So our Commission of Appointments has flexed its muscles.
How refreshing. Here we were thinking that the appointment of Perfecto Yasay as our nation's top diplomat, our Foreign Secretary, was a fait accompli. After all, he was the anointed of strongman President Duterte, and despite Yasay's controversial statements about China's presence in the West Philippine Sea, his appointment was still being pushed by the powers that be.
It seemed like another one of those train wrecks unfolding before our eyes. You know, when we know it's going to be a disaster, but we're powerless to stop it, and we're waiting for a superhero to swoop in and save the day, and he doesn't?
Well, that's what it was like. The newspapers were reporting daily on Yasay. They were nosing around, checking sources, scrutinizing his background. The scandal was growing, headlines were screaming, and for a while, we were hooked. But to tell you the truth, I was getting a bit tired of the constant accusations and the denials and the cover-ups. Not just on Yasay, but on so many political developments in this country. Let's not even mention the Trump. I would call it battle fatigue. Was there a point to all these when nothing fruitful was being achieved?
It seemed as if the press, the trumpeter of truth, the vanguard of our principles, hasn't been winning victories lately. There was the Marcos dictatorship and burial issues, the alleged de Lima drug links, and the extrajudicial killings. Over in other shores, there are the spectacular failures of the Trump crotch-grabbing and Russia hacking stories to wake up the American voters. Truth wasn't setting anything free, lately.
So here was nominee Perfecto Yasay mangling the truth. First, he denied both in interviews and under oath, in his confirmation hearings before the Commission on Appointments, that he was an American citizen. That he had an American passport. But the press was on it.
After banner headlines making spectacular revelations that Yasay indeed had a US passport, Yasay began his descent down the slippery slope of "truth." Yes, he was granted citizenship by America, but he had this intent always inside him that he didn't want it. It was hidden, it was secret, but it was there. So apparently, when he got his passport and swore his allegiance to the land of the free, that secret intent not to ever claim American citizenship voided everything he ever said and did when filing for his citizenship papers.
Nice and slick. Would it furnish enough cover for the Commission? Would they be satisfied with the deviously constructed argument about what it meant to have acquired or not acquired foreign citizenship? Or more importantly, to a jaded observer, would this be enough to cover the behinds of those meekly falling in line with the wishes of the Presidential Palace?
Frankly, I was pessimistic. I didn't think that the lawmakers, who so far had seemed to be solidly behind the President's agenda, would buck this appointment. So what if nominee Yasay had lied to them? So what if the position required Filipino citizenship? So what if the press could murder them in scathing opinion pieces if they confirmed Yasay's appointment? They were in power at the right time, right?
But fortunately (or, unfortunately, depending on which camp the reader falls), the Commission didn't buy it. In a rare unanimous vote, the Commission voted not to confirm nominee Yasay. For lying. Yes, for lying!
Committee Chairman Panfilo Lacson has disclosed that "in the view of...the members…that he was not telling the truth, he was not being forthright...we decided to reject his ad interim appointment."
Who would have thought? After such a long time, when truth has been trampled, kicked, covered up, and disregarded, here was the truth being honored and given its due respect. By politicians!
Has a new day arrived? It would be naive to think so. But frankly, there's room for hope. At least it sends signals to those who would be tempted to lie and cheat. To the alternative facts and false news advocates. Beware.
Not everything is screwed up in our country. Not yet.