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Thursday, March 28, 2024

First leadership test

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Over the last few weeks, aspirants to the speakership have jostled and lobbied for the top post in the House of Representatives. If we are to take at face value the announcement from President Rodrigo Duterte, who stepped into a tightly contested race to endorse a term-sharing agreement between his erstwhile losing vice presidential running mate, Taguig Rep. Alan Peter Cayetano and Marinduque Rep. Lord Allan Velasco, the issue has been settled, and a new speaker will be elected on July 22, just ahead of the State-of-the-Nation Address.

Even as the political wrangling was going on, however, an incoming neophyte congressman was hard at work giving the new speaker his first leadership test.

We refer to Ang Probinsyano party-list Rep. Alfred delos Santos, who was captured on CCTV footage trying to punch a waiter in the head at Biggs Diner in Legazpi, Albay, on July 7.

First leadership test

Police said the waiter, Christian Kent Alejo, 20, related that he was working at about 3:40 a.m. when Delos Santos threw a punch at him for no apparent reason. The video evidence supporting this narration of events is irrefutable.

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The congressman has since apologized, but offered no reasonable explanation for his unacceptable behavior.

“I am no troublemaker,” he said in a statement, saying in Filipino that he was no bully or gangster. “The people who know me well can attest to that.”

“For our constituents, I hope and pray that you will find in your hearts a way to forgive and understand. I have learned my lesson out of this experience and given the chance, I would certainly commit myself to work even harder to advance the cause of our constituents, the probinsyanos.”

Delos Santos’ own party at first tried to wash its hands of the incident, saying Delos Santos’ “actions and decisions are his own and should not reflect on Ang Probinsyano as a party and as a party and as an organization.”

“Definitely we will not tolerate any kind of abuse in our party. We will not hesitate to suspend or even remove Congressman Delos Santos if we establish that this was an unprovoked attack,” a party spokesman said.

The suggestion that the congressman’s actions do not reflect on the party is ludicrous, of course, and the notion that the attack would be somehow more acceptable had it been provoked is equally ridiculous.

If a party or an organization lets Delos Santos get off with an apology and a rap on the knuckle, that speaks volumes about its willingness to overlook uncivilized behavior by a wealthy and powerful member of the group.

By the same token, if the new speaker does nothing to discipline Delos Santos, he will tell all and sundry that the House is more interested in protecting its own that looking out for the people they are supposed to serve. Will the new speaker pass this first leadership test?

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