Vagaries of our political culture

Vagaries of our political culture | Daily Tribune

We are introduced on countless occasions to an unsettling range of human tendencies that our local and national politicians exhibit on a day-to-day basis. Perhaps it may be worth our while to reflect upon them when they rear their ugly heads. Let’s consider a few classic instances when what we see and hear on any platform really astounds us.

How many vicious times must we hazard impeaching an incumbent Vice President to the extent of soliciting the High Tribunal’s much-vaunted judicial wisdom as though it were not a slippery slope from the start? While the apparent impunity of the President has now been challenged, his impeachment, by perceived design, may have been an exercise in futility.

It’s no irony that a senator who is a former Philippine National Police chief has chosen to mimic the same earlier resolve of another senator of similar police background who went underground as a fugitive from justice. Per Ombudsman Crispin Remulla, there’s an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity lodged against the first senator.

Is there no “burying the hatchet” between former Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonio Carpio and Senator Rodante Marcoleta over the latter’s claim of what the former would have us believe? Were there coordinates mapping the boundaries belonging to the Philippines, let alone its “exclusive economic zone?” This then becomes the $64-question given that Carpio has convincingly asserted that the EEZ refers to the 200 nautical miles from the archipelagic baselines.

Marcoleta, however, probably has something else in mind which cannot be as easily dismissed on certain highly technical data sets yet under construction — given the apparent complexities of how to technically describe the territorial sea, the contiguous zone, the EEZ, the continental shelf — a whole collectivity of maritime boundaries.

The Senate zarzuela on whether the incumbent Senate President would be unseated has done the rounds except the status quo was not disturbed. SP Vicente Sotto III and allies were able to thwart the plan to install Sen. Loren Legarda in his place — a “negotiated” term-sharing in the works until 2028. Will it eventually be a case of what’s good for the goose is good for the gander? It appears that what triggered the coup rumors was the draft of a Blue Ribbon Committee report that was deemed not final until further deliberated on by the members.

Then the phenomenal symbol of the Gen Z generation, Rep. Kiko Barzaga, was slapped another 60-day suspension immediately after the first, after 238 House members voted to impose this second round of sanctions in what was described as his “repeated, escalating conduct.” Good or bad, it’s argued that Barzaga’s actions violated the same grounds that led to his prior suspension, this time without pay. Luminously, his expulsion is next on the menu.

On anti-dynasty bills, there’s yet no best doable prescription from a whole pack of subject matter experts, academics, constitutionalists, advocates, stakeholders. That proposal of one elected member of a family or clan as the limit throws a monkey wrench into both vertical or horizontal succession lines.

Countless commentators end up begging the question with a whole compendium of definitions or formulations. Thinking to foreground what could be a “game changer” or undo “deeply entrenched dynasties,” an old framer of the Constitution proposed putting an electoral ban on sitting officials’ relatives “up to the fourth degree of consanguinity,” except that sounds like putting the cart before the horse. Isn’t it as bad as his failure as a framer to have had it incorporated into the constitutional text in the first place?

In the end, our realpolitik is one big gray area. Enormous amounts of the national budget to boost infrastructure have been reduced to what the film, Black Rain, refers to as “liberated funds” --- our politicians turned thieves.