Manila: Even if Filipino congressman Ronald Singson has pleaded guilty to drug use charges in Hong Kong, as his lawyers and his father, Ilocos Sur province governor Luis “Chavit” Singson, have indicated all along, the members and the leaders of the House of Representative seem still in a quandary over what to do with him. While Iloilo Rep. Niel Tupas has said that the ethics committee should on its own press ahead with disciplinary action that may lead to the expulsion of the lawmaker from the chamber, most lawmakers are pleading for Singson to resign so as to save the House from further embarrassment. Presumably the second alternative would be less bloody, less contentious.
The problem is, blood has been splattered all over the chamber. And it’s the blood from maimed and murdered decorum, from eviscerated delicadeza (sense of propriety). It is the blood of justice wrung dry and desiccated of all relevance and import. If up to this time, our lawmakers are still treating Singson with kid gloves, giving him, as they say, the benefit of the doubt, then say goodbye to public service above reproach, and say welcome to sheer insensitivity, to arrogant untouchability.
Singson was caught with 6.67 grams of cocaine and two tablets of Valium at the customs arrival hall of the Hong Kong international airport on July 11, 2010. His father initially called the incident a “set-up", blaming political rivals for tipping off the HK customs and claiming his children didn’t take drugs. But earlier this year, the governor indicated his son would plead to the lesser offense of drug use. The elder Singson’s attempts to clear his son’s name is understandable, although he must realise that as an elected governor himself, elected officials and public servants are measured by high public standards that must not be compromised.
But perhaps the more damning compromise has been committed by the House. Since day one of the controversy, the House leadership has hemmed and hawed about what to do with the Singson case. Granted that legislative courtesy would require that the leadership should give him the benefit of the doubt, still the ethics committee should at least have initiated an inquiry into the matter in order to disabuse the public of the suspicion that the chamber has been protecting one of its own.
Alas, the House leadership has not only hemmed and hawed, it has imposed upon the public its own brand of entitlement, generally declaring that it has to wait for Singson to be convicted by the HK court for any expulsion proceeding to be initiated, and shielding Singson from any ethics case by sending its representative to Hong Kong, deputy majority leader Romero Federico Quimbo, ostensibly to better ascertain his condition, check his legal defence, and provide a conduit to the House for it to be regularly updated - and all of this at taxpayers’ expense! That mission was the height of insensitivity!
“If he admits guilt, the gentlemanly, decent thing to do is to voluntarily resign,” said majority leader Neptali Gonzales II, sounding imploringly, as if begging Singson to resign so as to take the bitter cup away from the House. All right. But what if he does not resign? Then, Gonzales said the House would have no choice but to move for his expulsion. And what would that take? A two-thirds vote of the chamber. Again, all on the taxpayers’ account!
Whether the House leadership admits it or not, the chamber as well as the Philippine government has already been tainted by the case. The arraignment, coming as it did with the wounds of the Aug. 11, 2010 hostage fiasco, in which several Hong Kong tourists were killed in a bungled rescue attempt by the police, still fresh and festering, would tend to show to Hong Kong and to the world the irredeemable state of Philippine law enforcement. In the first place, how could Philippine customs and immigration and airport security have missed out on Singson’s luggage? At the very least, the fact that he was able to enplane to HK with the prohibited contraband should indicate laxity on the part of Philippine airport authorities or their connivance with Singson.
Here we have a strange situation where law enforcers, lawmakers and law breakers meld into one arrogant untouchable whole. It is a most depressing thing
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