Uncivilized

Whatever Benjamin Abalos’ faults might be, he surely did not deserve the sort of uncivilized treatment he received at the Senate — especially in the hands of Aquilino Pimentel and Richard Gordon.

What happened in the Senate last Wednesday was an orgy, not a decent inquiry. The senators were at their most uncouth. They squabbled among themselves as they elbowed for TV face time. They were repetitive, seeking to hog the spotlight more than shed light on the issue. They virtually spat on their resource persons but called their guests arrogant if they dared be a little light-hearted. At every opportunity, the senators insulted each other.

This was not a chamber of statesmen. It was a pig sty.

Television coverage should have been rated R so that children are advised against watching it at the risk of imbibing the crude attitude of the senators and, at many instances, their plain illogic. One female senator takes the cake for perorating at length about nothing in particular.

I was not the only one disturbed by that orgy at the Senate. The whole of Thursday, people were calling in or texting radio programs complaining about the senators’ demeanor. A few foreign friends, diplomats and journalists, called me up asking an explanation about why our Senate is so.

I offered them several theories, or several facets of what could be a single theory to explain why this chamber could so easily lose its civility.

First, 5 senators are actively positioning for the 2010 presidential contest. Another 5 are considered potential vice-presidential bets. With so many seeking higher office, the Senate will likely have difficulty mustering a quorum when they all begin campaigning. From today to the next elections, expect these ambitious senators to exploit their seat at the Senate and use it as a vantage point to build name-recall.

Many of them will want to test what may now be called the Alan Cayetano Gambit: make accusations without evidence, engineer hysterical confrontations, catch media attention, build name-recall and win the next elections. Although it degrades the quality of public discourse, it is apparently an effective way to win elective office.

Second, the issue at hand is thin and the senators have to compensate for that thinness by indulging in theatrics. They are hard-pressed to do that, given the intense media attention accorded the Senate hearing on the broadband.

The issue is thin because there is really no evidence. Joker Arroyo did point out sometime during the hearings that noting could be resolved in this forum. It is a circle in a spiral, a he-said, she-said situation with no one in possession of any hard evidence.

The plot of this so-called scandal is itself a puzzle. I wonder why none of the senators asked what should be the central logical flaw in the storyline of this so-called scandal: Why is it that the two instances when bribes were supposed to have been offered happened after the deal was perfected? What was the point of those astounding bribes if the basic architecture of this deal could no longer be altered?

None of the senators zeroes in on that logical flaw. I could understand why. Doing so would kill this controversy, force the circus to an early end and deny all the media-hogging senators their golden moment to win free TV face-time.

With no hard evidence, the senators were simply fishing, possibly for an earthshaking soundbite or a dazzling media angle. The wonder of last Wednesday’s session was that it could be made to stretch for over 11 hours with nothing determinable to deal with. Senators simply repeated questions, editorialized on end, hectored the resource persons and, yes, insulted each other.

They remind me of a particularly bad teacher I had in grade school who, with nothing to teach, picked something each day to be angry about and scolded us for hours. Day in and day out, we were terrified but not educated.

After several sessions, this Senate expedition into case of the broadband contract surely seems to be a mansion constructed on the shifting sands of innuendo and hearsay. It is a story without a satisfying conclusion. It is a scandal without a hinge to keep it in place.

After building so much public expectation about its outcomes and investing so much uneducated passion in the proceedings, the greatest fear of the senators is that this whole episode will end in a whimper. There will be no fireworks in the end and the audience will be left as confused as they were at the start.

The last hope for anything dramatic to come out of this orgy is whatever private conversation Romy Neri might have had with the President. For that, the senators harassed the poor nerd no end. They are threatening to punish Neri with contempt if he insists in what he calls a matter of executive privilege or what might simply be called the sanctity of private communication.

Even in this case, the senators might be building a trap for themselves, hauling up an anvil that will drop on their own heads. I suspect that even if Romy Neri blurts out the Truth he is keeping to himself as a matter of executive privilege, that Truth will be absolutely boring and inconsequential. It might be embarrassing; but inconsequential nonetheless.

The battle for that inconsequential Truth could go up the Supreme Court and, in the end, we will all look like fools. But no bigger fools than the senators might turn out to be.

Romy Neri is a dear friend. I know him well. He is absolutely incapable of getting enmeshed in a horrendous conspiracy. His talents lie in deep thought and honest talk.

There is so much Zen in him that I suspect he is capable of playing possum, keeping absolutely still and yet immovable, until the clowns around him, by their own frantic but directionless energy, unmask themselves to be such.