By Adolfo Quizon Paglinawan

 

Part One of Three: Missing Sanity in Our Legislative Box

If you make an inventory of my writings, you will find out that most of them have dealt with the “idiotization” of the Filipino when it comes to the South China Seas. This is precisely because as a person who has served in our foreign ministry, I cannot pass on the lies that have polluted the debates ever since the Chinese prevented the business interests of Manny Pangilinan from exploring the Reed Bank (Recto Reef).

The second discipline that has caught my fancy, especially during the presidency of Rodrigo Duterte, is on how few remaining stragglers in our society feigning as human rights advocates, had also muddled his wars on drugs and communist armed conflict. But there is hardly anything newsy about this in the present administration.

Third is on the quality of governance, and not just in the executive branch but sometimes in the legislature. I really have no appetite discussing how congressmen and senators think because reason and statesmanship in both houses have sunk to the cellar. But since this is another area of idiotization, I cannot hold my peace.,

Even during my elementary years, I idolized Claro M. Recto, my distant maternal grandfather.

Starting as a high school junior, I would walk from San Beda College in Mendiola to the legislative building in Plaza Burgos to watch Lorenzo Tanada, Banjamin Diokno, Emmanuel Pelaez, Arturo Tolentino, Jovito Salonga, Ambrosio Padilla, Soc Rodrigo, Maria Katigbak, Eva Estrada, Raul Manglapus, Helena Benitez and Ferdinand Edralin Marcos chew the pressing issues of the day to come up with quality laws.

At that early age, I was being mentored by Jose Quiambao and his wife Josefina “Jo” David who lived across the street from our house in Mandaluyong. That gave me the confidence to cover Congress for San Beda high school’s Cub Recorder, of which I was managing editor to the time I edited The Bedan in college.

As president of the College Editors Guild in 1968, this was the reason why it was easy for me to invite many of them to keynote many of our activities in and out campus.

Email debate

This is also why I anticipate little difficulty in seeking your affirmation that today, the legislative branch of our government has become a “congress of baboons” – the loudest, most dangerous, most obnoxious, most viciously aggressive, and least intelligent of all primates, according to American Nurse Journal email chain.

C. Eugene Emery Jr. who posted a response, however, qualified:

“It’s not true. I checked it out on The Providence Journal Politifact website to be sure, and my hopes were crushed…They consulted several experts, and found that the president of the Dictionary Society of North America, Orin Hargraves, could find no evidence that ‘congress’ is the correct term.

“Apparently someone just made it up,” Hargraves told Politifact. “It has the ring of truthiness and so people like it. They do behave like the caricature of the baboons, but I think real baboons probably behave a lot better.”

Emery wrote, “Hargraves was correct. Baboons apparently behave far better than most humans, especially those in Congress.”

So Politifact asked two anthropologists who really know baboons—Shirley Strum, director of the Uaso Ngiro Baboon Project in Nairobi, Kenya; and Larissa Swedell, who studies primates in Ethiopia and South Africa. Both said the correct term for a group of baboons is a troop.

“I have never heard the term congress used for a group of baboons,” Swedell said in an e-mail. Strum replied, also by email: “I would prefer to be governed by baboons than the current Congress, however!!! They are more socially committed, abide by the golden rule, and are generally nicer people.”

Swedell also disputed the chain e-mail’s description of baboons. “Least intelligent? No way… Among monkeys, baboons are pretty smart,” she said, “Baboons are socially sophisticated and incredibly smart.”

Among primates, Strum stated, “no species is as dangerous as humans.”

Oh my god, the discussion morphed into far worse implications: In asserting that the chain email was wrong, Eugene Emery concluded: “…We can find some consolation in the fact that the experts agree on this: Being governed by this Congress is worse than being governed by baboons!”

Bringing it home

What other conclusion will you get to when applying this anecdote to the Philippine setting?

Last May 6, 2024, Senator Win Gatchalian wants an inquiry into the growing presence of foreign nationals in upscale gated subdivisions suspected to be working for Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGO), now called Internet Gaming Licensees (IGLs) that “offer and participate in offshore gaming services by providing games to players, taking bets, and paying the winning players”.

The chairperson of the Senate Committee on Ways and Means wants to specifically address ongoing concerns raised by homeowners in Multinational Village in Paranaque City over the growing number of foreign nationals now residing in their subdivision. Residents claim that an enclave within the subdivision featuring Chinese restaurants and spa salons caters exclusively to the said foreign nationals.

“This is something worthy of attention. We need to ensure that any significant gathering of foreign nationals is not for the purpose of engaging in illegal activities given the trend of rising criminality attributed to these individuals involved in the industry,” Gatchalian said.

Gatchalian has been advocating for the termination of POGO operations in the country, saying that the social costs of allowing them to continue operations in the country far outweigh any economic gains derived from the industry.

I find it important to mention at this juncture that much has been said in the Philippines about China being the promoter of this controversial online gambling, to accusing Chinese nationals working in POGOs, as part of China’s alleged “gray zone” and “trojan horse” espionage infiltration strategy into the Philippines.

Quite on the contrary, POGOs are outlawed in China, and all levels of the Chinese bureaucracy – from its embassy in the Philippines to the foreign ministry to President Xi Jinping – have repeatedly told even the Duterte government to shut down the industry. The ethic the Chinese government promotes is towards honest work as opposed to gambling.

Beijing’s reasons are self-evident POGOs have a culture of its own that tolerate crimes against their own workers or would-be workers by way of deceptive recruitment tactics such as false promises of high pay and benefits which lead to illegal recruitment, human trafficking, kidnap-for-ransom, homicide, illegal detention, swindling, torture, and prostitution. It is a mafia by itself.

Second, POGOs perpetrate crimes against other people or the public at large by means of online scams, frauds, and money laundering. Notably, these POGOs are emboldened to perpetuate their nefarious activities to the extent of illegally possessing firearms, courtesy of Filipino accomplices.

Third, driven by the notion that Philippine institutions are weak and Philippine authorities are corruptible, POGOs bribe their way through and commit tax evasion. The Bureau of Immigration (BI) has been implicated in a scandal after scandal for allowing alleged POGO workers, and Chinese fugitives, to easily enter the Philippines for a “service fee” without proper documents. Some government and airport personnel have been moonlighting as security escorts for POGO operatives.

Committee chair Gatchalian could have secured added chevrons to his shoulders and the gratitude of a thankful nation for setting things straight to filing a bill that will outlaw but he allowed his hearing to turn into a circus.

Another senator, Risa Hontiveros, shanghaied the spotlight on this investigation by inserting her Senate Committee on Women, Children, Family Relations and Gender Equality into the wild goose chase.

Now the whole situation evolved into a zarzuela and a with hunt, according to Filipino-Chinese civic leader Teresita Ang-See.

Ambassador Rigoberto Tiglao also found it disgraceful for senators to be grilling in a hearing of the committee on women Bamban, Tarlac Mayor Alice Guo as if she were presumed as not a legitimate Filipino and connected to Chinese criminal groups operating the online gambling POGOs. If they believe, so they should let authorities, e.g., the Bureau of Immigration and the National Bureau of Investigation, to investigate her.

Another senator who is a lawyer, Koko Pimentel, commented that many issues ventilated by Gatchalian-Hontiveros inquiries are better-off resolved through the law enforcement and judicial system.

Tiglao gives a rejoinder: “Senators are the worst investigators, as they pretend to be intelligent, when most of them are obviously not, and they preen and investigate ‘to the gallery’, (and) not to ferret out the truth.

Hontiveros and Gatchalian have been joined by two other senators Loren Legarda and Raffy Tulfo, in badgering Mayor Guo for explanation on inconsistent entries in her birth certificate.

I find the lady’s answer “hindi ko po alam” plausible. (I do not know.) How would she know when it was her father who filled up and filed her papers?

Legarda called her a robot for answering repeatedly, “hindi ko po alam.” (I do not know.) Congressman Rodante Marcoleta, a much-knowledgeable lawyer, advised Guo to answer next time “I refuse to answer your question, on the ground that I cannot see its relevance to your proposed resolution for legislation.”

Tulfo told Guo to her face that she was a liar because she could not have grown up in Bamban, Tarlac if she does not know how to speak Kapampangan. Wikipedia says “Kapampangan is spoken by half of the population followed by Ilocano spoken by 41%, mostly in the northern towns bordering Pangasinan. Everybody understands the Tagalog language.” The mayor speaks fluent Tagalog. Many of her townmates have spoken to media in Tagalog saying they have been seeing her since she was a tot.

Defying common sense, the senators in a fishing expedition, asked why her birth certificate was issued only when she was 17 years old. Again I find her answer plausible – “hindi ko po alam.”

PSA Assistant National Statistician Engr. Marizza Grande testified during the Senate that late birth registrations happen. From 2013 to 2022, the annual average number of delayed birth registrations was 972,830. Of the 111 million Filipinos in 2020, 3.7 million did not have birth certificates or were not registered.

Grande’s count varies with a October 17, 2022 Business Mirror report that reflected as of 2021, “there are a total of 9.26 million Filipinos whose births are either not registered with PSA, or don’t have copies of these certificates.”

We Resolve Foundation also released a 2021 report that according to according to the Philippine Statistics Authority and the Child Rights Network, “This is a ‘scandal of invisibility’ which is also present in the Philippines, where anywhere from 5 to 7.5 million Filipinos, of whom 40 percent are children, do not have birth certificates.

It appears that the PSA is also confused about its own inventory and statistics.

Meanwhile, newly-installed Senate President Francis “Chiz” Escudero admitted that embattled Bamban town Mayor Alice Guo’s identity is dubious, but he noted that “the burden of proof” now lies upon on those alleging that she is not Filipino.  Speaking in the vernacular, Escudero added: “There is a basic principle in law. He who alleges must prove the same. Those that are alleging that she is not Filipino, must prove it.”

Supreme Court GR172822, says “Basic is the rule in evidence that the burden of proof lies upon him who asserts it, not upon him who denies, since, by the nature of things, he who denies a fact cannot produce any proof of it.”

Not only in law, if I may add, but in ordinary everyday logic.

What sickens me is the senators’ incessant arguing from possibility to reality, from assumptions to fact, from suspicions to truth, from investigating in aid of legislation to witch hunt, which Madam Ang See, reeks of racism and sinophobia.

I am afraid that because of the incompetence prevailing in Congressional investigations nowadays, many of the information even taken under oath will insulate any resource person from being formally charged in court, because senators have extracted information by violating a person’s constitutional rights.

The right against self-incrimination is found in Art. III, Sec. 17 of the 1987 Philippine Constitution which states that “No person shall be compelled to be a witness against himself”.

At this rate, it is safe to assume that baboons are better off taking over the Philippine senate.

To be continued, next: Investigate Al Tengco, Boying Remulla

   

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