EDITORIAL — Senate decorum

Some senators are riled up about how other senators are behaving when conducting official business. In particular, they point out to how some solons engage in “unparliamentary, offensive and improper words or actions” that would offend a senator or any public institution

We assume they are referring to incidents where some senators exchanged loud words, angry gestures, and one particular incident where one senator groomed his moustache during a legislative hearing.

Now one of them wants to call out others on “unsenator-like” behavior and remind them of Senate decorum.

"I believe there are steps we can take to address these concerns and uphold the integrity of the Senate. There exists some provisions in the Rules of the Senate governing unparliamentary acts and language and needless to say that a senator may also be called to order for a transgression of the Rules," said Senator Jinggoy Estrada.

We agree that a senator’s language and behavior should be dignified. When one is in high office, one is expected to behave according to the dignity that comes with that position.

Actually, all this talk about what language and behavior a public official should show and use could have been brought up during the previous administration and addressed to the former president himself who was fond of using foul language and gestures that were not fit for someone of his office, but that’s water under the bridge right now.

We also suggest something else aside from just improving Senate decorum; improving their performance, the caliber of their work.

As it stands right now the Senate isn’t exactly the best and brightest of our people. Let’s face it, we have an action star with zero political experience, a former PNP police chief who sees only black and white, a media personality who is a known bully, another ageing action star with political experience but no track record to speak of, someone who was been charged with graft, another who has been charged with plunder, among other “personalities”. Not exactly something we can boast of to outsiders.

There are only a few of them making us proud to call them senators of the republic. They are those who really want to hold the accountable to account. They are those who have public interest in mind. They are those who don’t just say yes to everything the executive department wants.

Yes, how a senator behaves and talks is important. But what is more important is how that senator does the job he or she was put in public office for.