The Alan and Harry Show
The battle for the House speakership continues in defiance of President Duterte’s wishes. Speaker Alan Cayetano suspends the House session until Nov. 16 to skip over the supposed Oct. 14 speakership turnover. He relegates the critical budget work of vetting amendments to a small committee of his partisans.
But let’s look at the larger playing field beyond the players. Cayetano is Speaker of the House, which means he represents the majority will of that institution. Each member of the House, in turn, is a representative of a specific legislative district or a party list constituency. One can rightly ask, is this chain of representation authentic, or merely a perversion of the underlying contract?
One needs to ask this, because the actuations of the House over the past few months is arguably contrary to the interest of or expression of interest by their constituents. The passage of the anti-terrorism law, the nonrenewal of the ABS-CBN franchise, and now the likely wishy-washy approval of the executive budget proposal are arguably contrary to the interest of the people. Cayetano and the members of the House are seemingly “lawyering” for the people, but all the while privatizing the resources, capabilities, and opportunities of the people for their selfish ends.
Democratic theory tells us there are two forms of representation—the “messenger” type and the “lawyer” type. A messenger-type representative is a person who communicates or transmits the message of a principal exactly the way the principal would have conveyed it, no more, no less. This applies not only to the content of the message but its tone—respectful or resentful, belligerent or amicable.
A lawyer-type representative interprets, determines, and verbalizes the interest of the principal the best way he sees fit. The main difference, of course, is competence. In the messenger type, the principal, such as the public or electorate, is deemed competent to determine and articulate its interest, if only the messenger would care to find out what it is. In the lawyer type, the principal is incompetent to determine and articulate its true interest, which is why it needs a lawyer to tell it what its interest really is.
But let’s turn around and look at Harry Roque in Malacañang. Roque says of his job: “I speak for the President now. In this capacity, I have no personal opinions.” Apparently, this is not the case. Roque has perverted his role as messenger-type representative, often injecting his own expertise and opinion to color the communications of the President.
Take the case of the speakership battle between Cayetano and Lord Allan Velasco. Despite Mr. Duterte’s reassurances to Velasco, Roque repeatedly says that the speakership contest is an internal matter.
Take the case of the very solemn speech of the President before the UN General Assembly recently. That speech broke with the oft-declared nonchalance and denial of the administration over the Philippines’ arbitral victory against China on the validity of Beijing’s nine-dash line claim. It opened the door to Philippine cooperation in fighting the pandemic, avoiding war, improving the global economy, and affirming the importance of the UN system. Yet, even before the applause of an astounded Filipino and international public could die down, Roque, who could have remained silent, came out blasting the uncharacteristic optimism to say nothing has changed in the stance of President Duterte. The arbitral ruling is there, but he is not going to actively pursue it.
Then there is the matter of how Roque addresses Vice President Leni Robredo, who has given critical comments and suggestions about how the government is responding to the pandemic. Mr. Duterte says the people should not listen to Robredo. The media portrayal of Roque’s reaction is instructive: “Roque challenges Robredo to come up with solution to COVID-19 pandemic.” Roque mocks the Vice President, saying If she can produce a solution in the absence of a vaccine, “she could become president right now.” He also says, “As you know, VP Leni is already in campaign mode.”
So, Cayetano is perverting the lawyer-type representation role in Congress while Roque is perverting the messenger-type representation role in Malacañang. There you go—the Alan and Harry Show!
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