Santiago in the Senate: Mother of the people
I’VE ALWAYS voted for Miriam Defensor-Santiago as senator. In a government where “sanity” means twisting the truth and exalting (or “gloria-fying”) lies, we need ample “insanity.” I had always hoped that Senator Santiago would stay “insane” enough to make a good difference in the Senate. I regarded her as the Filipino people’s mother in the Senate.
It’s sad that she now seems poised to defend Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez in the impeachment trial. Santiago says she sees no probable cause against Gutierrez and calls the impeachment case against the incumbent Ombudsman an anti-Arroyo move.
With due respect to Santiago, it demeans her to act like a typical lawyer defending low lives in high places. Moreover, I’m not a moron who cannot see that the Office of the Ombudsman is becoming a morgue for cases filed against officials and allies of the former administration. Gutierrez’s “deadening inaction” is very well summarized in the editorial “Real option.” (Inquirer, 3/4/11) Incredibly, she functions like the fabled “Ibong Adarna” as she sits on and petrifies cases. Why would she give Maj. Gen. Carlos Garcia a “flee bargain”? Is Garcia rattling his collection of ugly skeletons in the Arroyo administration so that he gets rescued from a life sentence? Or can he be a state witness and just be penalized with pushups—one pushup for every centavo he allegedly stole? Was Gen. Angelo Reyes, who was too honorable to collect insurance skeletons from his cohorts, sacrificed for Garcia? Reyes’ “stonewalling” could’ve delayed Garcia’s case enough to outlast the unyielding Aquino administration. We’ll find answers as soon as the Ibong Adarna is clipped. It belongs in a cage, not in the powerful Office of the Ombudsman.
So dear Senator Santiago, “’Nay”—remember when you tearfully swore to leave politics? Let me just say that you are most loved for the fleeting moments when you look away from your desk and work, and you’re not the brilliant politician/judge/ lawyer that you are but solely a caring mother to your children. We need our mother in the Senate now, not the politician.
—ERNIE LAPUZ,
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