The Senate’s decision to start a preliminary inquiry into the complaint of unethical behavior filed by Sen. Ana Consuelo ‘Jamby’ Madrigal against Sen. Manny Villar will have deep repercussion in the 2010 national elections and in the Senate itself, which is a collegial body thriving on consensus.
Expect fireworks in the Senate next week. Further, expect the fireworks to extend to 2010. Expect bitter exchanges in the media. In the backrooms of the Senate, expect nothing but business-as-usual.
The protagonists in this political, yes, it is political, conflict are two different and differing personalities.
Villar is a consummate traditional politician who had, as his propagandists continually harass our sensibilities with, built his political and material fortune on “sipag at tiyaga” or industry and patience. My perennial texter, a rat who is identified only by number and I suspect is also a political hatchet man of some bigger rats, had sent a message that said it was not “sipag at tiyaga” that sent Villar’s star up to a steep trajectory, but “siba at taga”. You know what that means.
On the other hand, Madrigal is already “built” before she landed, head first I am afraid, in the Senate. That’s perhaps the reason she is like that, a little off-balance, throwing tantrums whenever there’s an opportunity—or a media camera—so she would make it to the evening news. She is a consummate brat, in my estimation, whose family’s eminence in industry and commerce she had capitalized to earn a name—or a moniker—depending on where you sit. Ask the Senate media about Jamby. You will find in the Senate Press Office a reporter who crumples her press releases and turn it into a ball, with the waste basket as a hoop on a gloomy Friday afternoon.
This Jamby the Senator has visited Odiongan to campaign in 2001. I remember it clearly because I was the LDP candidate then for congressman, and I organized a huge rally for the national candidates in Odiongan.
Jamby’s staff, an idiot who thought Romblomanons will do his bidding at the mere drop of Jamby’s name, delivered in my campaign headquarters several boxes of her boss’s campaign paraphernalia and asked me with not even a ‘ni ha, ni ho’ to distribute it to the voters.
I asked him: “Where is Jamby’s budget for transportation and per diem of my campaign staff?”
The idiot said: “Walang ibinigay, eh.” Just like that.
I said: “OK. Leave it here.” In my mind formed the image of a politician who had no touch with the ground realities of Philippine communal politics; one who, I thought, when in the Senate will not remember the countryside, or Odiongan for that matter.
I was correct, as Jamby herself would prove later by her actuations in the Senate, where she likes to quarrel with anybody who doesn’t kowtow to her. She didn’t even see me in my campaign headquarters while she was in Odiongan. Lacson did. Angara did. Many others did.
Pa-importante ako? I threw Jamby’s boxes of campaign paraphernalia into the sea on my way to Corcuera. She lost in the election of 2001, but won in 2007 to the great misfortune of the Filipino people. I also lost. Hah!
And now, Jamby is pitted against Villar. Villar is running for president in 2010. Jamby may have moist eyes for the highest post of the land, but she knows her limits. Capacity? I am not sure. So, she is trying to bring down Villar with the aid of her co-senators in the majority.
I am not saying that Villar should not be investigated for misbehaviour, particularly in the controversial C-5 project, and generally, in his management of the Senate when he was its president. But Jamby pushing for the investigation? I can’t believe it.
Know her record of confrontation. Know her acid exchanges with Sen. Pia Cayetano and Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile, and you will see her as not as lily-white as she thinks she is. Come on, do the math and it’s easy to answer one-plus-one. It’s all politics.
What will happen to Villar after the Senate investigates him? Nothing. Will it rebuff or censure him? Expel him? Nah!
They are all just playing to the gallery their little silly games of politics.
It’s called tsubibo. Catch 22.
No comments:
Post a Comment