Ambition, Thy Name is Chiz

By Joey Salgado

I have seen the inner workings of the Senate as a beat reporter and a staff member for two senators. Those were the heady days after the 1986 EDSA Revolution, when the Senate was an institution revered for its independence, the senators exalted for their elegance of language and oratory, their impressive knowledge of the law, history, politics, and the raging issues of the day. Yes, Erap Estrada was there, and later, Ramon Revilla Sr., the original “agimat.” But they were wise enough to sit and listen to their more erudite colleagues during plenary debates.

It was a time when democracy and national interests took precedence over egos and political ambitions, and believe me, the Senate has always housed some of the most self-centered and ambitious political figures in our nation’s history. But when times demanded it, the personal was overridden by duty to democracy and the Constitution.

Founded on the ideal of a select chamber of learned individuals, the Senate has, over the years, been transformed into a chamber of the popular over the learned. It has become a retirement home for celebrities past their prime, factotums of popular incumbents, and a six-year pit stop, 12 if re-elected, for scions of political families with precious business interests to protect.

Over the years, the Senate has shown occasional cracks in its once-formidable independence from the Executive. But we continue to look at the Senate for a sense of national perspective, even if of late we have been treated to painful examples of arrogance masking intellectual or moral vacuity, or hypocritical appeals to democracy and national unity to hide naked partisanship or ambition. The Senate today is a disappointment.

If in our eyes the once hallowed institution is no longer worthy of our trust and respect, we only have Senate President Francis “Chiz” Escudero and his overweening ambition to blame.

The Senate President is not simply the presiding officer of the chamber. The Senate President is the face of the Senate, the ruler of his own little kingdom, dispensing favors and perks, with a bit more thrown in the direction of loyalists and chosen allies, while cracking the whip on errant members but not too hard as to antagonize them to the point that they would initiate a coup.

While projecting power, the Senate President is also at the mercy of his colleagues who need to be made content not only with budgetary generosity but political trade offs. Among politicians, the Senate President must be the consummate politician, the master of the backroom deals.

It’s all about the Senate Presidency

Often, the simplest explanation is usually the correct explanation. Escudero’s handling of the impeachment trial of Vice President Sara Duterte can be seen, in simple terms, as a tactical move to retain the Senate presidency. He wants to lock in the votes of the Duterte bloc in the 20th Congress.

Escudero is not a rabid Duterte supporter who had just come out of the closet. Nor is he a dyed-in-the-wool Marcos man even if his father was a member of the late dictator’s Cabinet. He cannot be accused of shifting loyalties. Throughout his political career, Escudero has shown that his loyalty is to himself. If he were a Beatles fan, his favorite song would be “I, Me, Mine.”

Because of his unbridled desire to retain the Senate presidency, he has allowed the Duterte senators to turn the hallowed chamber into their playground. He has not exercised firm and judicious leadership to temper the chaotic behavior of the Duterte partisans.

And each time he is confronted by inconvenient questions, he resorts to his circuitous monotone, the meandering doublespeak that is the political equivalent of rhetorical diarrhea.

When Escudero and the Duterte senators invoke democracy and the Constitution, you can only recoil at the facetiousness and hypocrisy. They preach the value of independent institutions while abandoning their constitutional duty to try the impeached Vice President, even contemplating a preemptive exoneration. By raising legal issues, they are setting up a legal challenge before a Supreme Court dominated by appointees of the Vice President’s detained father.

What is the price of one man’s ambition? Escudero is willing to burn down the Senate and plunge the country into chaos. But it’s a price that we will be made to pay.

This article also appears in Rappler.