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Like most Filipinos who watch the ABS-CBN news channel and listen to
DZMM’s live coverage of Senate hearings, I find them entertaining
and informative. I think they are vital to the development of our
democracy.
But while being thrilled by the antics of a
senator or a witness, we must never lose our capacity to ask: Why is
this senator saying that? Why is he grilling the witness in that
manner and along that line of questioning?
The senators act and speak to impress the
TV and radio audiences. This aim—put down as “grandstanding”
by Palace spokesmen—is as important to some senators as to dig up
facts and arrive at the truth. We must take it against them for
leading witnesses to blurt out only words that can pass for facts
that will strengthen their personal and partisan positions.
Witnesses too will not spill out every mite of
thought and recollection in their heads. Even those witnesses whose
intention is to spill out everything will not be like those open
fire hydrants and public faucets of our city. Their own (or the
senators’) linguistic and educational limitations constrain them
from fully comprehending questions they are being asked. Answers the
truly honest witnesses give are also colored by biases they do not
realize they have.
Sharp and honest witnesses, armed with knowledge
and mastery of the topic being discussed, own firmly held
convictions about how to make this country a better place. They will
not voluntarily divulge anything that will undermine those
convictions.
Witnesses are also called guests and resource
persons. Most of the time Messrs. De Venecia, Lozada, Madriaga, San
Miguel, Favila and the others have been treated like dirt by some
senators.
Favila and Gordon
Witnesses and senators are subject to their
physiological limitations. Almost twelve hours at a Senate hearing,
unless you spend some of it napping, can cause your brain circuits
to function less efficiently.
This seemed to have happened to Sec. Peter
Favila while being grilled by Sen. Dick Gordon at almost the end of
last Tuesday’s hearing.
The senator, clearly, was trying to make Favila
look irresponsible and less-than competent for having signed the
ZTE-NBN deal Memorandum of Understanding without taking steps to
ascertain what eventually the substance and details of subsequent
loan agreements and supply contracts would be.
The trade secretary mentioned his being the
administration’s topmost investment man. But he failed to
elaborate on it. He responded to Gordon’s interrogation
inadequately. He could have demolished Gordon’s position—if he
were not so brain tired.
Sec. Favila should have reminded Sen. Gordon
that the administration—of whose political party Gordon had been a
winning senatorial candidate—has an ovearching economic policy
of bringing in foreign investments. That this policy and goal are a
crucial part of the government’s economic plan to increase
employment and end massive poverty. That the program to haul in
foreign investment and loans includes getting foreign entities, like
the global ZTE corporation—one of China’s and the world’s
largest, to sign MOUs stating their willingness to invest in the
Philippines and finance areas of Philippine development.
Favila should have told Gordon, the Senate and
the TV audiences that, being next to the President, the country’s
head investment salesman, he would even sign MOUs with Martians who
will say they will bring in money for Philippine projects, even in
one that would use Philippine crystals that could promote
interstellar travel. He should have reminded Gordon that these MOUs
are only the first step in getting dollars from other
countries—and planets. And that Sen. Gordon should not fault him
for not knowing whether any MOU he signed would be followed through
or not—and how. For it ceases to be his responsibility to turn an
MOU into a real loan or investment agreement and supply contract
with the foreign party.
Losing it
Some senators allow a thought to go beyond their
control. They end their questioning, after being given an extra
minute or the whole time allotted to another senator, withered by
the wit or dogged reticence of a witness. They come away with a
pitiful whimper. Or with a bang of disproportionate outrage that
makes them look like they are losing it!
It saddens me that hearings are frequently
occasions of incivility and even meanness. Senators guilty of this
should be shown videos of American and British hearings, where wit
and extreme politeness ordinarily reign.
I suppose the senators who do not hesitate to
humiliate witnesses think they are just being normal and acting as
most Filipinos do. They are very wrong.
rq_bas@yahoo.com
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