Robin Padilla is the queer senator we need

“Of all the queer birds I ever did see, the owl is the queerest by part of me.” This is the first line of the poem THE OWL, written by Philip Edward Thomas. His poetry, literary critics say, displayed a profound love of an archaic use of diction. I am curious that even until today, there are other poets and men of letters (and grammarians too) who like to tinker with the very first line of The Owl. They believe that the poem should read “Of all the queer birds I ever did see, the owl is the queerest BY FAR TO me. (capital, supplied.)

The phrase “by part of me” may just be an archaic coinage but I think that even in its perceptively flawed grammatical construction, Thomas wanted more to be understood as a queer being as the owl. The queer nature of the owl was likely his own too and that was why he wrote “part of me.”

There was a time in our political history that we elected as senators the likes of Arturo Tolentino, Lorenzo Tanada, Tecla San Andres Ziga, Jovito Salonga, Jose Diokno and Francis Drilon, all who as brilliant lawyers, are themselves queer in class. Today, in apparent contrast, the solemn halls of the Philippine Senate may no longer be the conclave of learned men. With few exceptions, it may be bar room of such queer and misplaced personalities as Lito Lapid and Bong Revilla.

If the word queer means something odd or strange, there is a lawmaker who probably is the queerest of them all without necessarily being an owl. Senator Robin Padilla is queer because his background is not aligned to being a legislator. He is a man odd out. Admittedly he reigns supreme in the celluloid world where memorizing dialogues and not exchanging verbal rapiers is the norm. In the movies, Padilla is considered an action star but he is not known as a legal scholar.

To my surprise, Padilla opened his queer mouth quite recently. The movie star-legislator spoke of sponsoring a bill to fight political dynasty. Since the topic was rather odd for him to dwell, I could only surmise that an idealist staffer of the senator told him that the Philippine Constitution provides that “the State shall xx prohibit political dynasties as may be defined by law.” While no senator in the past has thought of writing such an enabling law, Padilla’s queer sallying caught me delightfully off-guarded.

A political dynasty refers to a family in which multiple members are involved in electoral politics. Members may be related by blood or marriage; often several generations or multiple siblings may be involved. Examples in the national scene - the Marcoses, the Dutertes, the Estradas, the Macapagals, the Villars, the Cayetanos. Political dynasties control the flow of policies in government which protect their vested interests. They have the machinery to prevent people outside their families from getting elected to office. When the members of the 1986 Constitutional Commission wrote as a fundamental principle of the State to prohibit political dynasties, they envisioned of a more democratic republic of the people, by the people and for the people.

Philip Edward Thomas must have referred to Senator Robin Padilla as his queer owl. I doff my hat to this queer senator for putting the best interest of the nation at the top of his legislative agenda. Let us rally around him and prove that sometimes we need queer leaders.