Shakespeare and the Senate

I find watching our live Philippine Senate hearings more entertaining than our prime time soaps…please tell me, am I normal?
First, there was that Katrina Halili sex scandal hearing where Dr. Kho gets a sudden shower from a bystander and Miss Halili reads a “script”, and Senator Bong Revilla and Senator Jinggoy Estrada play talk-show hosts in a more political version of The Buzz.

It was not a criminal trial, they said. It was a hearing to “aid legislation.”

Ok. Whatever. Pero ilang beses akong pumalakpak sa tuwa… All that drama in that afternoon of weeping actresses, doctors-turned celebrities, and actors-turned senators filled the Senate hall.

I just couldn’t help myself.

But that’s old news.

The “new” news is Senator Jamby Madrigal filing an ethics case against Senator Many Villar, who is running for president, on the C5-Road Controversy. No, I’m not going to give you a blow by blow on how the proceedings went. (Dear God no!) But I will tell you that when Senator Mar Roxas denied any insertions or realignments connected to his name and Senator Pimentel replied:”I’m sure after your marriage you’ve had some insertions.” (wink-wink) and Senator Roxas screams something like :”I DEMAND THAT IT BE REMOVED FROM THE RECORD! THAT IS AN AFFRONT TO MY WIFE!,” I actually had an endorphin rush the kind you get from watching Gladys Reyes giving Judy Ann Santos a battery of slaps. (I know, I know … kanya-kanyang kabaduyan lang po yan.) It’s a kind of guilty pleasure, the ones you get from other people throwing their aggressive prowess at one another. Like watching a boxing match… without the gloves. Or better yet, a WWE wrestling match. They look like they’re killing each other, but you know it’s all a show and you get excited anyway.

And my, MY! The vocabulary you’d learn from our senators! In a place so stern and serious and where everybody tries so hard to look respectfully severe, you’d never expect to hear words you think you’d hear only in nursery rhymes… or old songs they air only on Sundays: “Choo-Choo Train, a-chugging down the track…Gotta find a ticket… never turning back,ooh-oooh!”

Wait…

On second thought, we DO expect it here in the Philippines! It’s a showroom, out Senate Hall! A stage so Shakespearean, you sometimes find yourself lost in the language of intelligent and not so intelligent words that never mean just one thing, and we never really know the genuine truth from the genuine act.

Act 1: Remember Senator Oreta dancing in the senate way back when?

Act 2: Dr. Kho gets an unexpected shower from a supposedly angry bystander and his initial “automatic” reaction to this sudden assault on his person was to just let the mineral water drip dramatically down his forlorn face. Like tears. Worthy of the reformed bad boy role it is his fate to portray.

Act 3: Sen. Madrigal defends herself with the lines: “I am NOT an abused child!”

Act 4: Senator Miraim Defensor says in her sponsorship speech: “I am Veyrie, VEYRIE! Veyrie tired of Politics!” and then walks out of the room with a smug look in her face like she was giving herself a pat on the back.

Curtains fall.

Applause. Applause. Applause.

Needless to say she gets a standing ovation from me. She always does. Along with Elizabeth Oropesa, Cheri Gil and Kevin Spacey when he played Lex Luthor.

I know I’m not making much of a point, but this just seems like a perfect moment to say:

“I REST MY CASE.”

Jan 26, 2010