Passing the baton

"Romualdez has impeccable education, professional achievement, legislative experience and political principle."

With the departure of former President Arroyo from the House leadership, the gossip has naturally turned to who will replace her at the Speaker’s gavel. Since the President has professed his hands off on the issue, it’s become a wide-open field for a handful of his allies.

This early—and without meaning to disrespect any of the other candidates—I’m declaring for returning Leyte Congressman Martin Romualdez. A dark horse at the beginning, the young scion of the fabled Romualdez clan has reportedly already secured the support of over 150 congressmen, placing him at the head of the field today. And this isn’t difficult to understand, considering what he has going for him:

• Impeccable education: UP, Cornell, Harvard

• Professional achievement: IBP president before, Philconsa president today

• Legislative experience: Three-termer during the 14th, 15th and 16th Congresses

• Political principle: Held the opposition Lakas-NUCD party together as its secretary-general and did not abandon the party’s titular head, Mrs. Arroyo, in her hour of need

With the election of so many young new political leaders last May, the time has truly come for an intergenerational passing of the baton of House leadership. It’s Martin’s time—his, and his generation’s too.

Last week saw what I thought was an unusually effusive outpouring of emotion among the congressmen towards their outgoing Speaker, as the 17th Congress officially closed its third session.

Majority leader Fred Castro hailed Mrs. Arroyo as “one of the most brilliant political and academic minds in recent Philippine history,” saying that “she pushes everyone to their limits, often realizing in a self-realization that one can actually do larger than life tasks that the person never thought he was capable of accomplishing.” From personal experience, this writer can only say amen to that.

For his part, Minority leader Danny Suarez thanked the Speaker for “her dedication and competence in leading the members of Congress towards the achievement of the priority legislative measures of this administration.”

On TV, one congresswoman praised her to the point of what I thought were actual tears. I daresay that that’s got to have been a first for any outgoing Speaker—not to mention someone who’s been as maligned and mistreated as she was.

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During just one year at the Speaker’s gavel, Mrs. Arroyo accomplished a feat that I daresay was also unprecedented: passing 100 percent of the legislative agenda she set for herself. That agenda, of course, was in fact the President’s agenda, comprising 28 bills that he had certified as priority to Congress.

Unfortunately, the Senate proved to be a lot less cooperative. Ten of the 28 priority bills to date have not yet made it out of the Senate: on revising the Charter, national land use, creating a new Department of Disaster Resilience, the second tax reform package, mining taxes, real property assessment, Presidential emergency powers to address the Metro Manila traffic crisis, capital income taxes, lowering the age of criminal liability, and mandatory ROTC.

Should we call this so-called performance the honorable senators’ version of “checks and balances?” On top of their recent stonewalling on this year’s budget—which may have caused us to miss our 6-percent GDP growth target for the year—this adds up to an impressively underwhelming record indeed.

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So what was the secret of Mrs. Arroyo’s legislative slam-dunk in the House?

According to her erstwhile ally, Congressman Joey Salceda, she simply sat on almost every request she received to conduct “inquiries in aid of legislation.” Out of a whopping 744 requests from the congressmen, she allowed only 14. This forced them to do their job of crafting laws, even during weekends and recesses. According to many congressional staffers, they never had to work so hard before in their life.

A notorious micro-manager, the Speaker also sat in on all the legislative committees to make sure their work got done. I can only imagine how it must have felt for her colleagues to experience the biting lash of her tongue. And in between sessions, she also revived the oversight role of Congress by visiting many projects in progress, especially those started during her Presidency in areas like RoRo and housing for the poor.

This lesson of doing your job by writing laws instead of grandstanding for the TV cameras shouldn’t be lost on the senators, especially the incoming newbies. On the other hand, if they prefer instead to orate before the public, it may be time for their chamber—as recommended in some versions of a new Charter—to give up its law-making powers and relegate the senators (elected by region under a federal system) to an advise-and-consent role.

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This week as we resume Ordinary time after the Easter season, today’s reading (Acts 11: 21-26, 13: 1-3) brings us to the city of Antioch. There, the more open-minded among the Jewish followers of Christ had started recruiting Gentiles into the fold, a development that so alarmed the Jerusalem community that they sent one Barnabas to investigate.

But much like Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus, Barnabas instead was so impressed by what he saw that he fetched Paul from his home in Tarsus to join him in Antioch. It was there that the disciples first started calling themselves “Christians”, marking—under Paul and Barnabas—the formal start of evangelization to the Gentiles.

In this manner did those two great evangelizers carry out Jesus’ instructions to His disciples after the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5: 13-16): “You are the light of the world…Your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father.” So too are we called—by even our simplest acts of human charity—also to glorify God.

Readers can write me at gbolivar1952@yahoo.com