EDITORIAL - Cheapening of congressional investigations

This paper has made its position known regarding the controversial food provisions given policemen who are providing security for the APEC meetings in Cebu. And that position is for policemen on special assignments to be provided for in a manner that does not step on their dignities as human beings. These policemen did not ask to be feed like the APEC delegates. That doesn't mean they should be fed so cheaply.

But in making its position known, this paper merely suggested the issue be taken as a lesson learned, that in the future, policemen should be allowed to keep their dignity and self-respect intact. And then along came Senator Antonio Trillanes, who is said to be aspiring for higher office in 2016. Apparently on the lookout for issues to take up, in aid of election, he was reported to be interested in pushing for a Senate investigation of the police APEC meal fiasco.

The push for a Senate investigation on the issue comes on the heels of yet another Senate investigation pushed this time by Senator Alan Peter Cayetano on the matter of the aborted Customs plan to conduct random checks on balikbayan boxes. Trillanes and Cayetano are two of a triumvirate investigating controversial issues in Makati involving the family of Vice President Jejomar Binay. The third senator in the trio is Aquilino Pimentel III.

Taken as a whole, congressional investigations have not measured up to the seeming importance of their name. Nothing practical, meaningful and beneficial has been derived from these investigations. Not only have they become a total waste of time, money and effort, they have helped immensely in further demeaning the honor and dignity that once cloaked the legislature.

If at all, congressional investigations only help in promoting the name recall of the politicians involved in them. And that may precisely be the one and only compelling reason why such investigations are conducted at all. In elections where aspirants number many times more than the positions available, name recall can prove to be very crucial.

As a result, politicians are elected to positions not on the basis of merit but as a result of mere expediency. What that amounts to is a country run by people who may not be the best or most qualified. The sad thing is that this is not the exception but the norm. And as the norm, it is being improved on to greater heights of folly.

Congressional inquiries are not essentially bad. In fact they are intrinsically good. But they have been used for purposes far removed from what those who first put them there truly intended. In other words, they have been misappropriated and abused. But since they cannot be done away with and must forever remain a part of the legislative function, people are left with no choice but to try and trust the system and pray it does not explode in our faces.