question.

While it is clear the executive branch has foreign policy prerogatives, the Senate cannot forswear its constitutional role, especially if it finds that those policies stunk of a president’s personal concerns.

Even if the president does not, senators at all times must uphold the constitutional provisions that say the country “in its relations with other states shall consider paramount the national sovereignty, territorial integrity, national interest, and the right to self-determination.”

The Senate’s foreign policy responsibilities, therefore, are more than ratifying treaties and international agreements.

Hopefully, the senators of the incoming 20th Congress will realize their bigger role in foreign policy, revive the ossified Senate, and ensure that it is inhospitable to insufferable ignorant clowns and country bumpkins mouthing errant foreign affairs nonsense.