Aimless, clueless kabuki

For three weeks, since 6 July, the Senate court has asked the country to sit down and watch a senseless trial that is scripted for a political agenda, and it does so as if the people had nothing better to do.

The farmers who work in the field, the drivers who sit in traffic and the mothers who count the coins in their purses are told this is important, even though nothing that happens in that chamber will put food on their tables. What the senator-judges call justice looks, from the outside, like a stage play that has run too long.

Consider first what the Senate has done with its own rules. When the court changed the number of votes it needed to convict, it acted as if it had found a clever shortcut.

But a rule that lowers the bar for conviction also lowers the bar for acquittal, because the two are tied to the same total. If the count of judges goes down, the two-thirds needed to convict goes down, and so does the one-third needed to block.

A grade school child could see this, yet the men and women who wrote our laws seemed surprised. Either they did not understand what they were voting on, or they understood it well and hoped that those observing them would not.

Then there is the matter of who is being served. Nobody asked for three hearings a week, but the people are demanding cheaper food, safer roads and honest work from those they pay to serve them.

When the Senate chooses to spend its days on a show, it leaves undone the tasks it was created to do, which are just too many for a country ravaged by corrupt officials.

No one can clearly say what is happening with the flood control scandal. Laws need to be written and money needs to be watched.

The trial costs millions of pesos each day, and a government that spends so much on so little has forgotten whose money it is holding.

The witnesses make matters worse. A trial is supposed to find the truth, so it needs people who saw things with their own eyes and can say what they saw. Instead, the public is made to bear a line of speakers who offer opinions, repeat what others told them and pass off guesses as facts.

When a court turns away the one person who might have spoken from direct knowledge while welcoming many who know nothing firsthand, the viewer is right to ask what the court is afraid of. Lipstick does not change a pig, and a long hearing does not change a weak case.

It insults the viewer, too. Every senator who speaks for an hour to say what could be said in a minute tells us he thinks we have the time and patience to listen. Every dramatic pause and every stern question meant for the cameras tells us that the misnamed judges think viewers will not notice they are performing.

People watching at home are not fools, and they can tell an honest question from a speech aimed at primetime news. They can also tell when the outcome has been decided before the first witness sits down.

A court that talks in circles and hears witnesses who cannot help it has one honest choice left: end the debate and let each member stand up and be counted. That is how a legislature works when talk has run out. There is nothing shameful in a vote, but there is a great deal of shame in delay for the sake of delay.

History has a long memory, and it has not always been kind to those who judged in haste or in fear.

The nation has waited long enough for its leaders to do their work, and it has other problems that will not wait for a stage play to close.