Rigodon and more

"Has anyone discovered the meaning of ‘gravitas’?"

The new leadership at the House of Representatives is in the midst of a reorganization of house positions and chairmanships.

That’s nothing new in Philippine politics. It is called “rigodon,” after a Spanish-era dance where partners change one after the other. In pre-martial law politics, there were “rigodones de honor” highlighted by the sugar-rich elite of Pampanga and Bacolod in their annual high society balls held at the then plush Manila Hotel.

But in that thankfully bygone era, when we also had two houses of Congress, called the upper and the lower, because they were housed in two floors of the same Legislative Building now turned into the National Museum of Arts, we only had one Speaker Pro-tempore, just as the Senate had, and still has, one Senate President Pro-tempore.

After martial law and when the new Congress convened by fiat of the 1987 Constitution, we also started with a pro-tempore, this time called a “deputy speaker.” Sometime in the present century, the elected Speaker found it convenient to add to the number of deputies. Perhaps because the number of representatives increased due to additional districts, plus the growing number of party-list congressmen.

Thus, during the reign of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, we had one deputy speaker each for Luzon, Metro Manila, Visayas and Mindanao. Numerically, each deputy represented a star in our flag, with the addition of the populous national capital region, which had a daytime population equal to the whole population of Visayas and Mindanao. Fair enough.

But in the Duterte HoR, the number of deputies started to grow in number, first with Speaker Bebot Alvarez, then Speaker GMA, then Speaker Alan Peter Cayetano, who had 22 deputies, and as recently reported, to all of 28, perhaps still growing, under the leadership of Speaker Lord Alan Velasco.

With 28 deputies, each is theoretically in charge of just 10 other peers in the HoR.

God knows how many more will be added until the present shuffle and musical chair game is finished. Rigodon y mas.

Soon we will be saying, in the patois of Manileños of then Mayor Lito Atienza, now also a Deputy Speaker, “singko mamera na lang.”

But the title expectedly does not come cheap. Not only because it costs our taxpayers additional perks, and a pre-emptive say on the pork, but also because the deputy speaker becomes a member of the “comite de paki-alam”, as in pwedeng pakialaman ang lahat.

When the next speaker comes along, hopefully one who will be speaker for the entire term of the next president elected in 2022, could we please revert to the single deputy speaker practice?

For reasons of self-respect and dignity, naman. Has anyone in the HoR discovered the meaning of “gravitas”?

**

The Gatchalian family is one which sprang from business into the realm of politics, thanks to the patriarch, William, who encouraged his sons to enter public service, and to their prayerful mother, Le Hua.

Perhaps because of the business-like genes they imbibed, they also know how to run public office in a no-nonsense manner. Recall how first-term Senator Sherwin initiated many innovations when he was elected mayor of Valenzuela, with little fanfare, but as time passed, getting national recognition from both civil service and civil society, and the continued appreciation of his constituents.

And now the very articulate Rex Gatchalian continues to wow observers by his common sense approach to good governance in the City of Valenzuela at the northernmost end of the metropolis. His city has become a good template on how to manage the pandemic, thanks to his no nonsense style.

Rex is hot in the news these days after losing his patience over the inept handling of the switch from cash transactions to RFID toll fee payments. And rightly so. The NLEX management which has been encouraging motorists to switch to e-payment for years and years, have had enough experience with systems, and should have had enough foresight to calculate the numbers vis-à-vis time deadlines, and therefore plan out the time-and-motion method, say even an odd-and-even schedule, and avert the fiasco that hundreds of thousands of motorists now suffer from. And what about the supervising agency, the Toll Regulatory Board? Lahat ba natutulog sa pansitan?

After protesting the chaotic traffic conditions obtaining from the ordered switch for more than a week and getting no corresponding response, Mayor Rex simply cancelled the mayor’s permit for the corporation operating the NLEX, thus denying them the right to collect toll fees.

Way to go!

**

Moving forward, since most of our modern infrastructure got to be built through public-private partnerships, feverish action should now be undertaken to have a seamless transport toll payment system that would connect the SLEX to CALAX to NAIAX to NLEX to TPLEX and whatever other expressways there are, and will be.

Soon Ramon Ang’s SLEX-NLEX connector highway would be completed, and MVP also has his separate connector road leading to the North Harbour port area.

In most Asian countries, it is government which leads the private sector in everything including the planning and implementation of major projects. In the Philippines, and perhaps only in the Philippines, it is the private sector that teaches government how to have foresight and visioning.

The coronavirus pandemic (mis)handling is the best and most recent example. How would our health officials have coped with the problem if the private sector had not stepped in, put their money where their mouth is, and worried about the deleterious effects on business and the economy of a prolonged lockdown due to the inefficiency of our public health system?

Haaay! Only in da Pilipins!