Angara, Joker in word war on Senate floor

Battle lines continued to be drawn at the Senate yesterday as Sen. Edgardo Angara took offense at Sen. Joker Arroyo’s statement that he was talking nonsense when he announced the opposition was withdrawing its critical collaboration with the administration because they were uncooperative in the first place.

Angara emphasized the minority participated "fully and wholeheartedly" in the passage of several laws such as the Anti-Money Laundering Act and the national budget for 2002.

Meanwhile,Sen. Gregorio Honasan charged yesterday that President Arroyo has targeted for demolition prominent members of the opposition in a bid to destabilize the opposition and reduce it to a ragtag group.

Pro-administration Sen. Renato Cayetano said he would support an investigation of Honasan’s charges if these are true "but he must present evidence because these are serious charges."

"We did not obstruct, we did not delay (the budget deliberations)," Angara said, adding that they even proposed the budget be increased for the benefit of the nation.

Angara also described Arroyo as having the mind of a fly (utak langaw) for saying that no one would want to arrest the opposition senator for an alleged destabilization plot because he could not even hurt a fly.

In his privilege speech, Angara lashed out at Arroyo and Sen. Francis Pangilinan for what he perceived as personal attacks against him.

"Senator Arroyo has accused me of creating phantoms when there are none... In fact I’m afraid of phantoms. I’m not capable, as he said, of even swatting a fly. So what phantoms is he saying?" Angara said.

"But more than the sarcasm, he (Arroyo) is accusing the opposition, the LDP (Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino) in particular, of not cooperating in this house and that hurts," he added.

Pangilinan, on the other hand, had said Angara should look at what he had done to improve the Estrada administration where he served as executive secretary, before saying that the Arroyo administration "is insecure, inept and paranoid."

Angara answered Pangilinan by enumerating his achievements during his short stint as executive secretary, like pushing for peace negotiations with the National Democratic Front, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front and various rebel groups.

Angara said the move of Arroyo and Pangilinan was unprecedented and could "poison the well of camaraderie and cooperation" in the chamber and create a divisive wall between the majority and the minority.

Angara pointed out the two administration senators broke a long-standing tradition in the Senate of not attacking a colleague personally.

Arroyo and Pangilinan should have realized that senators, while they argue violently and intensely and fight over issues in open debate, do not attack colleagues on a personal level, Angara said.

He further said the Senate, which has built a reputation as a chamber of enlightened and spirited exchange of views, will never be the same after the personal accusations made against him by the two neophyte senators.

The situation was such that senators of opposing parties cannot drink coffee together and exchange easy banter after intense debates and arguments, he added.

Arroyo, for his part, said he would deliver his own privilege speech today.

Demolition?

Honasan identified opposition Senators Edgardo Angara, Panfilo Lacson and himself as the target of the alleged "demolition campaign" by the administration.

"The administration has even included Sen. Loren Legarda, a probable alternative presidential candidate of the ruling party," he said.

Honasan charged that the administration showed its "Jekyll and Hyde" nature by calling for national unity and reconciliation while at the same time waging an "insidious" scheme against the opposition.

He went on to itemize the reasons why he believed there is such a scheme to destabilize the opposition.

"A high ranking military official was instructed to throw everything, including the kitchen sink against Senator Lacson — from being a coddler of drug lords to money laundering," Honasan said, obviously referring to Col. Victor Corpus, chief of the Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.

Honasan added that a known administration senator was enlisted to ridicule Angara "who merely called the attention of the public to the plot to harass the democratic opposition."

He said that the "demolition" campaign against Legarda was shown by the leakage of a supposedly secret military intelligence report linking her to an alleged payment of ransom for the release of television news reporter Arlyn de la Cruz.

The military later denied the existence of such an intelligence report on ransom payment.

Honasan said there was another military intelligence report codenamed COPLAN Holy Father linking him, Lacson and former Army chief Gen. Jaime de los Santos to a series of meetings regarding conglomeration of armed components for an alleged coup.

He claimed the administration was being anti-democratic in trying to destabilize the opposition "because the essence of democracy is checks and balances."

Cayetano said that Honasan made very serious charges and he would support an investigation of these charges.

"These might happen to us if and when we become the opposition," he explained.

He urged Honasan, however, to prove the charges considering their gravity. At the same time, he said he still could not see any repression of the democratic opposition by the Arroyo administration.