HOTSPOT
The House and Senate hearings into Vice President Sara Duterte’s confidential funds, the Duterte administration’s bloody drug war, and POGOs, including those involving characters like Alice Guo, are an absolutely welcome development.
Cynics say the hearings can only be political or partisan, but the view is not only cynical but misinformed and naive. Of course, the hearings are political. They are done in our political institutions and led by politicians.
The hearings were unimaginable in 2022, but here we are in 2024 witnessing marathon hearings, complete with contempt citations, arrests, extraditions, and detentions.
Congress seems to be doing its job and asserting its role in governing the nation.
Thanks to the hearings, and the resulting public clamor, the President had to declare an end to POGOs.
Thanks to the hearings, there’s a new Education Secretary. There are no more confidential funds for the Department of Education, and the Commission on Audit has ordered the former secretary to return ₱73-million to the nation’s coffers.
Thanks to the hearings, more evidence is produced that would directly and indirectly help the prosecution of those who masterminded, perpetuated, and profited from the drug war. In addition, the government is slowly making a 180-degree on the International Criminal Court case against Duterte et al. If before, the stand was an absolutely no, the stand has since changed to “we won’t stop them from coming or from holding interviews.”
Thanks to the hearings, the formerly-untouchable and well-connected Apollo Quiboloy is now detained and facing charges of sex and human trafficking, among others.
House Speaker Martin Romualdez and Senate President Chiz Escudero should be encouraged to conduct more hearings and make Congress work as it constitutionally should.
The developments show what could be done even when the opposition is small, tiny, and fragmented. As late as last year, many doubted if they could make a dent in the face of the supermajorities in Congress. But alliances, cooperation, and common cause have been found.
Despite their small number, the fiscalizing powers of Risa Hontiveros, and Makabayan's triumvirate of France Castro, Arlene Brosas, and Raoul Manuel, have attracted support from their colleagues. They have become consequential. Together with the backing of other members, they help lead the charge mainly against the Duterte camp who apparently and mistakenly thought that the 2022 election results meant a co-presidency or, in other words, they would not or never be held accountable.
Vice President Duterte is in unfamiliar territory. She is used to being surrounded and obeyed by staff and even by the city council led by her brother. Now she is discovering that the House and the Senate, separately and jointly, have the power and duty to hold her accountable, and that she is accountable to them under the Constitution.
Of course, the hearings and the reactions by politicians could all be in preparation for the 2025 and 2028 elections. They are all politicians after all. But considering what’s at stake, the consequences to our daily lives, and the rediscovery of what Congress and politics are all about, we must find in this new space and new developments opportunities beneficial to the public.
If the hearings lead to prosecutions and convictions of incompetents, forgers, crooks, traitors, and murderers who collectively and individually did us harm, then they are good.
If the hearings mean higher budget allocations or restored budgets for social services from health to education, ayuda to science, then they are good.
If the hearings produce and introduce us to new leaders, or inspire us to take further political action we deem necessary, then they are good. If the political realignments and alliances weaken and destroy the worst elements in government, we should not interrupt them from doing God’s work.
We have other issues and concerns from inflation to enforced disappearances, low wages to trumped-up cases, mass transport crisis to climate crisis, historical revisionism to disinformation, Chinese incursions to American intervention. We can only wish that Congress finds more time and more courage to focus on them too.
Now, this could be seen as impossible, given the allegiances, loyalties and interests involved. But that’s what many thought too in the beginning regarding the issues that Congress has tackled since. Indeed, nothing is impossible.
It may be only a matter of time before we see a possible Last Quarter Storm of congressional hearings and public outrage on more scandals and more issues. We could be set to welcome 2025 in a better position than in 2022.