The current Senate thrives on infamy, with mother-and-son lawmakers promoting their dynastic interest in what used to be an august chamber, along with a sister-brother tandem of latter-day Filipinos clashing with their peers, and Rodrigo Duterte’s man Friday most interested in seeing his press releases come out, principally in one broadsheet and having his adviser do the explaining with him at the lectern when interpellated.
Then, you have the wife of pone having his gluta drip at his Senate office and hubby talking about women compelled to service their husbands when they are “in heat,” to the consternation of women’s rights advocates. This is the same guy who wants to change the Constitution but he must prove to all and sundry that he has read the Basic Law. Of course, the carnival wouldn’t be complete without mentioning a Duterte clone who has tried to avoid being investigated by the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) by delivering a privilege speech that strengthened the case against him.
There are lover boys in the Senate, too, and the list includes jesters and butchers canoodling with other officials. Let us not forget about the continuing Senate fashion show while its members are linked to the Angie Guo caper, the POGO business and Chinese enclaves in Tarlac and Pampanga. Meanwhile, the institution has been complicit in allowing the use of orders and legislative fiat to use a vacuum cleaner to secure P89.9 billion from PhilHealth even as PhilHealth had to raise the rate of contributions to beef up its fund. The reason is purely irrational: The money is not subsidy. It is a novel way to skirt around the Supreme Court (SC) ban on pork barrel and the palms of both the representatives and senators are dripping with grease in time for the midterm elections next year.
Thus, it is a whiff of fresh air to hear that former Bayan Muna Rep. Teddy Casino has declared that he is running for a Senate seat in 2025 and will make the formal announcement at the Bantayog ng mga Bayani on Aug. 21, 2024. Long targeted by rabid militarists for pursuing a legislative agenda that promotes the interest of the powerless that subsidizes a cruel, oppressive and unjust regime, Casino had led a progressive contingent at the House of Representatives that questioned legislative proposals inimical to the interest of workers, farmers, fisherfolks, students, teachers and indigenous people (IP.) Casiño, chairperson of Bagong Alyansang Makabayan, Bayan Muna congressman for nine years, and activist for nearly four decades, is more than qualified to be the people’s champion in the Senate.
Voters who sincerely believed that change was coming when Duterte strode to power in 2016 had been duped and those who elected Ferdinand Marcos Jr. in 2022 are now suffering from the proverbial buyer’s remorse. Instead of genuine change, what they got is chump change. “Binarya sa halalan, binarya pa sa paminggalan,” quipped an observer who noted that since 2016, the Filipino working class has suffered immensely as wages are a mile removed from the living wages and NEDA now insults everyone by declaring that P64 a day will fill each Filipino belly. The Marcos Jr. government is proving itself to be the example of being penny-wise and pound-foolish, being a cheapskate on giving citizens a respite with higher wages and social benefits while wasting money in Maharlika Fund and the tax perks for plutocrats.
The challenge now is for the Philippine electorate to disprove that it is not a mass of ignorant citizens who follow the lead of a corrupt conductor. “A tiny minority thinks; the rest merely feel,” 19th century Russian philosopher Pyotr Chaadayev said of his compatriots. It is now time for the vast majority to think and feel, analyze and rage, and boot out senators who may be popular but incompetent servitors of political dynasties, rentiers and special interests. From hereon, Bayan Muna and allied organizations should push what many have dubbed as the Filipino voter revolution to push out the goblins inhabiting the Senate who spend more time buying guns, pretending to be altruistic bleeding hearts or egregiously defending China’s interest. The Senate should not forever be the preserve or ex-cons or the spawn of corrupt leaders, dead or alive. It is an institution designed to craft laws, not to coddle the lawlessness of the executive branch, which can be defined as executive breach as well.
“Amid the country’s worsening crisis, our people face more hardships everyday while our elected leaders remain not just indifferent but also insatiable in their lust for power and money. Voters clamor for change yet they are betrayed by an electoral and political system dominated by corrupt clans and prone to fraud and violence. Despite the grim situation and absent any meaningful reform in politics, we continue to believe that it is important to elect more patriots in government who will advance a progressive agenda and push for genuine people empowerment,” Bayan Muna said.
The presence of Casiño in the Senate will give the marginalized and the oppressed a voice in the Upper Chamber. His unblemished record as a lawmaker is proof that he had done his job as a party-list congressman, having exposed anomalous deals and the unmitigated waste of public funds during his tenure and opposed tax measures that penalize the poor, the middle class and the elderly to prop up vanity projects while dispensing favors to the plutocrats, whose profits skyrocket annually. Casino also needs a phalanx of allies and voting for ACT Teachers Party-list Rep. France Castro, Gabriela Women’s Party Rep. Arlene Brosas, Kilusang Mayo Uno’s Jerome Adonis, former anti-poverty czar Liza Maza and fisherfolk leader Ronnel Arambulo, as well as Danilo Ramos of the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP), to pursue the people agenda at the Senate.
