An idiot’s point of view

Many are familiar with Patrick Henry’s powerful oration where he said the immortal line “Give me liberty or give me death.” But not everyone of those who put such speech to his memory remembers that he supposedly delivered that oratory during the Second Virginia Convention on March 23, 1775, before a gathering of Virginia legislators at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Richmond, Virginia. Historical records show that among the delegates to that convention were future United States presidents Thomas Jefferson and George Washington. I have read though from the internet that the speech of Patrick Henry that we prefer to recite in literary and forensic assemblages is a posthumous reconstruction done by biographer William Hirt, over forty years after Patrick Henry delivered his speech and eighteen years after his death.

Patrick Henry, like all legislators worldwide including our own congressmen and senators are, in each of their socio-political settings, a different breed of people. They are a class by themselves and so high strung that they occupy quite a definitively higher societal stratum compared to ordinary citizens. Most of them are intellectually brilliant and some are affluent. In many cases, their political philosophies either reduced to scholarly literature or uttered verbally in conventions help lay down the foundations of the kind of government that rule over their nations. By force of necessity, they are allowed by their political structures to express their thoughts more freely than the people they govern.

In Philippine setting, our lawmakers enjoy privileged lives. While attending sessions, they are free to introduce fundamentally sound principles of governance or utter libelous statements without risk of any censure from outside the walls of legislature. This is generally called parliamentary privilege giving rise to parliamentary immunity. But, we must note that lawmakers are answerable to their peers for whatever they say or do in Congress and in the exercise of their duties.

Here comes Congressman Arnolfo “Arnie” Alipit Teves Jr., of the third district of Negros Oriental. I researched for his complete name for reason of accuracy in order to spare some of his namesakes from adverse media. More importantly I want to parry the impact of the recent surge of his bad reputation. I am the idiot who dares to tackle his issue from a predominantly adverse position.

News reports talk of the actions of the Anti-Terrorism Council (ATC) and Congress. The ATC designated the Maute group that destroyed Marawi City years ago and Cong Teves as terrorist in a single pronouncement. The Maute as a band of armed soldiers fought an open war against the Armed Forces of the Philippines for about 6 months starting May 23, 2017. After six years, they deserved to be designated as terrorists.

The most dreadful attack reportedly committed against the peace and order situation of Negros Oriental was the murder of Gov. Roel Degamo, on March 4, 2023. The siege took place as rapidly as less than an hour and not for six months. It was perpetrated by a handful of men not wielding the kind of heavy fire power used by hundreds of Mautes in Marawi. The government used brigades of soldiers led by tanks and armored personnel and protected from air by war planes to retake Marawi while only a small company of policemen was needed to pursue and arrest the suspected Degamo killers! Finally, the brains behind the armed raid of Marawi were known and identified, but in the case of Negros Oriental we only have allegations that Congressman Teves was the mastermind in the killing of Gov Degamo. I may have made these idiotic comparisons, but really I am not the fool who rushes in where legal eagles above me refuse to tread.

By the way, I have no more space here to look at how Congress is mishandling the Teves affairs. I will do it in later columns.