On the Senate Hearing on the Kho-Halili Controversy

(Originally posted on my main blog.)

I am, like many other Filipinos, disappointed at the Senate hearing on the Haydn Kho - Katrina Halili scandal. Disappointed, not so much because it couldn't have aided legislation in the least, not so much because it was, more than anything, an attempt to pander to women's rights groups, not so much because it reduced the Senate to bull dung, but because it shouldn't have taken place at all.

See, the Kho-Halili video is a non-issue. The Senate is in no position to thumb its nose in this mess. Halili's already filed cases with the proper government agencies. The Senate does not need to hold hearings on it. How simpler can one put it?

And don't give me any of that "in aid of legislation" shit, either. Bong, I cannot, for the life of me, figure out how your "anong nararamdaman mo ngayon? (How do you feel right now?)", "alam mo ba kung ilang buhay ang sinira mo? (Do you know how many lives you've destroyed?)", and "anong camera at software ang ginamit mo? (What camera and software did you use?)" questions would aid you or your colleagues in lawmaking. This, to me, was your attempt to paint Kho as the evil criminal, Katrina as the damsel in distress, and yourself as the Captain Barbel, the knight in shining armor. I'm not sure why you're pandering to women's rights groups so much (my guess is that you're trying to gain the trust (and thus the votes) of a sizeable demographic). What I am sure of is that what you're doing is absolute jack shit and is unbecoming of a supposedly "honorable" senator such as yourself.

I don't know if you realize this, Senators Madrigal, Estrada and Revilla, but while you make chismis (gossip) in your airconditioned conference room in the Senate, people are starving to death in the streets. Workers are losing jobs. Government officials are robbing the shit out of our nation's coffers. Our children aren't getting the proper education guaranteed them by the Constitution. In short, THERE'S A WHOLE SHITLOAD OF THINGS MORE PRESSING, MORE IMPORTANT, MORE RELEVANT TO PUBLIC INTEREST THAN A PLASTIC SURGEON AND A YOUNG ACTRESS'S INTIMATE MOMENTS CAUGHT ON CAMERA.

Marocharim rightfully shames the apes in the monkey suits for the utter absurdity of this mess:

Shame on the Senate for scandalizing the people. The outcry for better social services, the outrage against corruption, the outpouring of hatred against incompetence at the expense of empty stomachs and empty pockets, have been replaced by outcries, outrage, and an outpouring hatred for someone whose crime is a sex video. Good Senators, the adultery, fornication, and pornography that really takes place here is not a fuzzy sex video. Pardon my language, but what takes place is the violation of justice; and on this day, at the very least, your refusal to elevate the living conditions of the very people whom you must serve because you chose to investigate a man’s videotaped sexual escapades with other women.

So please, dear senators. Don't try to pull this crap on us again. Get back to work. Stop kibitzing in other people's business. We didn't elect you to talk about sex tapes. We don't pay you to meddle in showbusiness. Get off this issue and on to more pressing matters (like, say, the Book Blockade, which by the way you haven't called for a hearing about yet?). Stop screwing Juan dela Cruz over.

You have long since reduced the Senate to an incredulous, humiliating circus, and the carnival has overstayed its welcome.

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Pardon the egregious prose. I hope it was tolerable enough to get my point across. -dean.