They call themselves “Honorable” and want to be addressed your honor at the end of every statement. And yet for seven agonizing hours, the congressmen at the hearing of the Committee on Justice showed the nation why bloggers have called their place of work the “Bastusang Pambansa” because that’s what they did last Thursday – to embarrass the subject of all these hullabaloo, Senator Leila de Lima.
In aid of legislation, as they are wont to say, the committee members grilled De Lima’s erstwhile bodyguard, driver and lover, Ronnie Dayan, asking questions that was so personal it didn’t serve any purpose for any kind of legislation related to illegal drugs. Instead, the “honorable” lawmakers were obviously out to humiliate and persecute a lady senator whose only obvious mistake at this point was that she fell for a man in her employ, and worse, crossed the path of the sitting President.
It is not a secret that President Rodrigo Duterte explodes in anger each time somebody criticizes or questions his brutal drug war that has killed more than 4,000 mostly poor Filipinos. He was still mayor of Davao City when De Lima first earned Duterte’s ire when the then chair of the Commission on Human Rights investigated the so-called Davao Death Squad that had been accused of hundreds of extrajudicial killings in the city.
And then in July, not yet warmed up to her Senate seat, De Lima stood several times to criticize the daily death of drug dealers and users and investigated the killings resulting from Duterte’s drug war until she was ousted as chair of the Senate committee on justice. Her unceremonious ouster from the important chair was obviously just the beginning of a seething vengeance as Duterte’s allies in the House of Representatives started linking her to the illegal drug trade in the National Bilibid Prison.
Unable to present solid evidence that would link her to illegal drug trade and send her to prison, the President’s “honorable” lackeys seem to have decided they would destroy her person instead, launching a character assassination reminiscent of the destruction of then Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona, also in the early years of the previous administration.
What else would you call the line of questioning by the congressmen that day?
The “your honors” spent most of the seven hours not establishing beyond hearsay and more importantly, beyond reasonable doubt that De Lima knowingly received drug money from suspected drug lord Kerwin Espinosa and some drug lords operating from inside the Bilibid, and that she used this money for her senatorial campaign.
Instead, they asked Dayan very private and personal questions about his relationship with De Lima when the senator herself had already admitted to the romantic affair and there was, therefore, no need to establish the relationship. For example, after repeatedly asking Dayan whether his relationship with De Lima grew out of true love, a committee member asked, with a smirk, sarcastically and for no apparent reason but to grandstand and please his salivating colleagues, “So, ang sinasabi mo, ang relasyon mong ito kay Senator de Lima ay hindi lamang para saluhan siyang magtampisaw sa pagmamahalan o saluhan siya sa pagpawi ng init ng katawan?”
Another asked: “Sabay ba kayong matulog sa isang kwarto?” while still another asked: “Ano ang tawag nyo sa isa’t isa” Another congressman, the same congressman who asked about the “init ng katawan” wondered: “Masasabi mo bang ang pagmamahalan ninyo ay tunay, matibay at wagas?” Each time these questions were asked and answered, the committee members and the gallery would break into malicious laughter.
The moral inquisition went for hours, obviously because it thrilled the committee members no end and gave them opportunity to grandstand and show that they were more macho than they looked. To the kanto boys drinking in the corner sari-sari store and the macho men used to talking about their sex exploits over cases of beer, it was a great “pulutan,” as they would say.
The committee has presented several alleged witnesses, most of whom were convicted felons who stood to gain from cooperating with the Department of Justice and were afraid of going the way of Albuera, Leyte Mayor Ronald Espinosa who was killed inside his detention cell in an alleged shootout with members of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group a few weeks ago that had all the signs of a rubout. The congressmen wouldn’t even consider investigating the brazen killing, and yet would go all out to investigate and humiliate a sitting senator.
It should have been the words of scared convicted criminals against an elected senator and former DOJ and CHR chief. But the “honorable” congressmen would rather give more weight to the convicts’ words despite the lack of any concrete evidence, such as paper trails and fat bank accounts!
Also, there were glaring inconsistencies in the testimonies of Kerwin Espinosa and Ronnie Dayan but the congressmen decided to ignore them and dwell on the romantic liaison between Dayan and De Lima.
What the seven-hour inquisition proved was that the House of Representatives that is supposed to represent the people in government policies is just a bunch of sexist, misogynist and indecent individuals who just happened to have the money to get elected to the House and get the title Honorable.
Then Inquirer columnist Manuel Quezon III first coined the term “Bastusang Pambansa” after the House lynched and unceremoniously ousted Speaker Jose de Venecia in 2008. The building that houses the House of Representatives is called “Batasang Pambansa” after the parliamentary body during the late years of martial law.
In 2009, bloggers and netizens again called the House the “Bastusang Pambansa” when the congressmen railroaded House Resolution 1109 in 2009 to allow Congress to reconstitute itself into a constitutional assembly (con-ass) to amend the Constitution and hopefully enable Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to either run for reelection or become prime minister.
After Thursday’s hearing, the social media was abuzz again with the words “Bastusang Pambansa” to describe the inquisition. Rightfully deserved!