OUR national leaders are in the fighting mood these days. As soon as world boxing hero Manny Pacquiao arrived in the country after his victorious bout in Macau, he was greeted with a garnishment order issued by Bureau of Internal Revenue Commissioner Kim Henares on his P1.1 million bank accounts.
Pacquiao, one of the world’s richest athletes and the richest lawmaker in the land, immediately run to the media to accuse Henares and the Aquino administration of harassing him, hinting further that he is being singled out due to his political ambition in 2016.
At the Senate, our senators are not about to concede the limelight to the Pacquiao and Henares bout. Sen. Jinggoy Estrada grilled Commission on Audit Commissioner Grace Pulido-Tan during the deliberation of the budget of COA for 2014, notably on the agency’s alleged misuse of the DAP in the purchase of service vehicles for them. Tan, in retort, said Estrada is merely getting back at her because she implicated her in the pork barrel fund scam that tarnished his reputation and jeopardized his vice presidential ambition in 2016.
Senate Minority Leader Juan Ponce Enrile, for his part, broke his silence and finally responded to previous tirades hurled against him by his arch-critic, Sen. Miriam Defensor Santiago, who accused him for being the “godfather” of the pork barrel scam. Santiago had accused Enrile not just for being the alleged mastermind behind the sinister pork barrel scheme of infamous businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles but also as a murderous man out to silence Napoles for good.
She even alleged that Enrile gave a hefty sum of money for Moro National Liberation Front Chairman Nur Misuari to seize Zamboanga City in order to distract the national attention from the former Senate president accused of scheming the pork fund. Enrile, though, called the lady senator as the “grandmamma” of all liars.
And just when we thought it would just pass off as a mere national comic relief or past time, Sen. Santiago vowed to return to the plenary hall to confront Sen. Enrile on Dec. 4 to have the last say on the whole controversy. She even issued a public advisory for those who wish to attend and hear her lambast her colleague, offering gallery seats on a “first-come-first-serve” basis.
But while our national leaders are preoccupied with exchanging incendiary words against one another, they should be reminded that the rest of the Filipino people are busy extending whatever help possible to those who survived the super typhoon Yolanda last month. In all these fights, it is the image of the Senate as an institution that is damaged, and the whole Filipino people who stand to lose. No one wins in all these fights.
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