Local officials performing a TikTok while in a session hall. A senator kneeling before former colleagues of the Philippine National Police (PNP), begging them to tell the truth. And the cherry on top? An actor, who ended up being the highest-voted lawmaker in the recent election, is found combing his mustache in the middle of a Senate hearing.
If you thought local politics was a circus, then you’ve got another thing coming now. In response to their colleagues’ unbecoming behavior, former Senate President Franklin Drilon called out the “lack of decorum” that was being exhibited in the Senate, arguing that this could erode the prestige of the Senate as an institution.
“With all due respect and I hope my former colleagues are not onion-skinned, I’m compelled to comment on what the public perceives to be an erosion of the prestige of the Senate as an institution. Principally brought about by what is perceived to be the lack of decorum on the part of certain senators,” he said, apparently referring to Senators Robin Padilla and Bato Dela Rosa.
Padilla’s response? He argued that he and Dela Rosa come from a new generation of lawmakers.
“There’s nothing wrong with it, especially when the mustache is in disarray… I am connected to the people as I am. If I change myself, they might distance themselves… I was elected to be close to the people, not to appear dignified,” he said.
It’s not a new claim – in fact, this brand of populist rhetoric and personality politics was first ushered in by former President Rodrigo Duterte, who was known for swearing while addressing the media and the public, and for being inappropriately dressed in certain official functions. Duterte, the same man who kissed a woman on the lips while visiting overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) and said he would order police and military officers to shoot lockdown violators dead in the midst of the pandemic.
When the highest-elected official of the land has made this the norm in the past six years, it comes as little surprise that successors would follow his lead. And many of them have also excused their actions under the guise of being pro-people, anti-elite, a bid to make themselves “relatable.”
Yet the problem lies when their efforts to be understood and heard by the people are conflated with actions that have little to do with their actual mandate. In Dela Rosa’s case, a former PNP chief himself, he made a spectacle after kneeling in front of his former colleagues in the force and begged them to “have mercy on the Philippines and tell the truth” after the latter were held in contempt in their refusal to answer questions related to an alleged PHP6.7-billion (US$120 million) meth bust cover-up last year.
Yet what exactly does that achieve, aside from grabbing sensationalized headlines and getting some viral clips online on social media?
A word to these honorable public officials: if you want to start being more pro-people and being relatable to the masses, perhaps focus on making your work as legislators more easily understood so they know what to hold you accountable for, instead of gimmicks that pander to their entertainment.
