A Senator De La Rosa joke

In public speaking, as it is even in press conferences, a communicator holds his audience better if he weaves jokes in his exposition. We know joke to mean something said or done to provoke laughter or as the internet defines it, a joke is a brief oral narrative with a climactic humorous twist. In its ordinary sense, a joke uttered is usually followed by appreciative smiles or boisterous laughter.

It did not appear to be so in one artistic expression of the British singer and songwriter Robin Hugh Gibb of the famous Bee Gees. In 1968, Robin sang these opening lyrics “I started a joke which started the whole world crying. But I didn't see that the joke was on me oh no”. Today, after more than 50 years when that song became popular, Senator Ronald “Bato” Marapon de la Rosa, did a Robin Gibb reprise. He started a virtual joke which I, despite my being an old jolly good fellow, could not laugh. Without Senator Bato’s knowing it, the joke was on him, and unfortunately it probably made many Filipinos cry for this ideal called justice, if not revenge.

Last Wednesday, Senator de la Rosa announced that the Senate Committee on Public Order and Dangerous Drugs, of which he is the chairman, will conduct an investigation into the anti-drug war campaign of the administration of former President Rodrigo Roa Duterte. I suppose this is going to a legislative inquiry in aid of legislation. Of course, when he made such announcement, he was aware that the House of Representatives created some kind of a super body called the quadcom composed of four (that is why the prefix quad) committees namely the Committee on Dangerous Drugs, Public Order and Safety, Human Rights and Public Accounts chaired by Representatives Robert Ace Barbers, Dan Fernandez, Bienvenido Abante Jr., and Joseph Stephen “Caraps” Paduano. In the series of quadcom legislative investigations bombshells were exploded including diabolical assertions against Sen. Bato as then Philippine National Police chief and implementor of the anti-drug campaign and Duterte himself.

This is where the joke lies. If that inquiry opens, Senator Bato is expected to ask Kerwin Espinosa, who before the quadcom admitted that in a contentious Senate hearing, years ago, he testified that Senator Leila de Lima was, in a way, involved in the narcotics trade and Espinosa proceeded in saying that it was Senator Bato who coaxed him into such declaration hinting that his failure to so implicate De Lima would affect adversely his family.

The Espinosa declaration before the quadcom shocked the whole country and somehow gave meat to the ugly rumor about Senator Bato’s dark role in the eventual incarceration of De Lima. I surmise that the hidden purpose of this De la Rosa investigation is to clear de la Rosa of wrong doings uncovered by Congress’ Quadcom. De la Rosa investigates De la Rosa.

De la Rosa was such a favorite of Duterte that he jumped over higher-ranking officers to become the chief of the PNP. The honored line of command was desecrated as the lord (Duterte) and vassal (Bato) relationship got cemented. When former police colonel Royina Garma, in her appearances before the quadcom, revealed that the extrajudicial killings, patterned from a Davao City model were structured for national implementation upon directives of the former president, the complicity of the senator to the hostis humani generis reportedly done by Duterte became clear. This joke of a Senate investigation is designed to shield the principal from suffering the wretched fruit of his bloody war. It is not funny

To me, this De la Rosa joke will let him hear the cries of the thousand victims of EJK and Robin Gibb’s music will find practical application.