Diplomacy has been lost in the welter of badgering and the inquisitorial character of investigations “in aid of legislation.”
When we were going around the country to test the waters for a presidential run by the mayor of Davao City in 2015, and while our principal kept denying he had presidential ambitions, a group of singers captured public imagination with a song, “Takbo.”
The OPM genius who wrote the music and the lyrics of what was to become the anthem of our campaign then, was Jimmy Bondoc, and the performers who collaborated in singing Takbo included Paulo Santos, Luke Mejares, Njel de Mesa, Thor, and others whose names I cannot now recall, with due apologies.
When I met Jimmy Bondoc over dinner with Duterte in Cebu, just before a rally at Plaza Independencia in 2016, the topic of our discussion was about the creation of a department of history and culture, an advocacy we shared, and which the following day in a press conference, then VP candidate Alan Cayetano announced to be one of the planks in the platform of the Duterte-Cayetano tandem.
Sadly, that was one of the unfulfilled promises in the last administration, and thankfully, the one who sponsored the bill creating a “Department of History and Culture” was Sen. Loren Legarda, though it did not pass.
Now that Bondoc, to my great surprise, announced that he will be running for senator next year, I will surely vote for him with the hope that when he gets there, that dream for a department that will preserve and promote our culture and inculcate the lessons of history among our youth would materialize.
Right now, agencies that have to do with history and culture are either Government-Owned and -Controlled Corporations under the Office of the President, or assigned to the Department of Tourism, floating by themselves without proper direction or coordination, let alone proper prioritization in our appropriations act.
Another surprise was to find out that the OPM artist is now a lawyer, which is what celebrities should do before they run for public office, most especially the Senate. Jimmy comes with not just a good voice, but is armed with a degree in law, unlike many of our artists who bring nothing else but good looks, fame and an ability to sing, dance or tumble.
The last time I saw Jimmy before his filing of a CoC the other day was when he interviewed and supported the candidacy of Isko Moreno for president in 2022. Now he is running under the PDP, the party abandoned by opportunists who clung to the coattails of Duterte when he was yet the Malacanang occupant.
In his remarks at the Manila Hotel tent where the Comelec accepted the CoCs of political wannabes, he said that one of the things he would bring back to the Senate if elected was “diplomacy,” lost in the welter of badgering and the inquisitorial character of investigations “in aid of legislation.”
That may be a tough word for our present crop of senators to understand, save for a handful, so Jimmy could have used the word “civility” instead. Or good manners and right conduct, a subject we were taught in grade school, which some of our grandstanding senators may never have learned.
“Dapat po talaga mag back-to-basics kung ano ang trabaho ng bawat sangay ng gobyerno,” Bondoc emphasized.
Good sense and a sense of purpose is what Jimmy Bondoc could bring to the Senate, that once-upon-a-time august body now peopled by foul-mouthed inquisitors and pork barrel-hungry panderers of populism and sycophants of whoever is in power in the palace beside the stinking river.
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Right after VP Inday Sara joked about having three in her family running for senator in next year’s mid-terms, I said that if at all, only one, and definitely not the former president, would run for the Senate. I thought Baste would go to the Senate.
The former president will be facing Karlo Nograles, son of his late political nemesis, Speaker Prospero Nograles. Karlo was named Appropriations Committee chairman by request of then Pres. Duterte to Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez during his third and last term in the House, a demonstration of noblesse oblige.
After that, Duterte made Karlo his cabinet secretary, and in 2022, named him chairman of the Civil Service Commission, with a six-year term that is yet to expire.
In Bisaya, “utang kabubut-on” especially when made to a political adversary, is something treasured, as it is among all Filipinos.
Let us leave it to the Dabawenyos to decide between old gold and dross.
