The Senate’s gambit
A “king’s gambit,” former Sen. Franklin Drilon called it.
In chess, it is about conceding an early advantage to protect a more valuable piece. In the Senate, it meant sacrificing Sen. Panfilo Lacson’s chairmanship of the prized blue ribbon committee to preserve the fragile hold of his close ally, Sen. Vicente Sotto III, on the Senate presidency, under the threat of insurrection by loyalists of former President Rodrigo Duterte.
But what may have been a tactical retreat for the Senate leaders became a strategic defeat for the chamber itself, a short-lived advantage that turned a proud committee into a mere pawn in an ugly game of partisanship. On top of that, it risks derailing the momentum of the committee’s deepening investigation of public works corruption that, under Lacson’s leadership, was finally making some headway, albeit in a direction that didn’t please his peers.
What a shame that the Senate’s most powerful committee has been muzzled by its own members for the simple reason that it was doing its job. But also not surprising, for the reorganization merely demonstrates the Senate’s fraught relationship with transparency.
Instrument of oversight
For a long time, the Senate blue ribbon committee, formally known as the committee on accountability of public officers and investigations, has served as the chamber’s most potent instrument of oversight. It is empowered to investigate “any matter of public interest,” particularly those involving wrongdoing by government officials. Its inquiries, often televised and headline-grabbing, have exposed corruption scandals, from the pork barrel scam to overpriced pandemic supplies, keeping public servants on their toes.
That record of vigilance, however, rests on the chair’s independence and the chamber’s willingness to let the committee fulfill its mandate unhampered by external influence. Unfortunately, those standards are rewritten when the panel dares to train its guns on the Senate’s own kind, who operate under the delusion that they are above scrutiny.
“Some senators publicly and secretly pursue the narrative that I am zeroing in on several of my colleagues while purportedly protecting those members of the Lower House perceived to be the principal actors in the budget anomalies related to the substandard and ghost flood control projects,” Lacson said.
To make matters worse for the embattled senator, his comments about the billions quietly inserted into the national budget by almost all of the senators from the previous Congress also struck close to home, triggering consternation among those implicated.
Five candidates
Now, the loss of Lacson at the helm raises troubling questions about what lies ahead for the blue ribbon committee, in the absence of a chair with both the investigative mettle and the moral authority to confront the corrupt.
Last week, Sotto named five candidates to replace Lacson–Senators JV Ejercito, Risa Hontiveros, Pia Cayetano, Raffy Tulfo, and Kiko Pangilinan–yet all of them demurred, most of them saying Lacson was still the best man for the job. In the end, the committee’s vice chair, Sen. Erwin Tulfo, was designated as the interim head.
But is Erwin Tulfo, a former broadcaster who has been in the Senate for all of three months, the right person to take over? Recall that he once anchored a blocktimer on a state media channel that received millions of pesos in advertising money from the Department of Tourism, then helmed by his sister Wanda Tulfo Teo.
Pia Cayetano, another candidate reportedly considering the post, would likewise be a foolish choice, given that her brother, Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano is the minority leader in cahoots with the very people threatening Sotto’s leadership. Lacson, by contrast, has a track record as a relentless scrutinizer of the budget and the gravitas to take on disgruntled colleagues.
A cowardly move
Among them, it’s evident who’s best equipped to handle the blue ribbon panel as it withstands tremendous pressure from contractors, officials, and House lawmakers, let alone fellow senators.
A committee led by a chair more concerned with maintaining alliances than unearthing the truth will only confirm that Senate investigations are not “in aid of legislation” but politics. The Senate, already battling declining public trust, can ill afford another blow to its integrity.
The Senate majority must understand that a king’s gambit is only as good as the end it serves: To sacrifice the truth for temporary peace, to trade accountability for fake harmony, is a cowardly move for an institution that has routinely uncovered scams and censured presidents.
If the blue ribbon committee is to remain worthy of its legacy, the Senate must reaffirm not only its independence but its moral courage. It must not flinch in the face of the wounded egos or pricked consciences of its members, nor cease its critical task of ensnaring crooks in government, even–or especially–when the ones ensnared are senators themselves.
