Editorial

Laughable

If the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee allows itself to be overtaken by events, then the metaphor for which the committee was named may just lose its hue. Senators Alan Peter Cayetano and Richard Gordon may then share the blame for doing the committee and the Senate itself a great disservice.

It has been more than a year since the senators regaled the public with a series of hearings on the aborted $329-million national broadband deal with ZTE. The testimonies of the so-called witnesses, and the reluctance of some, fired up Filipinos? desire to weed out greed and brazenness among public officials.

The hearings gave Joey de Venecia and Jun Lozada their 15 minutes of fame. The low-profile Romulo Neri was dragged to national prominence. Benjamin Abalos resigned his post in shame. Expressions like ?back off,? ?bukol? and ?moderate their greed? became part of a glossary of the times. Senators themselves, through their questions, betrayed the incisiveness?or the smallness? of their minds.

For a time, the clamor for change sounded real and immediate.

And now Cayetano, who headed the committee at the time of the hearings, and Gordon, who chairs it now after a shakeup in the Senate last year, cannot agree who between the two of them should come out with the report. Evidently procrastinating, Cayetano says he is still waiting for the testimony of former House Speaker Jose de Venecia before he writes his findings. We do not believe that is forthcoming, nor would it make a difference.

The Office of the Ombudsman is expected to come out with its own findings soon. If it does act faster than the Senate committee, all those hours in the hearing and the debates and rallies it inspired would have just been part of a pointless melodrama.

The public then cannot be faulted for believing less in similar hearings ?in aid of legislation.? The lack of urgency implies that corruption and audacity have become so common and insurmountable that we may just as well learn to look the other way.

The situation appears laughable but the implications are tragic.