It is a sad commentary that while other nations are focused on how to address the crises spawned by the war in the Middle East, our government is enmeshed in a juvenile debate on who laid siege to the Senate, why some senators evacuated the premises in a huff, who fired the first shot, and all that jazz. 

Acting like paragons of virtue and models of politics, the members of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) were not any help but even sowed discord. It was like a diabolical force inexplicably convened them the moment Sen. Alan Cayetano was elected Senate President and ordered that the new majority convene pronto as an impeachment court to try Vice President Sara Duterte.  

Not to be outdone, a man in a frock, Robert Reyes, known as the Running Priest, suddenly surfaced and intruded, calling the new Senate Majority led by Cayetano “modern Judases.” 

His presence evoked a medieval account of a man who mocked Jesus on the way to Calvary. The story tells of Jesus having taken a rest from carrying the heavy cross when the man named Ahasuerus told Jesus to move on. In response, Jesus said, “I shall rest, but you shall go on till I return.”  

Why Reyes keeps running, as he is described by those who know him and which he has never contradicted, is something strange. Anyway, it is a folk tale. We Filipinos have exactly the same folklore character — Samuel Belebet — in a story about impiety and disrespect, which, by eerie chance, embodies Robert Reyes.

Contrary to the CBCP’s prejudgment, the Senate under Cayetano has calendared the impeachment trial as its primary agenda. Vice President Sara Duterte is to be provided a copy of the articles of impeachment, giving her 10 days to answer and thereafter five days for the prosecution to respond to the answer of the VP. 

That’s a total of 15 days of waiting. In the meantime, some quarters are asking the new Senate leadership to commence an investigation into the grand corruption behind the scandalous ghost flood control projects, which the religious leaders are impervious to. 

What convoluted the recent episode of the Senate raid is a disconnect among the functionaries of the executive branch. Malacañang denied reports of an operation to arrest Sen. Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, clarifying that the National Bureau of Investigation’s (NBI) presence at the Senate was solely for security assistance. 

On the other hand, the NBI is actively tracking De la Rosa. And then there is this kibitzer, Antonio Trillanes, with a copy of the ICC arrest warrant for Bato, which he said he obtained from the NBI.  

A legal luminary who begged not to be identified stressed that “the warrant has no legal effect, since we are no longer an ICC member. Furthermore, there was no formal Interpol notice. The ICC warrant was not processed through Interpol notices and diffusion mechanisms, and it was not evaluated by the Interpol General Secretariat.” What Trillanes is holding, therefore, is a piece of trash like what he has become.

(Editor’s note: The Supreme Court, in a special En Banc session, voted 9-5-1 to deny Senator Dela Rosa’s request for a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) and/or Status Quo Ante Order (SQAO) in connection with his possible arrest based on the ICC warrant. The SC, nonetheless, clarified that it only resolved the request for interim relief and has yet to rule on the main legal issues, such as whether law enforcers may serve an ICC warrant without a domestic judicial warrant, and whether it can be implemented despite the country’s exit from the tribunal.)

While this drama unfolded, Planters Products Inc., a GOCC under the Department of Agriculture, was involved in a covert operation to import almost two million sacks of rice. The secret negotiation was unearthed and exposed by Sen. Imee Marcos. It turned out the PPI had been used by a corrupt government syndicate since last year, even as government agencies were prohibited from importing rice.  Some heads need to roll. 

Senator Imee hit the nail right on the head when she asserted that “the influx of imports is blamed for depressing local palay (unmilled rice) prices, which crashed to as low as ₱P16 to P17 per kilo, severely hurting Filipino farmers.” 

Issues of concern like this indecent and insidious action by the Department of Agriculture and the billions in kickbacks from the scandalous ghost flood control projects should have taken precedence over the impeachment of the Vice President. 

Given the fact that the Committee on Justice of the House of Representatives lacked evidence and had to go fishing to forge an impeachment case, other urgent priorities should have been the primordial agenda of the government. 

Our country is on the brink, yet our leaders continue to hammer a wedge to divide us into the green and the pink.