I was in the middle of a noontime radio interview on DZME yesterday when news started trickling in about an unprecedented adjournment of the House only hours before the President’s annual State of the Nation Address.
Reporting from the Batasan, my good friend and DZME veteran Leo Palo theorized that the adjournment was Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez’s way of hitting back at the powers-that-be who were apparently poised to replace him with former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
Rep. Arroyo was in fact elected that afternoon by a clear majority of 161 out of the nearly 300 congressmen to become their next Speaker. I suspect that the voting stopped as soon as the majority was reached, because earlier stories placed the number of Arroyo’s supporters at as many as 200-plus.
In any case, the adjournment scuttled the planned early signing of the Bangsamoro Organic Law, which could have otherwise become a highlight of Duterte’s address. And it shifted the drama away from what the President would say, to the more suspenseful question: Who would bang the gavel to open the joint session on behalf of the Lower House?
As it turned out, Speaker Alvarez got to do those honors, though perhaps for the last time. If Arroyo’s selection to replace him was valid—and so far nobody’s said otherwise—he can at least savor being able to leave his high office with a (gavel) bang, not a whimper.
On Arroyo’s part, there is nothing she can gain from serving out the last year of her last term in Congress as its Speaker. It’s difficult to top being president for nine years, as she was, the longest-ever except for the Marcos years.
I can only attribute her decision to serve, to her well-known sense of public obligation. And I suspect that her main agenda will be steering to ratification a charter change process that’s turning out to be more contentious that anyone imagined.
As a a free-market advocate, I hope she’ll be bolder about relaxing the constitutional restrictions on foreign investment than Duterte’s consultative committee turned out to be, since they didn’t touch any of the restrictions except for adding the conditionality: “unless Congress shall otherwise provide by law.” Perhaps a grandmother with a metal plate in her spine will show more gumption than all those lawyers in Con-com.
And as an observant Catholic, I’m encouraged that a Speaker Arroyo, together with another observant Catholic like Senate President Sotto, will hold to the lines drawn in the sand by the Church on hot-button issues like the death penalty, divorce, same-sex marriage, and—unthinkable until only recently—especially abortion.
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Perhaps the other highlight of yesterday’s SONA was the President’s decision—for the first time ever—to stay with the written speech, refrain from improvising, end it more or less on time, and utter not a single curse word all throughout.
That may have robbed the sensationalizers in media of fresh complaints to sling at the administration. But it should have gladdened the hearts of Duterte supporters who’ve been waiting for him to finally settle down into his job and behave more presidentially even if he prefers to be called Mayor.
There were no big surprises in the SONA, just the usual reiteration of long-held positions. And that in itself was already significant: Sticking stubbornly to the key planks of his reform agenda, despite mounting criticism on issues like the war on drugs, the West Philippine Sea, tax reform under TRAIN, and of course Charter change.
What’s notable is what Duterte said little or nothing about. One of these was the progress to date of major projects covered by his ambitious Build Build Build infrastructure program. His relative silence, though, isn’t really surprising, since it was just the other week that he publicly expressed his unhappiness over the pace of construction.
The other, bigger omission was peace talks with the communist Left. It seems that Duterte’s high hopes have finally been dashed once too often by the cynicism of the CPP ideologues. And in any case, his decision to shift the stage for peace talks from national to local level may mean that we’ll be hearing more on this from local officials like, say, the President’s daughter Inday Sara, who’s pioneering localized peace talks in her own turf of Davao City.
Towards the end of his speech, Duterte reminded us of the importance of political will in a leader, “otherwise he’s just a hopeless dreamer.” And he closed with the well-known quotation from Abraham Lincoln that “a leader can only hope to do his best.”
“If he turns out to be right, all his critics won’t matter. But if he turns out to be wrong, all of God’s angels singing his praise won’t make a difference.”
It’s a quotation that pretty much also summarizes the leadership philosophy of Duterte’s predecessor in office two administrations earlier, and now his potential partner in leadership as the new Speaker of the House. With the adults now back in charge of the ship of state, things are looking up.
Readers can write me at gbolivar1952@yahoo.com.